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Pinch-hitter Jhonkensy Noel tied the score with a two-out home run in the ninth inning and David Fry hit a two-run homer in the 10th, rallying the Cleveland Guardians over the New York Yankees 7-5 on Thursday and pulling the Guardians to 2-1 in the AL Championship Series.

Cleveland led 3-1 in the eighth inning before Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer off All-Star closer Emanuel Clase and Giancarlo Stanton followed with a solo shot.

With the Guardians trailing 5-3 and one out from falling into a 3-0 series deficit, Lane Thomas doubled against Luke Weaver in the ninth and Noel tied the score.

Bo Naylor singled leading off 10th against Clay Holmes, Brayan Rocchio sacrificed and Naylor took third on a comebacker. Fry, who hit a Division Series-saving homer against Detroit, sent a 1-2 sinker into the left-field bleachers.

Fry was mobbed by his teammates, and the fans at Progressive Field erupted in cheers.

Cleveland can tie the series with a win on Friday.

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Reporting by The Associated Press.

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New York Mets fans will get a little help when they sing Francisco Lindor’s walk-up song “My Girl” at Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on Friday: The Temptations will be in the ballpark.

The team said Thursday the four-time Grammy Award winners will perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Citi Field before the Mets play the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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Immediately after the national anthem, the group will perform “My Girl,” its 1964 song that became The Temptations’ first No. 1 hit — and, 60 years later, the anthem for the Mets’ star shortstop.

Lindor switched his walk-up music before plate appearances to “My Girl” in late May, just before the Mets turned around their season following a slow start. Fans at Citi Field have taken to the song, continuing to sing the lyrics even after the music stops while Lindor is at bat.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Freddie Freeman is out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup for Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against the New York Mets on Thursday as he continues to nurse a badly sprained and swollen right ankle throughout the postseason.

Freeman suffered the injury during a Sept. 26 regular season game against the San Diego Padres, when he rolled on his right ankle while attempting to beat out a throw to first base. He returned, albeit in a limited, hobbled fashion, for Game 1 of the NLDS against the Padres nine days later.

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Freeman has started seven of the Dodgers’ eight playoff games but left early for defensive reasons in five of those games due to his limited range of motion at first base. He also missed Game 4 of the Division Series at San Diego, with the Dodgers facing elimination.

“He’s in a lot of pain out there. You can see it when he’s running and all that,” teammate Will Smith said.

Despite his visible limitations, Freeman has still been a useful part of the Dodgers’ lineup behind fellow former MVPs Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts. He’s 7-for-27 this postseason with a run scored and an RBI, both of which came in the Dodgers’ NLCS Game 1 win over the Mets.

Max Muncy, who was the Dodgers‘ primary first baseman before moving to third base when the Dodgers signed Freeman in 2022, will move back over to first base on Thursday. Kiké Hernandez will start at third base with Andy Pages in center field. Chris Taylor also starts over Gavin Lux at second base against left-handed Mets starter Carlos Quintana.

Teoscar Hernández moved up to Freeman’s regular No. 3 spot in the batting order.

The Dodgers enter Game 4 of the series against the Mets with a 2-1 series lead after an 8-0 victory on Wednesday. The first pitch is at 5 p.m. on FOX and the FOX Sports App.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In a billion-dollar Dodgers offseason, a one-year, $4 million move is making all the difference. 

It wasn’t until weeks into spring training that the Dodgers brought back Kiké Hernández, but they did it with this time of year in mind. Now, the career .238 hitter is once again morphing into an October sensation. 

After homering in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the National League Division Series against the Padres, Hernández added to his growing list of postseason heroics with another home run Wednesday night in Game 3 in Queens. In an 8-0 trouncing of the Mets that put the Dodgers back ahead in the NLCS, manager Dave Roberts called Hernández’s blast — the 15th postseason home run of his career — the biggest hit of the game. 

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“This guy always rises to the occasion,” Roberts said before the series. “The reason we got him this year was to win 11 games in October.”

Every night before playoff games, Hernández practices visualization. As he’s going to sleep, he envisions every situation he can think of that might come up the following day, and he imagines himself succeeding. 

It’s a practice he began after a couple postseason failures. 

In the decisive Game 5 of the 2015 NLDS, Hernández went hitless and grounded into a double play in a one-run loss. The following year, he walked three times in the NLCS against the Cubs but went hitless in his eight at-bats as the Dodgers lost in six games. 

So, the following year, facing the same team, he decided to switch gears. 

Entering Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS, he was 6-for-29 with one extra-base hit in his postseason career. It was a tumultuous time in his life personally, having just lost his grandfather and watched Hurricane Maria wreak havoc on his native Puerto Rico. 

And yet, through the chaos, the visualization techniques began. 

“I was like, I’m tired of feeling, ‘What if?'” Hernández recalled. 

He thought about not only delivering in the biggest moments but also how he would answer questions after putting the team into the World Series. Less than 24 hours later, he did just that. Hernández launched three home runs and knocked in an LCS-record seven of the Dodgers’ 11 runs in a rout at Wrigley Field. 

“And I haven’t looked back since then,” Hernández said earlier this postseason. “You’ve just got to understand that there’s only two ways it can go: You can either have success or you can fail. You just can’t be afraid of failure. And you’ve just gotta want the moment, gotta want the at-bat.”

With that, his October legend began. 

He has now launched 15 home runs in his past 62 playoff games, tied with Babe Ruth and Jayson Werth for the 18th most in postseason history.

Of the 20 players with at least 15 postseason homers, Hernández’s 13.33 at-bats per home run trail only Nelson Cruz, Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Mickey Mantle for the best mark in postseason history. He’s hitting a home run more than twice as often in the playoffs as he does in the regular season (once every roughly 29 at-bats). 

With each standout swing, his visualization techniques help him quell any anxiety he might be feeling. 

“You just find a way, whatever it is that you’ve got to find so that when the moment shows up, when the big moment shows up and you step up to the plate or whatever it is, you don’t let the moment get too big,” Hernández said. 

After six years with the Dodgers, Hernández sought an everyday opportunity in Boston. In the 2021 postseason, Hernández homered in Games 2 and 3 of the ALDS with the Red Sox. Then he homered three times in the first two games of the ALCS. Though the Red Sox lost in six games to the Astros, Hernández finished the 2021 postseason hitting 20-for-49 with 10 extra-base hits. 

“I feel confidence is a choice,” Hernández said. “It’s a thought. It’s a feeling. If you can find your way to feel differently about that, everything is going to change, your body language is going to change and good things — when you carry yourself with good body language, confident body language, confident energy — more times than not, good things tend to happen.”

Last year, Hernández returned to the Dodgers at the trade deadline. He was close to a league-average hitter in the second half, which represented a  jump from his struggles of the first half in Boston. This spring, he was still a free agent when the Dodgers sent Manuel Margot, who was acquired two months prior in their trade for Tyler Glasnow, to Minnesota. A reunion with a super utility player with a penchant for postseason production made sense. 

Hernández’s playoff success with the Dodgers continued into 2024. 

But the first half was again a slog for Hernández, who entered the break hitting .191. Around that time, he found a remedy. Hernández learned he had astigmatism in his right eye and began wearing prescription glasses on the field for the first time. He caught fire in the second half, slashing .274/.307/.458 after the break. 

Still, on a deep Dodgers roster, he had only two at-bats through the first three games of the NLDS. He did not get his first start this postseason until Game 4, when shortstop Miguel Rojas was too injured to continue. Before the game, with the Dodgers facing elimination, Hernández delivered a message to the team that would serve as a rallying cry. 

The gist?

“F— them all,” Max Muncy explained succinctly. 

Added Gavin Lux: “Kiké has the best mentality when it comes to playoffs, and I think everybody kinda feeds off his energy. I absolutely feed off of it.” 

In his first start of the NLDS, Hernández recorded two hits in an elimination game. He has started every game since. The Dodgers are outscoring their opponents 30-7 in games that Hernández has started this postseason. 

His career regular-season OPS is .654; in the postseason, it’s now over .900. 

“The fact that I’ve had a pretty good track record in October, I can’t help but [have it] bring me confidence,” he said after Wednesday’s win. “And it just makes you believe that you take your game to another level.”

At the time of Hernández’s 378-foot shot on the sixth pitch of his sixth-inning at-bat against Mets reliever Reed Garrett, Game 3 of the NLCS was still up for grabs. The Dodgers led by two runs with the bullpens set to decide the matchup the rest of the way. 

As it has gone so often this October for the Dodgers’ relievers, that played in their favor. Hernández’s two-run homer gave them some breathing room, doubling the lead. 

It wasn’t quite the same as his homer in Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS, when he began to earn his reputation, or the one from Game 7 of the 2020 NLCS, when he helped spark a trip to the World Series with a game-tying sixth-inning blast. But it once again was a difference-maker for a group of Dodgers players hoping to bring another title to Los Angeles. 

This time, there’s an added incentive for Hernández and his teammates, who want to celebrate a championship with their fans the way they couldn’t after their pandemic-shortened 2020 success. 

“If there’s something that this crowd is, it’s hungry,” Hernández said. “They want a championship. … We know how bad they want it.”

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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Chicago White Sox majority owner Jerry Reinsdorf is “open to selling” his stake in the franchise, according to a Wednesday report from The Athletic. The report also noted that Reinsdorf is in “active discussions” about a sale with a buying group led by former MLB pitcher Dave Stewart.

The White Sox are coming off one of the worst seasons in MLB history, as they lost a modern-day record 121 games, posting a 25.3% winning percentage. They also had 21-, 14- and 12-game losing streaks at varying points of the season.

Chicago has lost 100-plus games in each of the past two seasons and hasn’t reached the playoffs since 2021, which is the last time it posted a winning record. To boot, the White Sox have finished with a winning record just twice in the last 12 seasons (2021 and 2022).

Chicago fired manager Pedro Grifol in August with the team 28-89 and a combined 89-190 under him since 2023. It hired former MLB outfielder Grady Sizemore as interim manager.

On the last day of the regular season (Sept. 29), Reinsdorf penned a letter to the team’s fan base in the wake of the catastrophic 2024 season.

Reinsdorf, 88, bought the White Sox in 1981 for roughly $20 million. Under his reign, the White Sox have made the playoffs just seven times, highlighted by winning the 2005 World Series. Forbes lists Reinsdorf’s net worth at $2.1 billion.

Reinsdorf also owns the NBA‘s Chicago Bulls, which he bought in 1985. Furthermore, Reinsdorf was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, buoyed by the Michael Jordan-led Bulls three-peating twice in the 1990s.

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NEW YORK — Walker Buehler lives for October. 

It’s the first thing he said after he helped the Los Angeles Dodgers clinch the division last month. Their late September game against the rival Padres had a playoff feel to it, and after months spent battling through up-and-down results, his return to dominance against San Diego gave Buehler more confidence that he could step up for his club when it needs him the most. 

That time came Wednesday in a pivotal Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, where it was up to Buehler to set the tone against the New York Mets. With the series tied at one game apiece, and the Mets holding home-field advantage, it would take a gutsy outing from Buehler to give Los Angeles’ lineup enough breathing room to do its job.

Not only did Buehler deliver, he put on a show we haven’t seen from the 30-year-old in a few years. 

“It’s so overused, but pressure is a privilege,” Buehler said. “Talking about how many starts I’ve gotten to make, that’s the privilege part of it, right? I’ve gotten to do this a lot of times, and these games certainly get me excited, but they don’t overwhelm me like they used to when I was young my first couple of [playoff] starts. I’m just fortunate to be a part of this organization and a part of this team, specifically.”

Buehler allowed just three hits and struck out six across four scoreless frames in the Dodgers’ 8-0 rout over the Mets at Citi Field. He finished his outing by retiring seven straight batters, but no moment encapsulated his spunky performance better than his drama-fueled second-inning matchup against Francisco Lindor. 

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With two outs and the bases loaded, the Mets were threatening to erase Los Angeles’ 2-0 lead when their MVP shortstop dug into the box. But Buehler had a game plan to follow, and he wasn’t going to let New York’s best hitter get in the way of executing it. He peppered his best offspeed pitch of the night, a 78 mph knuckle curveball, in between his 95 mph heater enough times that Lindor got off balance. Finally, with the count full and 43,883 fans on their feet, Buehler got Lindor to swing and miss at yet another curveball to end the inning and the threat. He walked off the mound screaming into the frigid October air, daring the Mets to even attempt to hit him. 

“For me, personally, it’s huge,” Buehler said of striking out Lindor. “I think the last time I really made a pitch like that, in the playoffs, that kind of got it through was 2020 [NLCS] against Atlanta.”

Buehler said he channeled “the fear of pitching the way I pitched all year” in order to get out of the bases-loaded jam. He struggled to find his new identity during his return from Tommy John surgery this season, posting a 5.84 ERA across his first eight starts of 2024 before landing on the injured list with hip inflammation in June. Once he started trusting his mechanics again, Buehler said throwing a big pitch in a big spot was one of the final items on his checklist that would prove to him that he was back in pre-surgery form. 

Buehler squandered that opportunity in Game 3 of the NLDS versus the Padres, who tagged him for six runs in the second inning of a Dodgers defeat. Facing another stress-filled second inning Wednesday, after surrendering two walks and an infield single to load the bases, Buehler prevailed with back-to-back strikeouts — capped by the curve to Lindor.

“I don’t think anyone over there would’ve expected Walker to throw that pitch in that situation,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “That’s why Walker did it.”

As much as the Dodgers needed the win, this was the game the Mets perhaps had to take. With Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty coming up in Games 4 and 5, Wednesday was New York’s best opportunity to place Los Angeles at a disadvantage. Jose Quintana is toeing the hill for the Mets on Thursday, so they were hoping to charge ahead to a 3-1 series lead by the time Friday’s Game 5 rolled around. But Buehler had other plans.

Expertly relying on his offspeed pitches to keep Mets hitters off balance, Buehler had registered more swings-and-misses (11) by the end of the second inning than he had in his five innings against the Padres last week (8). According to Elias Sports Bureau, Buehler’s 18 total swings-and-misses were his most since 2021, and the most through the first four innings of a postseason game by any pitcher since Kyle Lohse in 2003. The Dodgers would’ve loved for the right-hander to pitch beyond the fourth inning given the way he was dealing. But since Buehler averaged more than 20 pitchers per inning, he only faced the Mets twice through the order. 

That wasn’t a problem for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who prepared for a situation like Game 3 — where several innings had to be covered by his high-leverage relief arms. After Buehler’s night ended somewhat early, Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier, and Blake Treinen combined to throw three shutout innings and register four strikeouts while allowing just one hit from the ‘pen. Catcher Will Smith said Brasier’s double-play ball to Jose Iglesias that ended the sixth inning completely eradicated any chance for the Mets to build momentum.

He was right. Dodgers bats continued to pile on — including home runs from Shohei Ohtani, Kiké Hernández and Muncy — while the Mets’ slim hopes for a comeback, no matter how resilient they’ve been this postseason, fully slipped away. But the belief that New York could get a series lead was already on its way out the door with every inning Buehler put up a zero.

“In my career here as a Dodger, Walker’s probably been one of the most big-time playoff pitchers that I’ve seen,” Treinen said. “I think for him, coming back from the surgery, there’s been a lot of learning on the fly. And what he’s been able to do recently, the results haven’t always matched how well he’s pitched. Today was nice to see the results match the hard work he’s putting in.”

Buehler’s 17 playoff starts rank second to only Clayton Kershaw in Dodgers franchise history. Prior to undergoing a second UCL reconstruction in August 2022, he carried a phenomenal 2.94 career ERA in October. Though that mark took a hit in the NLDS, Buehler was able to rebound with three clean frames versus the Padres — after they initially rocked him — to jumpstart the Dodgers’ record-tying 33 scoreless innings in the postseason. 

On Wednesday, as he traversed the long and winding road that has forced the two-time All-Star to reinvent himself, Buehler reminded baseball of one thing as he led the Dodgers to an enormous win: He is still Walker Buehler.

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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