NEW YORK (AP) – The Los Angeles Dodgers won their second championship in five seasons by overcoming a five-run deficit with the complicity of three defensive errors by the Yankees, defeating New York 7-6 on Wednesday to seal the World Series in five games.
Sacrifice flies by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts in the eighth inning completed the comeback at Yankee Stadium.
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 crashing 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.
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 fanning for the final out, the Dodgers were thrown onto the field at Yankee Stadium. They capped a year in which they accumulated 98 victories for the best record in the majors during the regular season.
Shohei 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.
Freddie 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, when the Dodgers were one out away from defeat in the first duel, 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 opening game and led Los Angeles to the title.
The Dodgers won their eighth World Series championship and their seventh since leaving 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.
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 Teoscar Hernandez. 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 Dave Roberts as manager.
