Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees‘ 2024 season ended in heartbreaking fashion on Wednesday night, as they blew a 5-0 fifth-inning lead to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series, then later watched Los Angeles go on to win the series.
Judge’s performance was front and center this postseason, specifically in the World Series, in what was a bumpy five-game stretch for the 2022 — and likely 2024 — American League MVP.
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Here are the World Series highlights and lowlights for Judge, who was playing in his first career Fall Classic.
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Game 1 agony
Judge entered the World Series having struggled the previous two rounds. In New York’s combined nine games in the American League playoffs against the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians, he totaled two home runs, six RBIs and 13 strikeouts, while posting a .161/.317/.387 slash line. For perspective, Judge blasted 58 home runs and posted a .701 slugging percentage in the regular season.
Judge didn’t silence the critics in Game 1 of the World Series.
The Yankees led 3-2 going into the bottom of the 10th inning, and, of course, Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam with two outs. New York left 11 runners on base, with Judge stranding four of them while striking out three times and finishing 1-for-5.
Mid-series drought
Judge went a combined 0-for-7 in Games 2 and 3, striking out three times.
In Game 2, he left two runners. In the top of the ninth inning, which saw the Yankees draw to within two runs and load the bases with one out, he struck out. Games 2 and 3 were each 4-2 victories for the Dodgers.
John Smoltz breaks down Aaron Judge’s cold playoffs streak
Game 4 life
With New York staring down a sweep — and Judge’s offensive struggles at the center of team scrutiny — the superstar outfielder showed signs of waking up in his final at-bat of the game, hitting a single to left field, which drove in the Yankees’ 11th run of an 11-4 win. Judge had previously gotten on base via base on balls, hit by pitch and an infield error.
He carried that momentum into Game 5.
Yankees come ALIVE in Game 4
Game 5 duality
Game 5 featured Judge early and often — in both a positive and negative way.
Judge got the Yankees rolling in the first inning with a two-run home run to right field, giving them a 2-0 lead, which later became a 5-0 lead. Then, Judge made a leaping catch in the palm of his glove at the wall in the top of the fourth inning, robbing Freeman of a potential extra-base hit and the Dodgers of a run.
Dodgers vs. Yankees: MINI-MOVIE of 2024 World Series
But in the top of the fifth, Judge made a consequential error, dropping a line drive in center field. Later in the inning, shortstop Anthony Volpe made a throwing error and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole didn’t get over to first base for Anthony Rizzo to flip him the ball for the would-be inning-ending out. The Dodgers went on to score five runs in the inning to tie the game. While the Yankees regained the lead in the sixth with a sacrifice fly, the Dodgers went in front in the eighth with a pair of sacrifice flies.
Judge doubled in the bottom of the eighth — and also walked twice in the game — to get the tying run in scoring position, but the Yankees couldn’t get even and lost, 7-6.
Judge’s only home run and error in the World Series came in Game 5.
Soler has been a productive power hitter for five teams over the previous 11 major league seasons. The Cuban slugger was the MVP of the 2021 World Series with the Braves, and he also won a ring with the Chicago Cubs in 2016.
He led the AL in homers with the Kansas City Royals in 2019 when he hit a career-high 48. He made his first All-Star team with the Miami Marlins in 2023.
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Soler has two years left on the three-year, $42 million contract he signed with the San Francisco Giants earlier this year. The Giants traded Soler to Atlanta on July 29 for his second stint with the Braves.
He had 21 homers and 64 RBIs with a .780 OPS last season with the Braves and Giants. One year earlier, he hit 36 homers for Miami.
Canning is an Orange County native and a former second-round draft pick who has been part of the Angels’ starting rotation for the past six years when healthy. He won a Gold Glove in 2020 but missed the entire 2022 season with a back injury.
Canning went 6-13 with a 5.19 ERA while making a career-high 32 starts last season for the Angels, who finished with the worst record in franchise history.
NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Dodgers had heard the minimizing and belittling of their short-season championship in the hours and days and months and years since they dogpiled between the mound and home plate at Globe Life Field four seasons ago. They believed what they did in 2020 amid adverse circumstances and a Texas bubble might have been harder and required even more than the typical season. Every other team, after all, had the same chance they did.
And yet …
“You want the full season one, just to get that whole narrative out of the window,” Gavin Lux said. “I think it kind of bugs everybody a little bit that you don’t get the recognition that you deserve.”
For the past four years, it served as fuel, a little extra motivation to acquire the franchise’s first full-season World Series championship since 1988. The Dodgers had gone to the postseason 11 straight years before this one, with only one pandemic-shortened title to show for it. Many of the same characters from 2020 remained, craving a championship no one could question and a celebration that evaded them the last time they won in the middle of a pandemic.
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Thanks to seven relievers and the first five-run comeback in a World Series clincher Wednesday night in the Bronx, that parade they missed in 2020 will take place Friday in Los Angeles — on what would have been Fernando Valenzuela’s 64th birthday.
“I’m going to enjoy the heck out of this one,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I’m sure there’s no asterisk on this one.”
In a season defined by persistence, the Dodgers outlasted the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, battling back from an early five-run hole, falling behind again, then coming through with the go-ahead runs in the eighth inning of a 7-6 win that embodied their resilience en route to a second championship in five years.
“Now it’s two, baby, what are you gonna say about that?” Max Muncy said. “World Series champions. Get that Mickey Mouse s- out of your mouth. We got a full season. It’s here.”
At 1:18 a.m. in the Bronx, as Wednesday night bled into Thursday morning and the Dodgers’ eighth World Series championship celebration shifted from a champagne-soaked clubhouse onto a family-filled field at Yankee Stadium, a shirtless Walker Buehler, pants still drenched from the postgame libations, lifted up Will Smith’s 2-year-old daughter for a hug before embracing his catcher for the second time that night. The first, a couple of hours prior, came as more of a surprise.
Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior had not discussed Buehler pitching at all in the deciding Game 5 of the World Series. That Buehler, an October star again after a turbulent return from his second Tommy John surgery, nonetheless secured the final out of the 2024 season represented a fitting finish to a year that took a path they never could have imagined after their billion-dollar offseason splurge.
If the chance to celebrate with a parade wasn’t incentive enough, they would find plenty more sources of motivation as their juggernaut roster began to crumble piece by piece. Injuries tattered their rotation to the point that only one pitcher from their Opening Day rotation still remained upright by October. Of the three starters they entrusted to get them through the postseason, one, Jack Flaherty, didn’t arrive until the deadline and was chased after recording four outs in the final win of the World Series. Another, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, missed nearly three months with a shoulder injury. The third, Buehler, had an ERA over 5.00 in a season marred by inconsistent command and mechanics.
Even the star-studded offense had taken its hits. Shohei Ohtani, the prize of the offseason who finally got his long-awaited opportunity on the sport’s biggest stage, partially dislocated his shoulder during the World Series. Before that, Freddie Freeman suffered a late September ankle sprain that was supposed to keep him out for 4-6 weeks. Freeman’s father, Fred, had to drive him to Dodger Stadium every day for physical therapy because Freddie couldn’t use his injured right foot on the pedal.
“It was beyond what any human should do,” Freeman’s father said from the field at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, where he celebrated with his son. “I don’t know any other person that could have done that. Maybe Shohei, what he’s been doing right now. Shohei’s a warrior, also.”
Both players pushed through, though Freeman did a lot more than just survive en route to being selected World Series MVP. He set a major-league record with home runs in six straight World Series games (dating back to his 2021 championship run with the Braves) after homering in each of the first four games of this year’s World Series. The streak ended in Game 5, but his production did not. Freeman delivered a two-run hit as part of the Dodgers’ five-run fifth to tie the game. A medley of Yankees errors and miscues opened the door. An opportunistic Dodgers club knocked it down.
“Get dealt a couple blows, come back from it,” Muncy said. “Get dealt some more blows, come back from it. This game was literally our season in a nutshell.”
Given their dearth of starting options, the Dodgers needed to rely on a cavalcade of relievers to persevere, as they had all October. Their postseason run included 22 more innings from their bullpen than from their starters.
“I’d be one to tell you there would never be a bullpenning team that won the World Series,” said Blake Treinen, who recorded seven outs on Wednesday, marking the first time in six years that he’d gone more than two innings in an outing. “I’m eating crow.”
So depleted of starting pitchers, and needing to keep their highest-leverage arms fresh, the Dodgers and manager Dave Roberts chose to punt on certain playoff games when his team got down in a bullpen game. Roberts would live to fight another day, saving his most trusted relievers for more positive game scripts, so the opponent wouldn’t get as many looks at them. The dangerous strategy ultimately triumphed. Maligned for his decision-making in postseasons past, Roberts navigated a treacherous road deftly.
“Doc,” Smith said, “pushed all the right buttons.”
The most important might have come two weeks before the playoffs, when the team’s mounting injuries seemed to be taking a toll on the club both physically and mentally. In mid-September, after the Dodgers learned All-Star Tyler Glasnow’s season was over, Roberts read the room and saw a team that looked demoralized. The Dodgers had just dropped two straight games in Atlanta, and the Padres were clawing into their division lead.
Roberts rarely calls for team meetings, but Teoscar Hernández said the timing of this one changed everything. The skipper told his players that he couldn’t believe in them more than they believed in themselves, and the change needed to begin that night.
Buehler responded by bouncing back from a five-run outing to hold the Braves to one earned run in six innings. It was one of 11 wins in the final 14 games of the regular season for a Dodgers team that would be playoff bound for a 12th straight year, and it set a tone for a team that would then rebound from a 2-1 deficit in the National League Division Series against the Padres. It was around that time when Roberts realized this group, which would run through the Mets and Yankees, was different from recent iterations.
“I believe in this team,” Roberts said before a do-or-die Game 5 of the NLDS, “more than any team I’ve had.”
After winning the 2020 World Series, the past three years didn’t go the way the Dodgers planned. In 2021, they couldn’t dig out of another 3-1 NLCS hole against Freeman’s Braves, who would go on to win the whole thing. In 2022, a historic team that won 111 games bowed out in the first round in a stunning upset against the upstart Padres. A year later came another shocking first-round shellacking at the hands of a division foe, this time with the Diamondbacks blitzing the Dodgers.
Getting swept yielded sweeping changes.
The Dodgers opened the bank to bring in the most talented player in the game. A third MVP atop the lineup could, ideally, help stabilize an offense that had recently sputtered in October. Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman was at his son’s soccer game on a Zoom call recruiting another player when he got the news that Ohtani was on board, ending an emotional roller-coaster for a Los Angeles franchise that had long coveted the two-way sensation.
That Ohtani, determined to be part of a winning organization for the first time in his unmatched six-year big-league career, decided to set up his contract in an extraordinary way, deferring most of the $700 million he was owed over the next 10 years, freed up the Dodgers to continue adding. They made fellow NPB standout Yoshinobu Yamamoto the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history with a contract that was $1 million more in total value than Gerrit Cole, the ace who took the mound for the Yankees on Wednesday in Game 5 of the World Series.
The Dodgers kept going, trading for and extending Glasnow and bringing in even more offensive firepower by adding Hernández on a one-year deal. They had formed what seemed to be an inexorable machine, one capable of exorcising their recent postseason failures and delivering their city the parade they never got.
But more work would be required from the Dodgers’ front office to acquire the pieces necessary to get them over the top.
In one of the most vital trade deadlines in franchise history, they acquired the best pitcher available on the market in Flaherty, the local Los Angeles product who did just enough for his hometown team in a volatile postseason to help his club survive. Just as importantly, they also swung a three-team deal for versatile defender Tommy Edman, who hadn’t played a game this year to that point as he rehabbed wrist and ankle injuries, and reliever Michael Kopech, who was languishing on the worst team in modern baseball history. Kopech would slot in among the bevy of relief arms Roberts would come to rely upon.
Amid the injuries, the Dodgers knew they still possessed talent. And as they clawed through the postseason, they learned more about their ability to overcome adversity. There was perhaps no better example than the player who threw the final pitch of the season.
Earlier in the day, Buehler told the Dodgers’ coaching staff and front office he’d be available in the bullpen.
“Like, yeah, Walk, that’s awesome,” Friedman said, shaking off the thought.
“Well, what if it gets wonky?” Buehler asked.
With Flaherty departing in the second inning, things got wonky.
The Dodgers had already deployed all those high-leverage arms they were saving, forcing Treinen to record seven outs as the bullpen options dwindled. From there, the Dodgers had a couple of options. They could turn to Daniel Hudson, who threw 20 pitches the night prior, one of which resulted in a grand slam, and had grinded through another grueling year that would end with the 15-year big leaguer declaring his retirement late Wednesday night.
Or, they could go to Buehler, who had already made his way to the bullpen. With the Dodgers leading by one run in the ninth, after he threw four scoreless innings in Game 3 of the NLCS and five scoreless innings in his lone start of the World Series just two days prior, Buehler, in what could have been his final act as a Dodger, emerged and added another spotless frame.
“What Walker did right there, he’s etched in Dodger royalty for the rest of his life,” Clayton Kershaw said.
“I can’t say enough about him,” Friedman added. “It shouldn’t be surprising. Time and time again, what he’s done in October cements his legacy as an all-time Dodger great.”
It was also a fitting microcosm of the Dodgers’ year of fortitude. After recording the final out of the 2024 season, Buehler raised his hands in the air with his palms to the sky, in a motion that was less “I can’t believe it” and more “What else would you expect?”
In a season that didn’t go the way Buehler hoped, he was still the October hero.
In a year and a game that didn’t go the way the Dodgers scripted, they were still victorious.
This time, four seasons after the previous title, a parade will mark the accomplishment. And there’s nothing anyone can say to diminish it.
“First one’s just as much as this, in my opinion, Smith said. “People can say whatever they want, but this is No. 2 for us, No. 2 for me. Hopefully, we get a few more.”
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.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are officially World Series champions following a 7-6 victory over the New York Yankees, a victory that included a 5-0 comeback in the 5th inning. Craig Carton, Danny Parkins, Mark Schlereth, and Willie Colon discuss the series and what’s next for the Yankees.
The team announced that it would commemorate its World Series championship on Friday with a downtown parade followed by a celebration at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers earned that right with their World Series-clinching 7-6 victory over the New York Yankees in the Bronx on Thursday night.
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The team said Wednesday that because of logistics, traffic and timing, fans won’t be able to attend both the parade and the celebration at Dodger Stadium.
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Friday’s celebrations, however, will be particularly poignant for both the Dodgers and their fans in Los Angeles.
Their last championship came in 2020, during a COVID-shortened season. Because of restrictions due to the pandemic, the entire World Series was played at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. And after the Dodgers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in six games for the franchise’s seventh championship, the city was denied a parade because of those pandemic restrictions.
The Los Angeles Lakers also won the NBA championship that year, and no public celebration was ever held to commemorate the occasion.
Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen spoke on Wednesday night about how the team wanted to put any stigma attached to the 2020 championship to rest.
“There’s been a lot of people that want to discredit 2020, and I don’t want to harp on this alot, but it’s so great to see the guys that are still here, from Doc [Dave Roberts] to players to front office, being able to finally silence the critics on this,” he said, “because every year has its challenges, everybody has the same playing field. That’s a great team. This team has zero quit in it, and every single night, if we don’t have the outcome we want, there’s always guys out there picking each other up and challenging ourselves to be better. And that’s why we won tonight.”
Blake Treinen on Dodgers’ comeback: ‘What a moment for our team’
When it comes to Friday’s celebrations, the parade will begin mid-morning at Gloria Molina Grand Park in front of City Hall with Mayor Karen Bass in attendance. It will continue on a 45-minute route that culminates at the intersection of 5th and Flower streets, with the Dodgers traveling atop double-decker buses.
The celebration at Dodger Stadium will begin shortly after noon. The parade will be carried on the stadium’s videoboards ahead of the team’s arrival.
Adding to the special nature of the parade for Dodgers fans, Friday is also the birthday of late pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who died on Oct. 22 at the age of 63. Valenzuela was an iconic figure in Los Angeles and a member of Dodgers championship teams in 1981 and 1988.
A portion of the proceeds from the ticketed stadium event will be donated to the Los Angeles Dodger Foundation.
Dodgers vs. Yankees: MINI-MOVIE of 2024 World Series | MLB on FOX 🎥
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Rowdy crowds took to the streets in Los Angeles after the Dodgers won the World Series, setting a bus on fire, breaking into stores and setting off firecrackers. A dozen arrests were reported by police early Thursday.
Video showed some people throwing objects at police in Los Angeles as sirens blared and officers told them to leave the area after the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in Game 5 in New York.
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There were some “unruly, and at times violent and hostile celebrations,” with several acts of vandalism, including the burning of a Metropolitan Transit Authority bus, Los Angeles police spokesperson Officer Drake Madison said in an email. Arrests were on charges such as failure to disperse, receiving stolen property or commercial burglary, Madison said.
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There were also several instances of street takeovers downtown and police used less-lethal munitions to control several hostile and violent crowds, Madison said. In the coming days, detectives will attempt to identify those responsible for crimes, he said.
Other video showed revelers standing on top of a bus waving a Dodgers banner and other people leaving a boarded-up store with sneakers. It wasn’t known if anyone was hurt.
Dodgers vs. Yankees: MINI-MOVIE of 2024 World Series | MLB on FOX 🎥
An email was sent to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority.
The Dodgers plan to commemorate their World Series championship on Friday with a downtown parade followed by a celebration at Dodger Stadium. The team said Wednesday that because of logistics, traffic and timing, fans won’t be able to attend both events.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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NEW YORK — It was an hour into Halloween before Juan Soto finally divulged his thoughts and feelings about his free agency. The time was fitting, since the scariest thing that could happen to the Yankees would be the generational talent walking away and signing with another team.
That’s certainly more of a reality now than it was when the Yankees walked into the stadium Wednesday morning. Moments after the Yankees lost the World Series to the Dodgers, Soto was already talking about New York in the past tense.
“Leaving any place that is a winning team is always hard,” Soto said. “Definitely, this place was very special. It’s been a blast for me. I’ve been really happy. Definitely, if I’m here or not, I’ll be really happy for the things that happened and the people that I got to know in here. This was a really special group. But at the end of the day, we will see what’s going to happen.”
Soto, for all intents and purposes, entered free agency as he was speaking to reporters in the clubhouse, even though he was still wearing his fitted Yankees cap and team-branded performance shirt. He is now the sport’s most coveted young free-agent since Álex Rodríguez hit the open market in the winter of 2000. Early Thursday morning was the first time Soto openly discussed his emotions about free agency — which is his first opportunity to explore and decide on his future since he sprang into the major leagues in 2018.
He didn’t hold back.
“I don’t know the teams that want to come after me,” Soto said. “But definitely, I’ll be open to listening to every single team. I don’t have any doors closed, or anything like that. I’m going to be available for all 30 teams.”
As frosty as Soto’s words might sound to the Bronx faithful, it was clear that he was emotional in what might be his final moments as a Yankee. After the final out of the World Series, Soto watched the Dodgers celebrate on the field that he called home for seven months, and then he went up to the top step of the dugout. He took a second, then pointed up toward the sky.
Soto was the last player to leave the Yankees dugout.
“This is going to stay in my heart for the rest of my life,” he said. “This group of guys. This year was really special for me.”
His eyes welled up when he was asked what was going through his mind during that moment in the dugout. Besides admitting that he was feeling a lot of emotions, he kept the rest to himself.
“I think everybody in the room wants him back,” Aaron Judge said. “You can look at the stats and what he did on the field. I think the type of leader he is in this clubhouse. He just does a lot of the little things that people don’t notice that truly make him one of the best players, if not the best player in the game.
“I definitely enjoyed getting the chance to have a front row seat all season long — watching his at-bats, watching his approach. The way he would talk about certain pitchers and how they would attack him and what he’s looking for. He’s a scientist up there. Definitely would love to see him in pinstripes for quite a long time.”
Giancarlo Stanton had only three words for Soto on the precipice of free agency: “Stay with us.”
Yankees team owner Hal Steinbrenner will have to pay up for that to happen. Soto is expected to command more than $500 million in what is sure to be a wild free agency. The four-time All-Star outfielder finished his walk year with the fourth-best fWAR (8.1) in the major leagues. He crushed a career-best 41 home runs and posted a .989 OPS across 157 games. Soto said the team that signs him will get a guy who plays hard every day and will be the best version of himself in the clubhouse and outside of it, inmploring prospective suitors to ask any of his teammates how much he cares about winning.
Judge hoped that Soto enjoyed his time in pinstripes, because the four-time Silver Slugger certainly brought a lot of joy to the Yankees.
“I think he got a little taste of the excitement here, the history here,” Judge said. “What it truly means to be a Yankee, he fit every single category. It’s difficult coming to a new team. He spoke up many times in this clubhouse, in meetings. It’s little things like that that people don’t see. But this guy has no fear. He wants to be a leader. He wants to be in the spotlight. He wants to have those big moments. And when you’re a Yankee you’re going to be put in those situations.
“I would love to have him back. But I’m going to give him time to think about it. Do what he needs to do with his family, and we’ll see what happens.”
What will Soto prioritize in free agency?
Playing for a winning team is of the utmost importance to the 26-year-old. Even if his organization is not the last team standing, he emphasized how much he wants to play in the World Series every year. In that regard, the Yankees could fit the description. But when Soto was asked whether they might have a leg up over other interested teams, especially given that he enjoyed a career year in the Bronx and helped take the club to the Fall Classic, he didn’t hesitate to throw ice-cold water on that presumption.
“I feel like every team has the same opportunities when I’m going to free agency,” Soto said. “I don’t want to say any team has any advantage.”
From now until the time Soto signs, everyone will be looking for signs of where he’ll spend the next part of his career. Since he’s a Scott Boras client, we already know that the superagent has a tendency to wait it out until teams give him their best and highest offers. Last year, several of Boras’ top free agents didn’t sign until the middle or end of spring training in March. Soto is fully prepared for that same process and outcome with his own free agency.
“It’s all about the teams, how far they want to take it and how much they want to go back and forth,” Soto said. “I’m here. They are the ones that have to come over. We’re going to be waiting until somebody comes over. I can’t control if any team wants to call in February. So, we will see what happens. They know where I’m at.”
Yankees fans were loud all year about wanting Soto to stay in pinstripes. Some showed up to the ballpark with blank checks, or the dollar amount filled out to $700 million and counting. When asked if their gestures will have any impact on his decision this winter, Soto laughed before retorting, “It will probably impact the decision of the ownership.”
It’s hard to imagine the Yankees advancing to their first World Series since 2009 this year without the iconic duo of Soto and Judge leading them there. All year, Soto looked like the final puzzle piece to a Yankees team that had been unable to get over the hump without him. They got as far as Game 5 of the Fall Classic against a Dodgers superteam that looked destined to win it all the moment they bet the house on Shohei Ohtani.
Will Soto be able to easily walk away from all that he built with the Yankees this year? Will the Yankees really let him? Those two questions will follow every step of what is sure to be one of the most extraordinary free-agent signings in the history of Major League Baseball.
Stay tuned. This is only the beginning.
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.
Relive some of the most thrilling moments from the 2024 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, a matchup that stands out as one of the most legendary in MLB playoff history.
