Sports Betting Metrics Quantify Yankees’ Historic Game 5 World Series Collapse
The New York Yankees were 48-0 this year when up by five or more runs at any point in a game. Then the fifth inning of Game 5 of the 2024 World Series happened. To put their historic collapse into context, sports betting odds help tell the story.
Down 5-0 without a hit in the top of the fifth, the Los Angeles Dodgers had odds to win of 15/1 at ESPN Bet.
For context, the Yankees had better odds of becoming the first team in history to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the World Series, at +1000. And in NBA sports betting terms, the Cleveland Cavaliers, down 3-1 to the 73-win Golden State Warriors in the 2016 Finals, were +1100 before completing their comeback.
One bettor placed a $100 bet on the Dodgers that paid out $1,500 at DraftKings, as the near impossible unfolded and the Yankees gave up five unearned runs, dousing Gerrit Cole’s masterclass-in-the-making with water colder than the Bronx River in January.
Yankees’ Fifth Inning Collapse
The unraveling began as Kiké Hernández notched the Dodgers’ first hit since the fifth inning of Game 4, followed by what should have been a routine fly ball to center from Tommy Edman — if only it hadn’t rolled out of Aaron Judge’s glove. With two men on, a Will Smith ground ball forced a tough throw in the dirt from Anthony Volpe to third baseman Jazz Chisholm, who could not hold on to force the out. Cole would strike out his next two batters, but the mishaps metastasized.
Mookie Betts grounded a ball straight at first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who needed only to flip the ball to Cole at first to put the inning away. But Cole, along with 46,000 Yankee faithful, could only stare paralyzed in disbelief as the ace pitcher stood frozen midway up the first base line. In a split-second stretch of eternity, Rizzo made a last-second dash to the bag, but it wasn’t enough to beat out Betts. Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez then capitalized on the mistakes with back-to-back two-run knocks to tie it, and the Dodgers would go on to win 7-6, defeating the Yankees in five games to win the World Series.
According to Baseball Reference, before last night, teams were 109-1 in the postseason when scoring six or more runs and their pitcher went at least 6.2 innings, allowing four hits or fewer. The Dodgers are the first team to win a World Series game after trailing by five or more through four innings.
Both Sides of Sports Betting Benefit from Blown Game
The Dodgers’ improbable comeback quashed any hopes of the Yankees completing a historic comeback of their own. After winning Game 4, New York’s World Series odds moved from +1000 to +650 at bet365, while Los Angeles’ moved from -2200 to -1000.
At BetMGM, 54% of the money was on the Yankees to win the series, which opened Game 1 at -145.
Despite choking away Game 5 in historically improbable fashion, the Yankees cashed several notable bets last night thanks to bet365’s early payout promo, including one seven-leg parlay that paid out $222 at +4457 odds and another five-leg parlay that paid out $970 at +1618 odds. It was the only US book to pay out Yankees ML.
