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Right-hander Walker Buehler will start Game 3 of the World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Manager Dave Roberts made the announcement before Game 2 on Saturday for the Dodgers, who won the series opener 6-3 on Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning.
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Game 3 will be at Yankee Stadium on Monday night.
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“We just love Walker in big games,” Roberts said. “The road isn’t going to faze him. It also allows him potentially to be available for a Game 7, too.”
Buehler has made two postseason starts for the Dodgers this fall, both on the road. He took a loss in San Diego on Oct. 8 after giving up six runs in the second inning of his five-inning start, but he rebounded to throw four scoreless innings with six strikeouts against the Mets in Game 3 of the NLCS on Oct. 16.
Buehler has been a mainstay of the Dodgers’ rotation when healthy over the past seven years, but the 30-year-old veteran is still working his way back to full strength after undergoing his second Tommy John surgery late in the 2022 season.
Buehler attempted to return for last season’s playoffs, but couldn’t do it. He finally got back to the Dodgers in early May, but he struggled through eight starts before going back on the injured list with a hip injury.
The two-time NL All-Star missed nearly two months of the regular season before returning in mid-August and making several improved starts down the stretch. Buehler has rarely been at his best since getting back to the majors, and he finished the regular season 1-6 with a 5.38 ERA.
He still represents the best option to Roberts, who is attempting to win a championship with a starting rotation decimated by injury.
High-priced acquisition Tyler Glasnow was declared out for the season in early August due to elbow fatigue after making a career-high 22 starts. Longtime Dodgers superstar Clayton Kershaw didn’t return from offseason shoulder surgery until late July, and he made only seven starts before being sidelined by a bone spur that eventually led to him being ruled out for the season.
Dustin May, a staple of the Dodgers’ postseason staff while winning the World Series in 2020, hasn’t pitched since May 2023 due to a series of injuries. Tony Gonsolin, a 2020 contributor and a 2022 All-Star, had Tommy John surgery in late 2023 and couldn’t return this season.
Gavin Stone made 25 starts this season, but then had right shoulder surgery and will probably be out until 2026. Bobby Miller began the year in Los Angeles’ rotation, but lost his mojo and got sent to the minors repeatedly during the regular season.
World Series Game 2 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto likely isn’t operating at full strength, either. The $325 million right-hander spent two months of the regular season sidelined by shoulder fatigue, and he hasn’t made a start longer than five innings or 79 pitches since his return in early September.
Even Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty felt tightness in his hamstring moments before he allowed Giancarlo Stanton’s mammoth two-run homer in the sixth inning Friday night, Roberts revealed Saturday.
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The Dodgers don’t expect the injury to be a problem going forward for Flaherty. The Burbank native and recent Dodgers acquisition was sharp in the World Series opener, throwing 5 1/3 innings of five-hit ball with six strikeouts while going head-to-head with Yankees ace Gerrit Cole.
Buehler could be in his final series with Los Angeles before he heads into free agency this winter. He has spent his entire career with the Dodgers, who chose him with the 24th overall pick in the 2015 draft.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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Freddie Freeman hit the first game-ending grand slam in World Series history with two outs in the 10th inning to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 6-3 victory over the New York Yankees in a dramatic opener Friday night.
Hobbled by a badly sprained ankle, Freeman homered on the first pitch he saw — an inside fastball from Nestor Cortes — and raised his bat high before beginning his trot as the sellout crowd of 52,394 roared.
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In this much-hyped, star-studded World Series between two of baseball’s most storied and successful franchises, Game 1 certainly delivered. Here are the best reactions to Freeman’s historic grand slam on social media:
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This story includes reporting by The Associated Press.
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42 MINS AGO・Major League Baseball・29:56
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LOS ANGELES — It was a sprained ankle, not a banged-up knee or hamstring. It was 10 innings of gritting through pain, not an improbable pinch-hit appearance off the bench. It was a lift of the bat toward the sky and a roar on his trot around the bases, not a pump of the fist.
But 36 years after a hobbled Kirk Gibson made the impossible happen in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Freddie Freeman authored the latest iconic World Series-opening blast for the Dodgers, delivering the first walk-off grand slam in the history of the Fall Classic and sending 52,394 fans into a frenzy.
“I love the history of this game,” Freeman said. “To be a part of it, it’s special. I’ve been playing this game a long time, and to come up in those moments, you dream about those moments, even when you’re 35 and have been in the league for 15 years. You want to be a part of those.”
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Freeman joined Gibson and Joe Carter (1993) as the only players to ever hit a walk-off homer in the World Series with their team trailing.
As he strolled around the bases, having delivered the Dodgers a 6-3 Game 1 comeback victory against the Yankees, Freeman said he felt like he was floating. Teammate Max Muncy, who hit a walk-off homer in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, is one of the few who understands the feeling.
“You black out in the moment,” Muncy said. “From a personal feeling, you don’t remember a lot of it. I’m going to remember this one a lot more than I remember mine.”
With the Dodgers trailing by a run, down to their final out in the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees intentionally walked Mookie Betts to load the bases and set up the lefty-lefty matchup.
On the mound was Nestor Cortes, who was added to the playoff roster after missing each of the Yankees’ first two playoff series with an elbow injury. At the plate was Freeman, whose right ankle sprain and bone bruise had produced a hindered version of the eight-time All-Star.
“You walk a first-ballot Hall of Famer,” Dodgers infielder Gavin Lux said, “to get to another first-ballot Hall of Famer.”
Freeman was unable to play in two of the Dodgers’ last three games of the National League Championship Series and held without an extra-base hit through his team’s first two postseason series. But the break before the World Series offered Freeman a needed reprieve.
Throughout the playoffs, each day produced uncertainty regarding Freeman’s availability. Occasionally, like at team breakfast before Game 4 of the NLDS and the off day before Game 6 of the NLCS, the Dodgers would make the call ahead of time to sit Freeman in his best interest. Often, though, manager Dave Roberts would not know until shortly before first pitch whether he could keep Freeman’s name in the lineup.
He began the playoffs 6-for-17 — all singles — before a 1-for-15 stretch. Over those eight games, he had scored just one run. In Game 1 of the NLCS, he crossed the plate and needed Betts to hold him up to stop his momentum. The more Freeman played, and the longer a series went, the more limiting his ankle became. The issue was starting to leak into his swing.
“Back then, a week or so ago, I could get through four, five innings before I was having trouble walking,” Freeman said. “In Game 5, it started happening pretty much right after my first at-bat. It was just progressing to making it really hard for me to get through the game.”
The Dodgers made the call to sit him for Game 6 of the NLCS with this scenario in mind. The week off meant six days that Freeman didn’t have to run, which is usually what causes his ankle to flare up. He still got treatment for 3-4 hours a day at the field. The time off helped. Three days ago, Freeman knew he was “100 percent” go. There was no question, in his mind, he would be in the starting lineup.
“They don’t make them like that guy anymore,” Lux said. “He’s gritty, he’s old school, he wants to be out there. If there’s kids out there that want an idol, that’s the guy you want to try to be like right there.”
Around that time, watching his swings, his teammates saw a different version of their All-Star first baseman.
“I mean, you know,” Kiké Hernández said. “You know your teammates. You know their swings. You know their mannerisms. He took BP a couple days ago and it didn’t look the way it looked a couple days prior.”
Hernández was not alone. Reliever Daniel Hudson was shagging balls in left field during batting practice with Chris Taylor when he noticed Freeman peppering line drives over shortstop and third base. Freeman was starting to look like himself again.
“CT looks at me and goes, ‘I think Freddie’s about to go off,'” Hudson recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, those are Freddie swings right there.'”
It was at that point that Freeman thought he unlocked a cue in his swing with hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc. It wasn’t necessarily any feats of strength or power that demonstrated it.
“It’s not about lifting or doing any of that,” Freeman said. “If my swing’s in the right spot and you’re hitting line drives and your swing is in a good spot, that’s where you create backspin. I can’t create the spin. If I do, I’m going to topspin and hook everything. When your swing is good and direct to the ball, that’s how you create the backspin.”
“He runs into power,” Van Scoyoc added. “When he’s on time, he catches it.”
On the first pitch from Cortes, he caught a 92.5 mph fastball on the inner half of the plate and made Dodger Stadium shake.
“Those are the scenarios you dream about, two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game,” Freeman said. “For it to actually happen and get a home run and walk it off to give us a 1-0 lead, that’s as good as it gets right there.”
After a dogpile with his teammates, Freeman ran behind home plate to celebrate the moment with his father, the man who has thrown him batting practice all his life.
“My swing is because of him,” Freeman said. “My approach is because of him. I am who I am because of him.”
Three months ago, his father was there to throw to him, too, in the midst of one of the most taxing moments of Freeman’s life. A turbulent second half of the season for Freeman began in late July, when his 3-year-old son Max became suddenly ill. The deterioration was rapid. By July 22, Max could no longer walk. The Freeman family eventually learned Max was suffering from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune condition. Freeman took 10 days away from the team to be with his son, who is now on the road to recovery and back walking again.
Two days before returning to the Dodgers, the Southern California native went to his former high school, El Modena, and hit on the field with his father. In his first at-bat back at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 5, he received a standing ovation from not only 48,178 fans but also the Phillies dugout.
“When I was gone the week and a half with my family, that first day I came back, that’s as special as it gets to make my family and I feel the love and the support,” Freeman said. “I tried to reciprocate it that night and thanking them and all this, but I think they appreciate this one a little bit more three months later.”
Tumultuous times off the field were met with hardships on it, when he fractured his finger in August. He decided to play through the pain. He bounced back from a slow start in September with a .316 average over his final 10 games of the regular season, only to sprain his ankle in the Dodgers’ division-clinching game against the Padres on Sept. 26 while trying to avoid a tag from Luis Arráez. It swelled up like a grapefruit, leaving him in a boot as the Dodgers celebrated. He was told it was a 4-6 week injury.
Ten days later, he was in the lineup for Game 1 of the NLDS, ankles taped up like a football player.
“He’s doing something that’s basically heroic,” Hernández said.
That night, he not only played but stole a base, as his manager and teammates held their breath. Freeman’s desire to play became a rallying force within the clubhouse of a team that was trying to move beyond the first-round exits of the previous two seasons.
“A lot of us are banged up,” Lux said, “so you see this guy can barely walk for a couple weeks get out there and still steal bases, run hard down the line, limping all over the place, it makes you want to get out there and play hard, too.”
For years, the World Series included a Taco Bell “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promotion.
Before Game 1, Freeman threatened to his teammates that he’d go for it.
“And we all told him, if you steal a base, we’re going to walk out on the field and take you off the field ourselves,” Muncy said. “Sure enough, he gets a triple.”
Freeman started the day legging out a three-bagger against Cole. He ended it trotting 90 feet further in a walk-off winner for the ages.
“Might be the greatest baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed,” Roberts said.
“For him to have that moment, with everything he’s been through,” Lux said, “you couldn’t be happier for the guy.”
Right as the grand slam left Freeman’s bat, Hudson looked up from the bullpen toward the banner that shows the exit velocity. It flashed 109. He knew the game was over.
Not long after, Hudson thought about Gibson’s blast.
“I was probably one of two people in here who was alive when it happened,” the 37-year-old reliever joked. “You see it on TV, the side-by-sides on social media as soon as it happens. It was a really special moment for all the fans here, for everybody, especially for Freddie. I know that meant a lot to him.”
At least for a few hours.
On Friday, Freeman got to the stadium at 10:30 a.m. to begin treatment.
On Saturday, he’ll do it again. Game 2 awaits.
“This trophy is what makes you go through the grind every day,” Freeman said. “When you step into spring training in February, your eyes are on that, to do everything you can. That’s what’s worth it for me.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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LOS ANGELES — Juan Soto walked out of the Yankees clubhouse with a scowl. Aaron Boone walked down the hallway with furrowed eyebrows and a look of irritation he couldn’t hide. Even Aaron Judge, who likes to throw in a small smile at the end of his responses no matter the day or the outcome of a game, struggled to really get there. The mood was set by their exceptional silence. The only sound made was that of the clubhouse attendants smacking cleats against a table to get all the dirt off.
This one hurt.
“It’s a seven-game series. You’re going to lose tough ones,” Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “We’ve lost tough ones in the past. This is what defines character. Yeah, it stings because of the magnitude. But I wouldn’t say anyone’s more pissed off than any other loss.”
The Yankees said all the right things, like they’d pick their heads up and get back at it on Saturday, but their miffed expressions told a different story after losing 6-3 to the Dodgers in the 10th inning of Game 1 of the World Series. You can’t blame them for being shocked or crestfallen; the stage was set for the Yankees to secure a win on the road right up until Freddie Freeman hit the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history off left-hander Nestor Cortes.
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Despite their defensive blunders and a curious early hook on Gerrit Cole, the Yankees were one out away from a Game 1 victory when Cortes’ second pitch in 37 days — a 92 mph fastball, low and inside, right where Freeman likes to barrel the ball — was pummeled halfway up the right-field pavilion at Dodger Stadium. Cortes’ first pitch got Shohei Ohtani to fly out in foul territory, where left fielder Alex Verdugo tumbled into and over the railing and made a spectacular catch for the second out of the 10th inning. The Yankees never got the chance to celebrate that gutsy play as Mookie Betts was intentionally walked to load the bases and a Freeman-induced nightmare immediately followed.
“Maybe just two or three inches higher,” Cortes said when asked where he wanted his fastball to Freeman. “I thought I got it to the inside part of the plate where I wanted to, but I didn’t get it up enough.”
Cortes spent the days leading up to Friday’s relief appearance convincing the Yankees that he belonged on the World Series roster. He missed the final week of the regular season, as well as New York’s first two rounds of the postseason, with an elbow flexor strain. There was a clear need for his left-handed arm on the pitching staff, and Cortes badly wanted to help his team win. Boone believed he could with the Dodgers’ two best left-handed hitters due up.
“The reality is, he’s been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he’s gotten ready for this,” Boone said of Cortes. “I knew with one out there, it’d 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.”
While Cortes did more damage than good in Game 1, he should get at least one more chance in the Series to atone for his mistake. After all, he was hardly the only Yankee to slip up.
Soto overran a Kiké Hernández liner in right field in the fifth inning, turning what should have been a double into a triple. The Dodgers promptly cashed in on Soto’s misplay by hitting a sacrifice fly and scoring Hernández from third for the first run of the game. In the eighth, Ohtani ripped a double with an exit velocity of 113 mph to right that Soto fielded off the wall. He double-pumped before getting the throw in to second, where Gleyber Torres couldn’t handle the scoop as the ball ricocheted off his glove and into no-man’s land near the mound. Ohtani advanced to third — Soto was charged with an error — and Mookie Betts promptly hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 2-2.
Mistakes like that can’t happen at this point in the long season.
“Every little thing from the game is an opportunity for the offense to get another run,” Torres said. “And yeah, Ohtani went to third and Mookie hit the fly to center and it was a tie game. I have to make an adjustment and if I get an opportunity to block the ball, just keep it in the front and make it a little more simple.”
The Yankees overcame gaffes on defense and Boone’s questionable decision to pull Cole — he had allowed just one run and four hitters to reach safely through six-plus innings and 88 pitches — to reach the bottom of the 10th inning with a 3-2 lead. Playoff hero Giancarlo Stanton slugged his fourth home run in his past four games; this one a two-run shot in the sixth that gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead. Stanton needs one more home run this October to become the first Yankee in franchise history to hit seven homers in a single postseason.
But Yankees triumphs that would have loomed large in Game 1 are now buried somewhere under the Dodgers’ dogpile at home plate.
“We had our chances there,” said Judge, who went 1 for 5, struck out three times and left two runners on while popping out to end the top of the ninth. “Kind of back and forth the whole game. We had our opportunities to put them away. We just weren’t able to do it. And they came up with a big clutch hit there at the end.”
The Yankees could’ve used more of those. They’ll now give the ball to Carlos Rodón for Game 2 on Saturday — with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the bump for the Dodgers — hoping the lefty can carry them back to the Bronx with a series split. As Rizzo said, brutal losses can define a team’s character. The Yankees have at least one more day in L.A. to show who they are.
Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.
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40 MINS AGO・Major League Baseball・7:36
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The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees are locking horns in the World Series, with Game 2 on Saturday (8:08 p.m. ET on FOX).
This will be the 12th time these iconic franchises will battle for a championship, but the first time since 1981.
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The Dodgers beat the Yankees in a thriller in Game 1, 6-3 in 10 innings on a walk-off grand slam by Freddie Freeman.
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Here is the lowdown on Game 1, including how to watch, potential lineups and more.
Every game will be broadcast on FOX, and each contest is slated to start at 8:08 p.m. ET. Here is the schedule:
The Dodgers are currently favored to win Game 2, and also favored (-240) to win the series.
The Yankees will start reigning Carlos Rodón. For the Dodgers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto will take the mound.
[Related: A look back at past Dodgers-Yankees World Series matchups]
Neither team has announced its starting lineup, so these are projections based on how Yankees manager Aaron Boone and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts have filled out their cards in recent games. This will be updated when things become official.
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14 MINS AGO・Major League Baseball・2:22
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LOS ANGELES — Yankees–Dodgers is a World Series matchup made in history, so it’s fitting that Game 1 was an instant classic. Here are four takeaways from the Dodgers’ 6-3 win in 10 innings.
1. Freddie Freeman delivers a swing for the ages
All he needed was the fist pump.
In a swing reminiscent of Kirk Gibson’s iconic blast in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Freddie Freeman, unable to play in the last game of the NLCS due to his injured ankle, conjured memories of Gibson’s blast with a walk-off home run in the first game of the 2024 World Series.
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Freeman missed both Games 4 and 6 of the NLCS because the issues with his injured ankle, which he had dealt with all postseason, was starting to leak into his swing. In the days leading up to Game 1, however, he said there was no doubt he’d be in the lineup. He had just six hits this October, all singles, prior to Friday night.
He delivered his first extra-base hit of the postseason with a surprising triple off Gerrit Cole in the first, then saved the best for last. With the Dodgers down to their last out in the 10th inning, Freeman delivered the lasting blast in a Game 1 thriller with a grand slam off Nestor Cortes.
2. In battle of Los Angeles products, Giancarlo Stanton delivers
It was clear from Jack Flaherty’s first pitch, a 96.4 mph fastball out of the gate to Gleyber Torres, that this start would be different for the local kid pitching for his hometown team.
Coming off seven scoreless innings in Game 1 of the NLCS, Flaherty didn’t have it his last time out. The Mets tagged him for eight runs in three innings in Game 5. He walked four, didn’t record a strikeout, and perhaps most troublingly saw his fastball velocity descend to 91.4 mph, which he usually attributes to a timing issue.
With a week off to rest and figure out any mechanical tweaks needed, he figured it out.
At least, until another local product unloaded.
Friday night was setting up for a dream outing for Flaherty, who once dominated the fields of Sherman Oaks Little League. Through five innings, he had bested last year’s American League Cy Young winner, leading 1-0 while going toe-to-toe against Cole.
And then came one gigantic swing from a different Sherman Oaks legend.
Giancarlo Stanton, as he so often has at the stadium he used to attend growing up, authored his own homecoming party.
In 25 career regular-season games at Dodger Stadium, Stanton had a 1.086 OPS. He once hit a ball out of the stadium. Two years ago, he obliterated a 457-foot home run into the left-field pavilion, where he used to sit as a kid hoping to get balls thrown to him from any player roaming the outfield, to earn All-Star Game MVP honors.”
“That Cali air, man,” Stanton quipped before the start of the World Series. “Grew up with it.”
On Friday, there wasn’t any ballpark in the major leagues that would have contained his game-changing shot. Once again, he was the one sending a souvenir to a fan in left field when he tagged a Flaherty curveball 116.6 mph off the bat 412 feet into the sky for a go-ahead two-run shot. There was no doubt about it, as the Yankees slugger continued a torrid October stretch. He has now homered in four straight playoff games and leads all players this postseason with six.
3. With all the focus centered on two patient, powerful offenses, Game 1 was a pitchers’ duel
Flaherty’s fastball wouldn’t sit at 96 mph all night, but even somewhere between 93-94 mph would represent a marked improvement from where it was and plenty to give the Dodgers an opportunity against Cole.
More importantly, he commanded it well, which made his curveball — which got 12 swings and misses — all the more effective against a patient Yankees lineup until Stanton’s blast.
That was all the support Cole needed to depart with a lead after six innings.
It did not appear, from the start, that it would go that way.
Shohei Ohtani crushed the first pitch he saw from Cole 373 feet and 106 mph off the bat, but it died in center field. One batter later, Mookie Betts sent a deep drive that was tracked down at the warning track. Then came the unlikeliest of triples as Freeman, whose right ankle was too hurt to play on in the NLCS clincher, booked it around the bases with some assistance in left field from Alex Verdugo. The Dodgers couldn’t bring Freeman home, but it appeared they were seeing Cole well.
Then the Yankees veteran ace, in his 21st career playoff start, locked in.
Cole retired the next 11 Dodgers batters until another triple, this one off the bat of October sensation Kiké Hernández, who legged it to third after Juan Soto tried to make the catch instead of play the ball off the wall. A sacrifice fly from Will Smith plated the first run of the night. That’s all the Dodgers would scratch across against Cole. After allowing four free passes his last time out in the ALCS, he was not as forgiving against the hardest lineup he has faced this October. He has now allowed two runs or fewer in 14 of his 21 career postseason starts.
The defense behind him, however, continued to offer costly gifts to the opposition.
Cole departed with a lead after Stanton’s sixth-inning blast that lasted until the eighth inning, when Ohtani sent a changeup from Tommy Kahnle off the right-field wall. He should have been held to a double, but Torres misplayed Soto’s throw to second base, allowing Ohtani to take third. The Dodgers, who didn’t have a hit with a runner in scoring position until Freeman’s blast, didn’t need one to score their second run of the night on a game-tying sac fly by Betts.
Verdugo, however, would make up for his earlier gaffe with an incredible grab that sent him head-over-heels into the stands with a crucial play against Ohtani in the 10th to bring the Yankees within an out of victory.
4. Watch your fingers
Torres nearly won the game in the ninth inning with a two-out drive off Michael Kopech that reached the seats … with some help.
The ball was caught by a Dodgers fan, who reached over the wall to make the play. Upon review, fan interference was ruled and Torres returned to second base. The Dodgers then elected to walk Juan Soto, who had reached twice on the night, to get to Aaron Judge with Blake Treinen set to come in. The Dodgers’ decision paid off, as Treinen got an inning-ending popout from Judge, who finished 1-for-5 with three strikeouts.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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