NEW YORK (AP) — You’ve got to hand it to Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
And not just because the Yankees certainly did.
When New York brought L.A. back to Game 5 of the World Series, the Dodgers continued to do what they’ve been doing all year.
Fans celebrated in Los Angeles Wednesday night after the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4-1 to win the World Series.
After taking advantage of three mistakes and erasing a five-run deficit in the fifth inning, one of them The most memorable midgame meltdown in baseball historythe Dodgers used eighth-inning sacrifice flies from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts to defeat New York 7-6 on Wednesday night.
“In spring training, I said this is what I was going to do, and that’s what I did,” Betts declared, his eyes stinging with champagne.
Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit back-to-back home runs for New York in the first inning. Alex Verdugo’s RBI single Chased Jack Flaherty for second placeGiancarlo Stanton’s third-inning home run against Ryan Brazier gave the Yankees a 5-0 lead.
In the dugout, the Dodgers remained focused.
“We just kind of took one and chipped away at it and chipped away at it, little by little,” Freeman said.
Errors by center Judge and shortstop Anthony Volpe, combined with pitcher Gerrit Cole’s failure to make first coverage on Betts’ ground ball, helped Los Angeles score five unearned runs in the fifth inning.
The Dodgers were the seventh team to win out of 234 teams that trailed by five points or more in the series.
“This is going to go on forever,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “My heart was broken.”
Stanton’s sacrifice fly gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead in the 6th inning, and the Dodgers loaded the bases in the 8th inning against loser Tommy Kahnle, followed by Luke Weaver’s sacrifice fly.
Judge doubled the winner, Blake Treinen, with one out in the bottom half, and Chisholm elected to walk. Manager Dave Roberts went to the mound with Treinen on 37 pitches.
“I looked him in the eye and said, ‘How are you feeling? How much more did you get?'” Roberts recalled. “He said, ‘I want it.’” I trust him. ”
Treinen retired Stanton with a flyout and struck out Anthony Rizzo.
Mr. Walker Buehler, First relief appearance since 2018 rookie season.pitched a perfect nine innings and earned his first save in the major leagues.
When Buehler struck out Verdugo to end the game, the Dodgers rushed the field to celebrate between the mound and first base, ending their season leading the major leagues with 98 wins.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred presented the trophy on a podium quickly erected above second base as thousands of Dodgers fans remained in the nearly empty stadium.
Ohtani, who signed a record-breaking $700 million contract with the Dodgers and became the first baseball player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases, suffered a torn left shoulder while attempting to steal a base in Game 2, and was given two hits and no RBIs in 19 at bats. , hit one single. poured champagne on a teammate through the clubhouse and squirted it on him
“I think we were able to make it through the regular season because of the strength of this team and this organization,” he said through an interpreter. “Postseason success is very similar.”
Freeman drove in two runs and tied a series record with 12 RBIs.which Bobby Richardson recorded over seven games in 1960 and was named Series MVP. With the Dodgers losing Friday’s opener and with one out left, Freeman recalled Kirk Gibson’s home run off Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 in 1988 that gave Los Angeles the title. He hit the match-ending grand slam.
The Dodgers won their eighth championship and seventh since moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. It was the first win in a non-shortened season since 1988. 2020 Neutral World Series vs. Tampa Bay They completed a 60-game regular season, but were unable to hold a parade due to the coronavirus pandemic.
These Dodgers of Ohtani, Freeman, and Betts were the 1955 Boys of Summer with Duke Snyder and Roy Campanella, and the Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale era that spanned three titles from 1959 to 1965. , the Tommy Lasorda-led groups in 1981 and ’88, and the 2020 champions of Betts and Clayton Kershaw.
Coming off a season that began with a gambling scandal involving Ohtani’s translator during the opening series in South Korea, Roberts won his second championship in nine years as Dodgers manager, matching Lasorda and trailing Walter Alston’s four. Ta. The Dodgers won for the fourth time in 12 series against the Yankees.
New York hasn’t won a title since 2009, when they finished 27th. The Yankees acquired Juan Soto from San Diego in December with the knowledge that he would be eligible for free agency after the 2024 series. The 26-year-old star went 5-for-16 with one RBI in the series as he prepares for strong competition on the open market.
“I’m going to listen to what every team has to say,” Soto said. “There’s no such thing as a closed door, so we’re going to be able to accommodate all 30 teams.”
Judge finished with 4 hits and 3 RBIs for 18 at bats..
“You can’t give a good team like that an extra out,” Judge said. “It starts with me being on a line drive and misplaying it. I think it’s going to be a different story tonight so that doesn’t happen.”
Cole did not allow a hit until Quique Hernandez’s leadoff single in the fifth inning. Judge, who earlier in the inning had made a jumping catch on the left-center wall to block Freeman’s extra-base hit, dropped Tommy Edman’s fly ball to center field. Volpe then flipped Will Smith’s grounder to third base, allowing the Dodgers to load the bases with no outs.
Cole struck out Lux and Ohtani, and Betts grounded out to Rizzo. Mookie’s late grounder was the game-changer in the 1986 World Series by Mookie Wilson of the Mets against Boston.
Cole pointed to Rizzo, who didn’t cover first and didn’t rush for fear of the spinning ball going past him. Betts drives Rizzo into the bag.
“I took a bad angle on the ball,” Cole said. “I wasn’t really sure at first how hard he hit it. … By the time the ball got past me, I wasn’t in position to cover first.”
Freeman followed with a two-run homer, and Teoscar Hernandez hit a game-tying two-run double.
“When you get that extra out and you can take advantage of it in a game like that, that’s huge,” Freeman said. “You can feel the momentum building for us to get back to even.”
In the 6th inning, Stanton hit a sacrifice fly off Brusdar Graterol to give the Yankees a 6-5 lead, but in the 8th inning, Kiké Hernandez singled off Kahnle, Edman followed with an infield hit, and Smith He gave up a walk and got one point back in the end.
“We faced all the adversity and overcame everything,” Freeman said. Freeman won his second title in Atlanta since 2021, bouncing back from an ankle sprain and hitting home runs in each of the first four games of the series.
Acquired by Guggenheim Baseball Management in 2012Two years later, the Dodgers hired Andrew Friedman from Tampa Bay to head baseball operations. He beefed up the front office with a large analytic and performance science staff, funded by ownership.
Los Angeles spent an unprecedented $1.25 billion last offseason signing Ohtani, pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, James Paxton and outfielder Teoscar Hernandez. Much of the money is future debt, increasing the Dodgers’ deferred compensation to $915.5 million from 2028 to 2044.
The Dodgers, plagued by injuries, acquired Flaherty, Edman, and reliever Michael Kopech before the trade deadline, all of whom became important cogs in their quest for a title. With this increase, his salary will increase to $266 million, second only to the Mets and Yankees, and he is expected to pay an additional $43 million in luxury taxes.
Los Angeles will celebrate along with the parade Friday would have been the 64th birthday of Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela, who passed away three days before the series opener.
“It’s going to be emotional for all of us,” Roberts said.
to the next
Los Angeles begins its spring schedule on February 20th against the Chicago Cubs at Camelback Ranch, and the Yankees begin the following day against Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida.
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