A clash of the Titans. A meeting of Goliaths. An old-fashioned, heavyweight bout.
In the build-up to this year’s World Series, there was no cliché too excessive for the moment. No superlative too grand to oversell the matchup.
Dodgers vs. Yankees. Shohei Ohtani vs. Aaron Judge. Baseball’s annual Fall Classic, under a spotlight like few recent others.
And then, in Game 1 on Friday night, it began in the most dramatic way possible.
With one 10th-inning swing, Freddie Freeman etched his name in Dodgers’ October lore.
The team trailing by a run in the 10th inning, Freeman came to the plate with the bases loaded and two out. He got a first-pitch fastball over the inner half of the plate. Then, he delivered a historic and remarkable swing, launching a walk-off grand slam deep into the right-field pavilion. It was the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history.
Final score: Dodgers 6, Yankees 3.
A World Series of epic proportions, kicked off with a moment that will be remembered for ages.
The 10th inning began ominously for the Dodgers, with the Yankees jumping in front on the back of Jazz Chisholm’s aggressive base-running.
After lining a one-out single off top Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen, Chisholm broke for second with Anthony Rizzo at the plate and stole the base with relative ease. After the Dodgers intentionally walked Rizzo in a 3-and-0 count, Chisholm was on the move again an at-bat later, getting a huge jump off Treinen’s slow delivery to steal third without a throw.
With runners on the corners, Roberts elected to draw the infield in against Anthony Volpe. The move didn’t pan out, with Volpe hitting a sharp grounder up the middle that the shortstop Tommy Edman bobbled from his knees, getting only one out at second as Chisholm scored the go-ahead run.
No matter.
In the bottom of the 10th, Gavin Lux got the rally started with a walk. Edman singled on a ground ball that Oswaldo Cabrera couldn’t cleanly field at second. Then, both runners advanced when left fielder Alex Verdugo sprinted to catch a fly ball from Ohtani, but flipped over the short wall in foul ground and out of play in the process.
That presented the Yankees with a decision.
Let left-handed pitcher Nestor Cortes, who was making his first appearance of the postseason after missing the first two rounds with an injury, pitch to Mookie Betts. Or intentionally walk him with first base open, and set up a lefty-lefty matchup with Freeman.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone chose the latter. He didn’t have to wait long to regret the decision.
Despite being limited by a severely sprained right ankle all postseason, and finishing the National League Championship Series in a one-for-15 slump, Freeman had started feeling better this week — benefiting from a four-day break before the World Series, as well as a breakthrough with his swing in the batting cage.
Focused on a new mental cue in the box — one where he tried to imagine “stepping out” with his injured lead foot, more as a mental trigger than anything — Freeman timed up a first-pitch fastball over the inner half of the plate.
The ball found the barrel. A 109-mph line drive soared through the night.
Freeman raised his bat in the air, as 52,394 at Dodger Stadium erupted around him. The ball disappeared into the right-field pavilion; not far from where Kirk Gibson, playing through his own leg injuries 36 years earlier, landed his iconic Game 1 two-run walk-off home run in the 1988 World Series.
“Everything was the same,” manager Dave Roberts remarked. “Outside of the fist pumps.”
Read more: Complete coverage: Dodgers vs. New York Yankees in World Series
Instead, Freeman met first base coach Clayton McCullough with a low high five. He flexed his arms as he rounded second. By the time he reached the home stretch, his teammates were waiting, arms raised and mouths agape, for a celebration at the plate.
“It felt like nothing, just kind of floating,” Freeman said. “Those are the scenarios you dream about: Two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game. For it to actually happen and get a home run and walk it off to give us a 1-0 lead, that’s as good as it gets right there.”
The sequence made everything else about Friday night feel like a footnote.
The early pitchers’ duel between Jack Flaherty (5 ⅓ innings, two runs, six strikeouts) and Gerrit Cole (six innings, one run, four strikeouts).
The sixth-inning, two-run homer from Giancarlo Stanton that put the Yankees ahead 2-1.
Even Ohtani’s eighth-inning double — a line drive off the wall that ended with him at third, after a cut-off throw got away from second baseman Gleyber Torres — that set up Betts for the tying sacrifice fly.
In a series that seemed almost impossible to live up to the hype, Freeman delivered a moment that won’t soon be forgotten.
“For us to get that first win, especially like that, that’s pretty good,” Freeman said, forever understated. “But we’ve got three more to go.”
Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
