Category: Baseball

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When the World Series started, it was hard to figure what Freddie Freeman would be able to provide for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He left no doubt about the MVP winner.

Freeman broke records by homering in the first four games and matched a Fall Classic mark with 12 RBIs to power the Dodgers past the New York Yankees for their second championship in five years.

“That means there was a lot of my teammates on base,” Freeman said after being presented with the World Series MVP award, named in honor of Willie Mays. “I’m glad I was able to get hot at the right time.”

[RELATED: Full coverage of the World Series] 

The popular slugger delivered yet again Wednesday night with a two-run single off Yankees ace Gerrit Cole in a five-run fifth inning that helped rally Los Angeles to a clinching 7-6 victory in Game 5. 

New York Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson also drove in 12 runs in 1960 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the championship that year on Bill Mazeroski’s famous homer that ended Game 7.

Freeman compiled his total in just five games against the Yankees, setting several World Series standards along the way.

The 35-year-old first baseman homered in each of the first four games, becoming the first player to accomplish that feat. The streak began when he launched the first gamne-ending grand slam in World Series history to win a dramatic opener in Los Angeles.

Freeman’s two-run drive in the first inning Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium made him the only player to go deep in six consecutive Series games, dating to the 2021 title he won with Atlanta.

He was robbed of an extra-base hit in the fourth inning of Game 5 when Aaron Judge made a sensational catch of his long drive while crashing hard into the fence.

The MVP award puts a joyous cap on a difficult season for the Freeman family. Freeman missed eight games in July and August after 3-year-old son Max fell ill while watching his father at the All-Star Game festivities in Texas.

When the family returned home, Max was hospitalized and put on a ventilator after he experienced partial paralysis and breathing difficulty. He was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré, the rare neurological condition that affects the immune system, nerves and muscles.

Max’s condition gradually improved, and Freeman returned to work Aug. 5. He was welcomed back by a huge ovation from Dodgers fans that prompted tears from Freeman.

Freeman batted .282 this season with 22 homers and 89 RBIs. An eight-time All-Star and the 2020 NL MVP with Atlanta, he is a .300 career hitter with 343 homers, 1,232 RBIs and an .899 OPS in 15 major league seasons. He has hit .300 or better eight times.

Freeman sprained his right ankle on Sept. 26 against San Diego while trying to avoid a tag at first base by Luis Arráez and missed the Dodgers’ last three regular-season games. He didn’t have any RBIs in the NL Division Series against the Padres and only one in the National League Championship Series against the New York Mets.

Freeman missed three games during the NL playoffs because of his ailing ankle. He didn’t play in the NLCS finale against the Mets and had six days off entering the World Series, allowing time for the ankle to feel better.

It certainly showed at the plate, and now Freeman will have a second World Series ring and the MVP prize that goes with it to help him cherish an unforgettable October.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers won their second World Series championship in five seasons, overcoming a five-run deficit with the help of three Yankees defensive miscues and rallying on sacrifice flies from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth inning to beat New York 7-6 in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning, Alex Verdugo’s RBI single chased Jack Flaherty in the second, and Giancarlo Stanton’s third-inning homer against Ryan Brasier built a 5-0 Yankees lead.

But errors by Judge in center and Anthony Volpe at shortstop, combined with pitcher Gerrit Cole failing to cover first on Betts’ grounder, helped Los Angeles score five unearned runs in the fifth.

After Stanton’s sixth-inning sacrifice fly put the Yankees back ahead 6-5, the Dodgers loaded the bases against loser Tommy Kahnle in the eighth before the sacrifice flies off Luke Weaver.

Judge doubled off winner Blake Treinen with one out in the bottom half and Chisholm walked. Manager Dave Roberts walked to the mound with Treinen at 37 pitches.

“I looked in his eyes. I said how you feeling? How much more you got?” Roberts recalled. “He said: `I want it.’ I trust him.”

Treinen retired Stanton on a flyout and struck out Anthony Rizzo.

Walker Buehler, making his first relief appearance since his rookie season in 2018, pitched a perfect ninth for his first major league save.

“We’re obviously resilient, but there’s so much love in the clubhouse that won this game today,” Betts said. “That’s what it was. It was love, it was grit. I mean, it was just a beautiful thing. I’m just proud of us and I’m happy for us.”

When Buehler struck out Verdugo to end the game, the Dodgers poured onto the field to celebrate between the mound and first base, capping a season in which they won 98 games and finished with the best regular-season record.

With several thousand Dodgers fans remaining in a mostly empty stadium, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred presented the trophy on a platform quickly erected over second base.

“There’s just a lot of ways we can win baseball games,” Buehler said. “Obviously the superstars we have on our team and the discipline, it just kind of all adds up.”

Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ record-setting $700 million signing and baseball’s first 50-homer, 50-steal player, went 2 for 19 with no RBIs and had one single after separating his shoulder during a stolen base attempt in Game 2.

Freddie Freeman hit a two-run single to tie the Series record of 12 RBIs, set by Bobby Richardson over seven games in 1960, and was voted Series MVP. With the Dodgers one out from losing Friday’s opener, Freeman hit a game-ending grand slam reminiscent of Kirk Gibson’s homer off Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in 1988’s Game 1 that sparked Los Angeles to the title.

The Dodgers earned their eighth championship and seventh since leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles — their first in a non-shortened season since 1988. They won a neutral-site World Series against Tampa Bay in 2020 after a 60-game regular season and couldn’t have a parade because of the coronavirus pandemic.

These Dodgers of Ohtani, Freeman & Betts joined the 1955 Duke Snider and Roy Campanella Boys of Summer, the Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale era that spanned the three titles from 1959-65, the Tommy Lasorda-led groups 1981 and ’88 and the Betts and Clayton Kershaw champions of 2020.

Roberts won his second championship in nine seasons as manager as the Dodgers, matching Lasorda and trailing the four of Walter Alston. The Dodgers won for the fourth time in 12 Series meetings with the Yankees.

New York remained without a title since winning its record 27th in 2009. The Yankees acquired Juan Soto from San Diego in December knowing he would be eligible for free agency after the 2024 Series. The 26-year-old star went 5 for 16 one RBI in the Series heading into what will be intensely followed bidding on the open market.

Judge finished 4 for 18 with three RBIs.

Cole didn’t allow a hit until Kiké Hernández singled leading off the fifth. Judge, who an inning earlier made a leaping catch at the wall to deny Freeman an extra-base hit, dropped Tommy Edman’s fly to center. Shortstop Anthony Volpe then bounced a throw to third on Will Smith’s grounder, allowing the Dodgers to load the bases with no outs.

Cole struck out Lux and Ohtani, and Betts hit a grounder to Rizzo. Cole didn’t cover first, pointing at Rizzo to run to the bag as Betts outraced the first baseman.

Freeman followed with a two-run single and Teoscar Hernández hit a tying two-run double. Max Muncy walked before Kiké Hernández grounded into a forceout on Cole’s 48th pitch of the inning.

“We just take advantage of every mistake they made in that inning,” Teoscar Hernández said. “We put some good at-bats together. We put the ball in play.”

Stanton’s sixth-inning sacrifice fly off Brusdar Graterol put the Yankees ahead 6-5, but the Dodgers rallied one last time in the eighth.

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Kiké Hernández singled off Tommy Kahnle leading off. Edman followed with an infield hit and Smith walked on four pitches. Lux’s sacrifice fly off Luke Weaver tied the score. Ohtani reached on catcher’s interference and Betts followed with another sacrifice fly to give the Dodgers their first lead.

Purchased by Guggenheim Baseball Management in 2012, the Dodgers hired Andrew Friedman from Tampa Bay to head their baseball operations two years later. He boosted the front office with a multitude of analytics and performance science staff, and ownership supplied the cash.

Los Angeles went on an unprecedented $1.25 billion spending spree last offseason on deals with Ohtani, pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and James Paxton, and outfielder Teoscar Hernández. Much of the money was future obligations that raised the Dodgers’ deferred compensation to $915.5 million owed from 2028-44.

Faced with injuries, the Dodgers acquired Flaherty, Edman and reliever Michael Kopech ahead of the trade deadline, and all became important cogs in the title run. The additions boosted payroll to $266 million, third behind the Mets and the Yankees, plus a projected $43 million luxury tax.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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NEW YORK — The roller-coaster ride that was Game 5 was the only way this iconic World Series between two baseball titans should end. After the Yankees took the lead early on an Aaron Judge home run and kept piling on for a five-run advantage, New York got in its own way with too many defensive mistakes and allowed the Dodgers to scratch and claw their way back into the game. 

After the Yankees retook the lead late, the Dodgers rallied again and claimed their eighth World Series title in franchise history with a wild 7-6 win Wednesday night in the Bronx. 

Here are our top takeaways from MLB’s 2024 finale.

[RELATED: Full coverage of the World Series] 

1. After Flaherty falters early, even a well-rested Dodgers bullpen had to get creative late

The Dodgers essentially punted the end of Game 4, a matchup that was within a run after five innings, choosing to save the bullpen pieces they trust the most to be ready behind Jack Flaherty in Game 5.

One night later, in a matchup that was within a run after six innings, they had used all of those fresh high-leverage arms.

The plan went awry when they had to start deploying them in the second inning. What unfolded was far from the blueprint, as Flaherty recorded just four outs while allowing four hits, four runs and a walk. He made it just one time through the order before being pulled. It was basically a replica of the previous series for Flaherty, who looked like a completely different guy on extra rest in the opening game of the NLCS and World Series (1.46 ERA, 12 K, 3 BB between the two starts) than on regular rest the second time against NLCS and World Series opponents in Game 5s (24.92 ERA, 5 BB, 1 K).

In this one, with the World Series up for grabs, the Dodgers couldn’t afford to let him wear it the way they did last series, so Anthony Banda entered in the second. The parade of arms kept the Dodgers within striking distance, buying enough time for the game-tying five-run explosion that arrived behind a calamitous medley of Yankees miscues in the fifth.

But a predicament would unfold, with the Dodgers having deployed all their top relievers. After Blake Treinen threw a clean seventh, they had no fresh arms left. Walker Buehler, who had already trotted out to the bullpen, began warming. Then it was Daniel Hudson, who threw 20 pitches in Game 4, one of which had left the yard. Every other available option for the Dodgers had thrown more than 40 pitches the night before. 

Roberts decided to keep Treinen in for the eighth. Disaster appeared close when Aaron Judge delivered a one-out double. Exhaustion seemed to be setting in when Jazz Chisholm Jr. drew a walk. But Treinen buckled down, retiring the next two hitters. He recorded seven outs in the performance, marking the first time in more than six years that he had gone more than two innings. With the bullpen mostly emptied, Dave Roberts turned to Buehler in the ninth. And the October star delivered the team a championship. — Rowan Kavner

2. Cole’s dominance turned into disaster

Gerrit Cole was untouchable the first four innings against L.A., boasting a sharper fastball and better command of his secondary pitches than he did in Game 1. At the same time, the Yankees offense gave him five runs of support, and he was pitching efficiently, too. The veteran right-hander hadn’t allowed a hit through the first 14 batters he faced. Things were going better than the Yankees could have hoped … until the nightmare that was the fifth inning. 

The Yankees committed three game-altering mistakes on defense in the fifth, but after Judge dropped a routine fly ball and Anthony Volpe made a fielding error at short, no mental gaffe was worse than Cole’s failure to cover first base on a Mookie Betts ground ball. All Cole had to do was sprint to first base so that Anthony Rizzo could toss him the ball, and the Yankees would’ve escaped a no-out, bases-loaded jam. But Cole just pointed to Rizzo, expecting the first baseman to make the unassisted out. The Dodgers came all the way back from their 5-0 deficit to tie the game in the fifth following Cole’s inning of horrors. All five runs were unearned. 

So it took a lot of guts and grit for Cole to come back out for the sixth and the seventh to completely empty the tank against the Dodgers. He pitched a clean sixth inning, and then retired Shohei Ohtani and Betts in the seventh before walking Freddie Freeman for his final batter. Cole’s season-high 108-pitch outing would’ve been so much sweeter without his one mistake of failing to cover first. The crowd still gave him a standing ovation as he walked off the mound in the seventh. He responded with a small salute. — Deesha Thosar

3. Superteam Dodgers can also win small

A catastrophic inning gave the Dodgers’ offense a chance. The Yankees had struggled with the little things all series. The Dodgers, as their go-ahead inning demonstrated late, had not.

Yankees relievers had gotten the better of the Dodger offense all series, forcing them to chase more than usual and into uncharacteristic at-bats. That changed in the eighth inning of Game 5, when the Dodgers put the first three runners on against Tommy Kahnle with two walks and a single. More productive at-bats put them ahead when the Yankees turned to Luke Weaver. Gavin Lux hit a sac fly. Shohei Ohtani reached on a catcher’s interference. Mookie Betts delivered another sac fly, and the Dodgers had their first lead of the night, moving them six outs away. — Kavner

4. Judge’s breakout too little, too late

Facing the same pressure as Game 4 to get out to an early lead, Judge finally provided the big swing the Yankees were waiting for from their captain with a huge two-run home run in the first inning — on the first pitch — against Jack Flaherty. It was Judge’s third home run of this postseason, and his first since Game 3 of the ALCS in Cleveland. The entire Yankees dugout seemed to relax after Judge’s first World Series home run, because that’s who this team is at its heart. When Judge is cashing in, the rest of the supporting cast typically follows his lead. 

While Judge bolstered his postseason numbers in Games 4 and 5 of the World Series, his help arrived too late to save the Yankees’ season. The way that this year’s team was built, the Yankees needed Judge to produce throughout the Series if they’re going to win the franchise’s first title since 2009. Instead, his 1-for-12, seven-strikeout output through the first three games of the Fall Classic put the Yankees in a hole they couldn’t climb out of. The narrative of his postseason struggles, and how it seems to take Judge at least a dozen at-bats to warm up, will follow him into his next October. — Thosar

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.

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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