Absolutely nothing can be given to the Los Angeles Dodgers. And the New York Yankees went overboard on the giveaways.
Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and company were relentless as the Dodgers won their second World Series championship in five seasons on Wednesday.
Thanks to the complicity of three defensive failures by the Yankees, Los Angeles recovered from a five-run deficit in the fifth inning and achieved a vibrant 7-6 victory that sealed the Fall Classic in five games.
Sacrifice flies by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth inning off Luke Weaver completed the comeback at Yankee Stadium.
To obtain the eighth championship of a franchise that was founded in Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York, the Dodgers became the first team in postseason history to be down by five runs or more, then erase that deficit, they fell behind again and ended up winning the game anyway.
“I certainly didn’t plan it this way,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So many emotions from start to finish. “I am grateful to be able to sit here, for what our players have done, their perseverance, the grit they showed.”
Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning and Alex Verdugo’s RBI single sent out starter Jack Flaherty in the second. A home run by Giancarlo Stanton in the third against Ryan Brasier stretched the Yankees’ lead to 5-0.
Meanwhile, Yankees starter Gerrit Cole dominated to his heart’s content.
Game solved?
Not at all.
The racket came down on the Yankees with a horrifying display of defensive ineffectiveness in the fifth inning. Errors by Judge in center field and Anthony Volpe at shortstop, plus a Cole who did not react to cover first base after a ground ball, opened the floodgates for a five-run unearned run.
Cole had not allowed a hit until Puerto Rican Kiké Hernández led off the fifth with a single. Judge dropped Tommy Edman’s fly ball and then Volpe threw poorly to third on Will Smith’s grounder, loading the bases with no outs.
The Yankees ace seemed to escape when he struck out Lux and Ohtani. Cole did not cover first after a groundout by Betts. Freeman — proclaimed the series MVP — followed with a two-run single and Teóscar Hernández tied the game with a two-run double.
“We took advantage of every mistake they made,” said Hernández. “We put the ball in play. When you put the ball in play, anything can happen.”
After Giancarlo Stanton’s sacrifice fly in the sixth restored a 6-5 Yankees lead, interference by catcher Austin Wells led to a pair of Dodgers runs in the eighth.
Blake Treinen survived a two-run, one-out jam in the bottom half by retiring Stanton on a fly ball and striking out Anthony Rizzo.
Walker Buehler, in relief for the first time since 2018, pitched the ninth in order.
When Verdugo struck out swinging for the final out, the Dodgers rushed to the mound. They capped a year in which they accumulated 98 victories for the best record in the majors during the regular season.
“We had to go through so many things, but I would say we had the best record in baseball this year,” said Roberts, who navigated the postseason with just three starting pitchers due to injuries. “It wasn’t easy, but our players didn’t stop fighting.”
Ohtani, the Japanese star acquired by Los Angeles last winter for a record $700 million, responded by becoming the first player with a 50-homer, 50-steal season. He had two hits in 19 at-bats in the series, limited to one single after dislocating his left shoulder during an attempted steal in the second game.
Freeman had a two-run single and tied the Fall Classic record with 12 RBIs, set by Bobby Richardson over seven games in 1960.
On Friday, with the Dodgers one out away from defeat in Game 1, Freeman knocked out the Yankees with a grand slam, reminiscent of Kirk Gibson’s home run off Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley that ended the 1988 opener and led to Los Angeles to the scepter.
This is the Dodgers’ seventh championship since — prior to the 1958 season — they left Brooklyn for Los Angeles.
But this is the first in a non-shortened campaign since 1988, and it feels genuine. In 2020 they won a neutral World Series against Tampa Bay after a 60-game regular season and couldn’t even celebrate with a parade due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The parade will be held in Los Angeles on Friday, just the day that the recently deceased Fernando Valenzuela — the Mexican icon of the franchise — was going to turn 64 years old.
“It will be emotional. Fernando was my friend. I’m sure he’ll be smiling right now and proud of this organization,” Roberts said. “We are going to miss him.
“I’m sure he would have wanted to be with us.”
Two years after the franchise was acquired by Guggenheim Baseball Management in 2012, the Dodgers hired Andrew Friedman from Tampa Bay to run baseball operations. He reinforced the offices with a platoon of experts in statistics and sports performance, without any type of expense qualms on the part of the owners.
For this season, Los Angeles spent $1.25 billion — an unprecedented amount on the signings of Ohtani, pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and James Paxton and outfielder Hernández. The spending strategy points to the future, with deferred payments that will exceed $915 million between 2028-44.
Rattled by injuries, the Dodgers acquired Flaherty, reliever Michael Kopech and infielder-outfielder Tommy Edman at the trade deadline. All three were essential in the march to the title. The Dodgers’ payroll rose to $266 million, the third highest in the Major Leagues, behind the Mets and Yankees, plus a luxury tax that would reach $43 million.
Roberts credited a Sept. 15 team meeting in Atlanta, after losing Glasnow to an elbow injury, for creating cohesion that propelled them to the major league throne.
These Dodgers played with unbridled fervor, determined to shake off frustrating first-round exits against San Diego and Arizona in recent years. They were fiascos that began to create the impression that they were a new version of the Atlanta Braves, the club that barely managed to win a title in the 1990s despite regularly finishing first in its division during the regular season.
The Dodgers have qualified for the playoffs in the last 12 seasons, 11 as NL West champions, nine of them with Roberts as manager.
Roberts won his second championship of his time as manager of the Dodgers to tie Tom Lasorda and fall behind Walter Alston’s four. The Dodgers won for the fourth time in 12 matches against the Yankees in the World Series.
New York remains unconsecrated since it expanded its record collection of titles to 27 in 2009. The Yankees acquired Juan Soto from San Diego last December, despite knowing that the 26-year-old Dominican phenomenon will be a free agent after this classic. Soto had 5 hits, including a home run, in 16 at-bats, and now intense market interest awaits him.
“You never know,” Soto said of his future. “It’s very hard that this was my last game. But I’m very happy with what we accomplished as a team and how far we came.”
Judge finished with 4 hits in 18 at-bats with three RBIs.
“I’m heartbroken,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “The ending is cruel. “It always is.”
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