The most surprising concern about Aaron Judge's Yankees slump

Yankee Stadium will host its first World Series game in 15 years on Monday, but will it actually feel like a party?

The Yankees went home with a 2-0 series deficit after a 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 2 on Saturday night in which their offense was lifeless until the ninth inning when their rally was too little, too late.

The loss in Game 2 only made the fall in Game 1 even more regrettable. On Friday, they suffered two crucial defensive mistakes that cost them and some strategic decisions that were left to ponder. On Saturday they were beaten straight away.

With Game 3 scheduled for Monday night in the Bronx — and the Dodgers waiting to find out more about Shohei Ohtani's shoulder after he suffered a subluxation while trying to reach second in the eighth inning on Saturday — the season is on of the Yankees at stake.

In the meantime, an overview of Game 2:

– The Yankees won’t do anything if they don’t make Aaron Judge look like Aaron Judge again. The projected AL MVP went 0-4 with three strikeouts on Saturday and is now 1-9 in the World Series and 6-40 with 19 strikeouts in October.

There's still time to flip the script, but for now Judge is ending the season the same way he started it. Of course, there were five months of red-hot offense with historic numbers in between, but Judge has fallen into slump again at the worst point in these first 11 playoff games – reminiscent of a 6-for-43 stretch with 20 strikeouts he had in 11 games from April 15th to 26th, only these at-bats carry significantly more weight.

Judge was booed at home during the 2022 ALDS after his record-breaking 62 home run season. A few empty at-bats on Monday night and history could repeat itself. Or maybe he changes the narrative in one big stroke.

But during Judge's struggles this offseason, in which he has expanded the zone and been injured by slow, off-speed pitches, one thing in particular has stood out. During the regular season, Judge hit 18 of his 58 home runs in the first inning, batting .359 with an OPS of 1.307. In 11 first innings of these playoffs, Judge is 0-for-10 with six strikeouts and one hit by pitch. He got runners in scoring position seven times in 11 first innings and couldn't do anything with it. The more often it happens, the more deflationary it threatens to become.

The Yankees would take Judge's bat as hard as they could in any inning at this point. But maybe a good start on Monday could make a difference.

Follow the Post's coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:

– So much for the perceived rotation advantage the Yankees had early in the series.

Some of that was simply the nature of the four starters compared to the Dodgers' three, but that doesn't mean much when Carlos Rodon only lasted 3 ⅓ innings in Game 2, on a night where he was completely outclassed by Yoshinobu Yamamoto ( 6 ⅓ innings of one-hit, one-run ball).

In two games, the Yankees' bullpen had to throw 8⅓ innings compared to the Dodgers' 7⅓. The Dodgers have yet to play a bullpen game in Game 4, but so far their starting pitching has given them everything they could have wanted between Jack Flaherty and Yamamoto.

Rodon injured his fastball on Saturday, as it was responsible for all three home runs he gave up – to Tommy Edman in the second inning and then back-to-back shots from Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the third. In fact, Rodon allowed four straight hits in the third inning, and all of them came from his fastball.

– Tim Hill’s performance in Game 2 leaves no doubt about Game 1. The lefty, who was warming up next to Nestor Cortes on Friday night when Cortes was called out for the 10th inning and ended up giving up the walk-off grand slam to Freeman, came into Saturday's game in the fifth inning and immediately got Freeman out .

That was the first of four consecutive batters Hill retired after 14 pitches. That doesn't mean he got his way through Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman in the 10th inning on Friday night. But it at least makes you think, “What if?” again.

– As if a 2-0 loss in the World Series wasn't bad enough, some of the key Dodgers causing pain for the Yankees are the ones the Yankees tried to acquire at the trade deadline this summer (Flaherty and Edman). ) or last off-season (Yamamoto).

For the second time this year, Yamamoto pushed against the Yankees. In June, he pitched seven shutout innings at Yankee Stadium against a lineup that was without Juan Soto. On Saturday night, the only hit he allowed over 6 ⅓ innings was a solo home run against Soto.

The Yankees' best offense of the night came in the ninth inning, when they nearly struck out Blake Treinen (who they now scored against in back-to-back games). But he and Alex Vesia kept the damage limited to one run.

Quick hits

Teams that went 0-2 in the World Series won it 80.4 percent of the time (45 of 57). The Yankees are responsible for two of the twelve teams that came from 0-2 deficits to win the World Series (1996, 1978, 1958 and 1956). Two of those came against the Dodgers. … Soto has now hit four home runs this postseason, all of which either tied the game or gave the Yankees the lead.