The Los Angeles Dodgers' victory over the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series will of course be mostly remembered for Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam. Once you drill beyond that signature moment, though, you're left with the defining tactical decision of Game 1 that preceded it – Yankees manager Aaron Boone's decision to pitch Nestor Cortes in the 10th inning.
To recap, the Yankees held a 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the 10th. Reliever Jake Cousins retired the first batter of the inning before walking Gavin Lux and yielding an infield single to Tommy Edman. At that point, Boone retrieved the ball from Cousins and summoned the lefty Cortes to face Shohei Ohtani.
At this point, some background is in order. Cortes, while he does have relief experience, is primarily a starter and has been a primary starter since 2021. He also has made exactly one relief appearance since 2021. In other words, this is a pitcher who in recent years has become accustomed to working on a regular schedule and coming into clean innings – not max-leverage situations with the tying run in scoring position. More importantly, Cortes was seeing his first game action since he went down with an elbow injury on Sept. 18. Ideally, you'd prefer for Cortes to return to the mound for the first time in five weeks in a less fraught spot, or at least let him come in without runners on base. Yet that's not what Boone did. Boone brought him with two on, an imperiled one-run lead, and one of the best hitters in the world at the plate. Yes, Cortes had the platoon advantage, but so much else was working against him. What makes Boone's decision even more puzzling is that he had lefties Tim Hill and Tim Mayza on the roster and available for duty in Game 1. Instead, he put Cortes into an unfamiliar role in his first day back.
For a time, it looked like he'd get away with it. Cortes was able to retire Ohtani on a fly-out to left thanks to a daredevil play by Alex Verdugo, who flipped into the seats after securing the ball. Then Cortes intentionally walked Mookie Betts before seizing the platoon advantage against Freeman. Freeman's been battling an ankle injury, but the stretch of off days between the end of the NLCS and Game 1 on Friday helped matters. More broadly, he's Freddie Freeman, and he's quite adept with the bat even when ceding the platoon advantage. The three-batter minimum meant that Cortes had to face him. One first-pitch fastball later, Freeman had made World Series history:
That's a 3-2 Yankees lead turned into a 6-3 Dodgers win.
Needless to say, a best-of-seven series can turn on such moments, and that may be the case with this one. Given the factors in play and given the other options available to the manager, it's fair to wonder whether Boone set Cortes up to fail given the base-out state and his long layoff. Here's his explanation, such as it is:
"Just liked the matchup," the manager said after the game. "The reality is he's been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he's gotten ready for this. I knew with one out there, it would be tough to double up Shohei if Tim Hill gets him on the ground and then Mookie behind him is a tough matchup there. So felt convicted with Nestor in that spot."
It's fine to like the matchup – yes, Cortes is indeed left-handed, and so is Ohtani – but you can only get around to liking the matchup by ignoring all the other circumstances that wound up prevailing in Game 1.