Yankees’ Meltdown Gives One More Way To Celebrate 2004 Red Sox

The 2004 Red Sox stand alone for another season, thanks again to the Yankees.

New York’s 2024 season came to an abrupt end Wednesday night in Game 5 of the World Series. The Yankees built a 5-0 lead on home soil before a disastrous fifth inning opened the floodgates for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who came storming back to win the game and the series.

The Yankees faced a tall task. After losing the first three games of the series, New York became the 41st team in major league history to fall behind 3-0 in a best-of-seven series. The 2004 Red Sox are the only club to erase such a deficit en route to advancing, famously pulling the trick against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

That the 2024 Bronx Bombers couldn’t work a miracle of their own not only preserves the 2004 Red Sox’s standing as the comeback kids. It’s also a reminder of just how difficult and impressive Boston’s feat truly was.

There’s a reason why it’s only been done once in more than 40 tries. It is so damn hard to win four straight baseball games at the highest level in the most important games of the year. Not to mention, if you’re down 3-0 in a series, the team on the other side is probably better than you.

Think of it this way: After the Red Sox went down 0-3 in the 2004 ALCS, they essentially were chasing for the next 44 innings before clinching the pennant. That’s 132 outs against a team with multiple MVPs and All-Stars many times over. That the Red Sox didn’t hit a single speed bump resembling anything close to what happened in the fifth inning Wednesday night in the Bronx is nothing short of miraculous.

When Giancarlo Stanton hit his seventh home run of the playoffs Wednesday in the bottom of the third inning, he gave the Yankees a 5-0 lead. The dinger pushed the Yankees’ win probability to 93.4%. If there’s no sure thing, that was the closest thing there is to it.

Then the fifth inning arrived and all hell broke loose. Aaron Judge dropped a ball. Anthony Volpe threw one away. Gerrit Cole sat and watched as one rolled by. With no margin for error, the Yankees made three.

The nightmare became real, and the Dodgers erased a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

“We just had a bad inning,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told FOX Sports after the game. ” … Obviously a few mistakes really cost us in that inning. It happens.”

Except in 2004.