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Thursday October 31, 2024
Dodgers Score 5 in 5th to Win Series in 5
What's that sound? That's the news being spread, Yankees fans.
Five. That seems to be the magic number.
The Dodgers were down 5-0 in the fifth, then scored 5 to tie it, then took the World Series in five games.
That top of the 5th deserves looking at. I'm sure the Yankees and their fans will be staring into its abyss for a long time to come.
Remember, at that point, the Dodgers didn't have a hit. Two walks (Lux in the 3rd, Betts in the 4th) were their only baserunners. No one got to third.
Then Kike Hernandez did the Kike Hernandez thing by starting the Dodgers off—with a single. NLCS MVP Tommy Edman followed with an easy fly ball to center that Aaron Judge somehow dropped, doink, Charlie Brown fashion, so now there were runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out. Will Smith followed with a slow roller to the right of shortstop Anthony Volpe, who opted to go to third for the force. Not a bad move. But Kike was fast and Volpe hurried a low throw that newbie hot-corner man Jazz Chisholm Jr. couldn't dig out. Bases juiced.
And even then the Yankees nearly escaped unscathed. Gerritt Cole, probably the best starter on either team in this Series, apparently decided he couldn't trust his fielders anymore and did it on his own, striking out No. 9 hitter Gavin Lux and leadoff hitter Shohei Ohtani—who hasn't been himself since he dislocated his shoulder in Game 2. Then he got Mookie Betts, all-world Mookie, to hit a slow roller to first ... and Cole didn't cover the bag. Replays show he began to jog over but stopped. Did he think Anthony Rizzo had it? Well, he didn't. Betts beat him to the bag and it wasn't a contest. If Cole had made the play, it would still be 5-0 heading into the bottom of the fifth. Instead, it was 5-1, and all-world Freddie Freeman followed with a single to center to plate two; and then Teoscar Hernandez, the former Mariner who hit .350 for the Series, followed with a double in the left-center gap that a speedier centerfielder might've nabbed. And suddenly the game was tied.
A triptych of a tripup: Yankees pointing fingers.
Confession: I didn't watch any of this. I was doing work-work. I could've watched it—in fact, my wife was watching it in the next room—but I was suddenly stricken with too much anxiety. Why? Because the Yankees might win their 28th World Series? Nah. If the Yankees had won the Series I wouldn't have been happy but I would've just shrugged. Oh well, 28, what are you gonna do? No, it was the pathway they were taking, and it was a pathway through something that meant more to me than I realized: the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the only major sports team to ever come back from a three games to none deficit in a best-of-7 series to win it all. The Red Sox, of course, did it against the Yankees—the team that bought their best player, Babe Ruth, in 1919 and then became the Yankees. Back then, the Red Sox were the best team in baseball, winners of five World Series titles when the Yankees hadn't even been. How about them apples? After the trade, the Yankees would become the most successful franchise in sports history while the Red Sox wouldn't win another World Series for the rest of the century. Indeed, the next time the one-time super-successful BoSox won the pennant, 1946, the Yankees already had 14 pennants to their name and 10 championships. By the time the BoSox next won a pennant, 1967, the Yankees had 29 pennants and 20 championships. Excruciating. That's the Curse of the Bambino right there.
That's what was so brilliant, so beautiful, about the 2004 ALCS. It was kismet. It was payback. It was history closing the loop in the most exquisite fashion possible. And it began with the smallest of things: a stolen base in the bottom of the 9th by a bench player they'd traded for midseason: Dave Roberts. Who was now the Dodgers manager.
That was what was causing the anxiety. I'd seen a stat flashed on the screen during Game 4, with the Yankees down three games to none: All the other twentysomething times the World Series began with one team taking the first three games, it was usually a sweep, a handful of times it went to five games, but no team had ever taken it to six. The Yankees would be doing this if they won Game 5. And could they go further? Could they reopen the loop, and the wound, that history had so beautifully and exquisitely closed? By beating the team managed by the guy who had stolen that base? God, no. Please, no. So I couldn't even bear to watch it. I did sneak peeks at the score via ESPN.com and it wasn't good: 2-0, 3-0, 5-0. And then that fifth. But I couldn't even watch it then because I didn't want to screw it up. Baseball fans will understand. If something is working, you need to stick with it, even if it has nothing to do with you, even if you're the most peripheral thing within its universe. So I stayed away. I got a lot of work done. Until my wife opened the door to my office and told me, “You can come out now.” Ya putz.
I would've loved a sweep. The Yankees haven't been swept in the Series since the Reds did it in '76. Before then, Koufax in '63, the year of my birth. Losing in five, though, is actually rarer for them. The Yankees are now 27-14 in World Serieses and this is how they lost the 14:
- In eight games: 1921 (when it was best of nine)
- In seven games: 1926, 1955, 1957, 1960, 1964, 2001
- In six games: 1981, 2003
- In five games: 1942, 2024
- In four games: 1922*, 1963, 1976
* That one in 1922 was actually five games, but one ended in a tie and I don't even know how to count that. Because as the man said, “There's no tying in baseball.”**
** The man in question is my friend Mike Busick, Mr. B, channeling Tom Hanks after that All-Star Game that ended in a tie.
I shouldn't overlook that 8th inning. The Dodgers came back in the 5th, fell back again in the 6th, and went ahead in the 8th on solid baseball. Again, Kike started them off with a sharp single. Then Edman with the seeing-eye kind that Volpe smothered but couldn't make a play on. Then a walk. Pitching change. Luke Weaver on no day's rest. Bottom of the order. But Gavin Lux hit one to center, and not only did Kike score from third but Edman advanced to third—a key play. Ohtani, with the chance again, wound up on first because of catcher's interference. So it was Mookie who hit the deep sac fly to center to put the Dodgers on top. And that's where they stayed. And that's where it ended.
Interesting that the Dodgers won Game 5 without a homer. Before then, they'd lived and died (mostly lived) on the homer. Of the 18 runs they'd scored in the first four games, 13 had come on the long ball. This game, none. Just a lot of two-out thunder.
Freddie Freeman was the much-deserved, no-brainer MVP of the Series. He hit .300 and slugged 1.000. He hit homers in each of the first four games, including that walkoff Grand Slam to end Game 1, which set the tone for what followed. He drove in 12 runs, which ties the Series record setting by Bobby Richardson in 1960. Except Richardson did it in seven games. I love what Freddie said when they brought all those ribbies during the postgame ceremonies: Well, these guys kept getting on base.
Both Teoscar and Tommy Edman had .900+ OPSes. Shohei, no: 2-19, a single and a double. Over on the Yankees ledger, I'm glad Aaron Judge finally broke through with a 2-run homer. In the end, despite his struggles, he had the second-best OPS on the team, .832, just ahead of Giancarlo Stanton's .832. Eight of the nine Yankee regulars hit World Series homers (Stanton hit 2). The one missing? Rizzo.
The Dodgers still needed great relief work from Blake Treinen, who came in during the 6th and stuck around until the end of the 8th. Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty lasted 1.3 innings, threw 35 pitches and gave up 4 runs. Treinen lasted 2.3 innings, threw a Jackie Robinsonesque 42 pitches, and gave up zero runs. Joe Posnanski mentions that the last time Treinen threw more than 2 innings? 2018. Then, in the 9th, he handed off to starter Walker Buehler, who had never closed a game during his MLB career, and who was facing the bottom of the Yankees order: five pitches to Volpe, who grounded to third; seven pitches to Austin Wells, who struck out; and four pitches to Alex Verdugo, who struck out to end the ninth, the game, the Series and the season. And Walker Buehler spread his arms wide, “Gladiator”-like, as if to say, “Are you not amused?”
I am. Very. Thank you, Dodgers.
Buehler, amused.