LOS ANGELES – For all the frills and hype and bigger-picture significance attached to the 120th edition of the World Series, the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers still need to deliver the goods for this clash to meaningfully resonate.
The historic rivals certainly lived up to the advanced billing Friday night in a riveting, leverage-filled, bar-setting opener that had something to offer everyone – from old-school baseball lifer to new-age data nerd. Gerrit Cole and Jack Flaherty duelling it out into the sixth. A Will Smith sacrifice fly, Kiké Hernandez sacrifice bunt and a Shohei Ohtani move-the-runners groundout. A majestic, high-arching homer from Giancarlo Stanton the pitch after a fastball near his face. An eighth-inning collab between Ohtani and Mookie Betts to erase a deficit. Tension at every turn.
Freddie Freeman, refreshed after nearly a week to rest his badly sprained right ankle, finally settled the back-and-forth affair in the 10th with a walk-off grand slam, triggering bedlam in the Dodger Stadium crowd of 52,394 celebrating an incredible 6-3 victory.
After the Yankees had taken a 4-3 lead on Anthony Volpe’s fielder’s choice, which brought home Jazz Chisholm Jr., who’d stole two bases to set up the run, the Dodgers rallied when Gavin Lux worked a one-out walk and Tommy Edman followed with an infield single.
Nestor Cortes then came in for Jake Cousins and he got Ohtani on a flyout that Alex Verdugo chased down into the stands, but advanced the runners. After an intentional walk to Betts loaded the bases, Freeman ambushed the first pitch from the lefty, a swing and circumstance that evoked Kirk Gibson’s walk-off slam in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
On Thursday, Freeman said he had “no thought of sitting” due to his injury, saying “this is why you show up in spring training every single year, to play in the World Series and have a chance to win it. … Yeah, in June or July, I’d still probably be on the IL, but to have the chance to win a World Series ring, you’ll do anything you can to be on the field.”
The Dodgers start Yoshinobu Yamamoto against Carlos Rodon on Saturday seeking to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven before the series shifts to New York.
Chisholm did the heavy lifting to give the Yankees lead in the top of the 10th, ripping a one-out single to start the decisive rally and promptly stealing second off Blake Treinen. After an intentional walk to Anthony Rizzo, Chisholm stole third before Volpe hit a chopper to short that a diving Edman snagged.
But he couldn’t transfer the ball cleanly, settling for one out at second instead of an inning-ending double play, which allowed Chisholm to come home with the go-ahead run.
The rally was byproduct of the “having traffic” approach Aaron Judge said was what made the Yankees offence so tough to handle.
“You have good at-bats, you get guys on base, stressful pitches, I think that’s the most important thing,” he explained. “Sometimes you may not score, but getting a lot of traffic on the bases, making the pitchers really work, think about you on the bases, think about the guy at the plate. If you get me up there, Giancarlo up there, Juan up there with a couple of guys on base, that’s a little different than pitching with nobody on base in the first or second inning. The amount of stressful pitches you can put on a pitching staff leads to a better chance for a big inning.”
The Yankees nearly took the lead in the top of the ninth when Gleyber Torres sent a Michael Kopech fastball to deep left-centre, where a fan reached over the wall to snag the drive. The umpires signalled fan interference making it a double, with a crew-chief review confirming the call.
That still left Torres at second, prompting the Dodgers to intentionally walk Juan Soto and bring in Treinen to face Judge, who’d struck out in his three previous at-bats. This time, he popped up a fastball to Edman at short to end the threat.
The Yankees had nursed a 2-1 lead provided by Stanton’s two-run homer in the top of the sixth through jams in the bottom of the sixth and seventh, but they finally got burned in the eighth.
Ohtani hammered a Tommy Kahnle changeup off the right-field wall a foot shy of a homer, settling for a double. Alertly, though, he took third when Torres was careless with the relay back from the outfield, and Betts made them pay with a laser to deep centre off Luke Weaver that brought him home, triggering bedlam in the Dodger Stadium crowd.
The heat the top of each lineup puts on opposing pitchers was evident from the outset when Soto worked a one-out walk in the first. Flaherty responded by striking out Judge before inducing a groundball to short that Edman, the NLCS MVP, booted. That brought up Chisholm Jr., who hit a weak chopper to second that ended the threat.
In the bottom half, the Dodgers immediately put Cole under duress. Ohtani just got under the ace right-hander’s first pitch, a 95.8-m.p.h. heater, sending it off the bat at 106 m.p.h. but only 373 feet to the track in centre field. Betts followed with another drive, this one at 94.8 m.p.h., that Alex Verdugo had to chase down at the left-field wall before Freddie Freeman ripped a triple into the left-field corner, looking far more capable as he ran the bases than he did during the NLCS. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a line drive directly at Anthony Volpe for the final out.
The right-handers both settled in from there and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn’t flinch when the third time through the lineup came up. Flaherty got there in the fifth when Verdugo dunked a two-out single that brought up Torres, who grounded out to third on a chopper played smartly by Max Muncy.
The Dodgers broke through against Cole right after that, when Kiké Hernandez sent a drive to right field that a charging Soto neither caught nor cut off, resulting in a one-out triple. Smith followed with another fly ball to right that brought him home to open the scoring.
Flaherty, though, was hit by the third-time through penalty in the sixth, as Soto led off with a single and after Judge struck out for the third time in a grinding six-pitch at-bat, up came Stanton, who fell behind 0-2, stared at the mound after an 88.8 m.ph. heater went very up and very in and then ripped a hanging curveball 412-feet to left field.
