Yankees reveal surprise World Series roster shuffle was due to hidden injury

We forgive you, Yankees fans, if you didn't notice any tweaks on the basepaths in Game 4 of the ALCS against the Guardians. We forgive you if you didn't pause for one second during Game 5 to consider whether someone on the active roster was nursing something they'd sustained mid-series. After all, both of those games were utterly heart-stopping. In fact, Game 4 featured the walk-off-winning run at the plate for the Guards with Tommy Kahnle on the mound -- twice.

Ultimately, the final out was recorded when second baseman Jon Berti stabbed a grounder backhand, knocked it down, then recovered in time for the toss to first. Ironic.

When Friday afternoon's World Series roster dropped, Berti was nowhere to be found, while unused outfielder Trent Grisham remained active. With Nestor Cortes' addition looming, Yankee fans knew that a position player was poised to be dropped, but most assumed it'd be Grisham, rendered redundant by Jasson Dominguez and Oswaldo Cabrera. Sure, Grisham could run into one, and is defensively superior to Dominguez, but to carry him over the versatile Berti who could flit around the infield? Just didn't make sense.

...until it did. According to Aaron Boone's late afternoon press conference, Berti sustained a right hip flexor injury running the bases during that hotly contested ALCS contest. Typically, Yankee fans these days will review each play of every game like the Zapruder film looking for tweaks and sighs, but forgive us for missing Berti's moment here. We were distracted by the camerman following Jhonkensy Noel's harmless flyout like a SpaceX rocket launch.

Yankees remove Jon Berti from World Series roster with hip flexor injury

At least there's plenty of logic here. We wish Berti well, and now Anthony Rizzo holding up as his broken fingers heal just got a degree more important. Oswaldo Cabrera will sub in as necessary, and Grisham was thought to be a first base option late in September after Rizzo's initial injury, but ... man, that feels like forever ago.

Dominguez remains on the roster, too, and his heartwarming ride full of soaked-up experience is set to continue. In this case, the "next man up" for Berti was a left-handed pitcher. Who'd have thought?