LOS ANGELES – The Dodgers and Yankees managers recognized that this is a special World Series, on and off the field. A competition for the Major League baseball title like few others in almost all aspects of the sport and one that fans missed 43 years ago.
The Los Angeles Dodgers will host the New York Yankees starting this Friday in a Fall Classic that has been played 11 times before, although for the last time in 1981.
“This series is actually global,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thursday. “It’s a unique series in which you could argue that on a global scale the Yankees and the Dodgers are the most followed teams, the ones that have the most support and are the most visible.”
But it’s not just about the two baseball franchises that of course are the most recognized on the planet or those that have two of the five most expensive payrolls in all of baseball.
It will also be the fifth matchup since the current postseason format with wild card teams was adopted in 1995, in which the two teams with the best regular season records, the Dodgers (98-64) and the Yankees (94-68), collide. ).
“Dodgers-Yankees, two pillar franchises of this sport, with a great history going back a long, long time,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Thursday. “These two teams have met in many Fall Classics. It’s certainly special, it will attract a lot of people around the country and around the world, more than usual.”
Yes, it will be the twelfth World Series between both teams, from the time when the Dodgers still lived in Brooklyn until many years later, when it looked like the Hollywood versus Broadway series.
“We have to focus solely on baseball,” Yankees outfielder Juan Soto said in the middle of Media Day that brought several hundred journalists to Dodger Stadium on Thursday.
“We know that this series will attract much more than any other. But we have to see it as just another series to reach the goal.”
“We are preparing to face a series with the opportunity to win the Major League championship,” he added. “That’s the only thing us players should care about.”
It will be the World Series of Most Valuable Players, in salary and in sports level. Five players are combined between both teams with the MVP nomination in the past: Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani, for the Dodgers. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, for New York.
It is also likely that two of them will be named MVP this season: Ohtani in the National League, and Judge in the American League. First time that two players with at least 50 home runs face each other in the World Series and it will be their debut on this stage for both.
“This is where the real fun begins,” Judge said. “I’m sure I’m going to feel how special it is to play in a World Series,” Ohtani added.
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The Yankees will have their star starter Gerrit Cole, still reigning Cy Young Award winner, on the mound for the first game, who will play in his second World Series after the one he lost with the Houston Astros in 2018.
“The challenge is trying to be confident with every pitch,” Cole said. “You know they are lethal with their swing. So you have to give every pitch a chance to be in the right place. And if they hit the ball, you have to learn to avoid it happening again.”
The Dodgers will send World Series debutant Jack Flaherty to the mound, the pitcher who has had to shoulder the responsibility as the first in the rotation basically since he arrived at the trade deadline from the Detroit Tigers.
“It’s about going out there and hitting your pitches in the (strike) zone,” Flaherty said. “You have to concentrate hitter by batter. You have to try to calm down and concentrate on the process of each pitch. Those guys (Yankees) don’t forgive mistakes.”
Both managers agreed that everything was behind them and the time had come to play the best baseball.
“We know how good the Dodgers are,” Boone acknowledged. “Both teams have the ability to really be potent on offense. In the end it’s going to come down to execution. Certainly, it’s going to be critical for pitchers to be able to control offenses. But in the end it’s all about execution.”
“It should be a great series,” added the Yankees manager. “We’ll be ready to play.”
