NEW YORK — The 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers were loaded with stars but have been decimated by injuries. He had spent the entire season overcoming adversity.
And finally, when it came time to win the championship, they did it once again, erasing a five-run deficit and using seven relievers – including starting pitcher Walker Buehler – to cover 23 outs in a 7–6 loss. To, let's say, a come-from-behind win over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night.
With this, the Dodgers won their eighth title in franchise history, their first since the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season and their first title in a full season since 1988. The Dodgers became the first team to use more than seven pitchers to win a championship. ,
“We're obviously flexible, but there's a lot of love in the clubhouse that won this game today,” Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts said. “That's what it was. It was love, it was patience. I mean, it was just a beautiful thing. I'm just proud of us and I'm happy for us.”
His comeback was a result of the many opportunities he got in the fifth innings. Aaron Judge hit a ricochet right at him with his glove. Anthony Volpe threw wide of third base in an attempt to force out. Anthony Rizzo hit a slow roller but there was no one to turn over at first base. With two outs and the bases loaded, Freddy Freeman followed with a two-run single and Teoscar Hernandez added a two-run double, tying the score at 5–5.
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole was stellar through the first four innings and gave the Dodgers no hits, throwing only 49 pitches. He then threw 38 pitches in the fifth inning, requiring six outs.
The five-run comeback was tied for the fourth-largest comeback in World Series history, behind the 1929 Athletics' eight-run comeback against the Cubs in Game 4, the 1996 Yankees' six-run comeback against the Braves in Game 4, and the 1996 Yankees' six-run comeback against the Braves in Game 4, according to ESPN Research. According to the Dodgers' six-run comeback against the Yankees in Game 2 of 1956.
“We took advantage of every mistake they made in that inning,” Teoscar Hernandez said. “We put some good at-bats together. We put the ball in play.”
The Yankees re-took the lead on Giancarlo Stanton's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth and maintained it when Clay Holmes came on in relief of Cole and struck out Max Muncy with two on and two out in the top of the seventh. But the Dodgers went ahead again in the eighth.
Enrique Hernandez and Tommy Edman led off with back-to-back singles and Will Smith walked on four straight pitches, prompting Yankees manager Aaron Boone to replace Tommy Kahnle with Luke Weaver, who homered in Game 4. Recorded four outs. Gavin Lux and Bates followed with sacrifice flies. , giving the Dodgers their first lead – which they would not relinquish.
The Yankees threatened in the bottom half, with two on and one out against a tiring Blake Treinen. Daniel Hudson and Buehler, the Game 3 starter who has struggled out of the bullpen throughout his career, were practicing. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts came out for a brief conversation with Treinen, who asked Stanton out and ruled out Rizzo, ending the threat.
Buehler checked in in the ninth and retired the bottom of the Yankees' lineup in order. He spread his arms and looked towards his dugout, then was immediately surrounded by the crowd.
“There are a lot of ways we can win baseball games,” Buehler said. “Obviously the superstars we have on our team and the discipline, it all adds up.”
It was the perfect capstone to an impressive performance. According to ESPN Research, the 2020 '24 Dodgers became the first team since the 1953 to '57 Yankees with multiple World Series titles and a winning percentage of .640 or better over a five-season span.
The Dodgers of this era reached the World Series in 2017 and suffered a disappointing seven-game loss to the Houston Astros, a team that was later revealed to be illegally stealing signs. The Dodgers returned to the World Series in 2018, but lost to the Boston Red Sox, and suffered a heartbreaking loss to the underdog Washington Nationals in the deciding game of the 2019 National League Division Series.
The Dodgers finally found success in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, bouncing back from a 3–1 series deficit against the Atlanta Braves in the NL Championship Series and then defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in six games to claim the World Series . First title in 32 years. The next three years brought more disappointment – being defeated by the Braves in the 2021 NLCS, then upset by the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2022 and 2023 NLDS, respectively.
The following offseason the Dodgers spent more than $1 billion on two generational players, two-way star Shohei Ohtani and young starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Tyler Glasnow was acquired via trade and signed to a lucrative extension. Teoscar Hernandez arrived on a massive one-year contract.
But injuries devastated the next regular season. Yamamoto, Bates, Muncy, Treinen and Brusder Graterol all missed extended time; Several key members of their rotation – Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone and Emmett Sheehan – were lost to injuries late in the season. On the night they won their 11th NL West title in 12 years, Freeman sprained his right ankle. On the night they took a 2–1 lead in the World Series, Ohtani injured his left shoulder.
But the Dodgers kept going. He used a bullpen game to knock the Padres off their season while on the road in Game 4 of the NLDS, then came back to Dodger Stadium and shut them out to advance to the next round. They then used a tremendous offensive attack to defeat the surging New York Mets, accumulating an NLCS-record 46 runs. The first three games of the World Series demonstrated their dominance from start to finish.
Trailing by one with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth in Game 1, Freeman delivered a Kirk Gibson-style walk-off grand slam for a thrilling victory. But it was the starting pitching that powered the Dodgers over the first three games, with Jack Flaherty, Buehler and Yamamoto, the only three members of a poor rotation, allowing only three runs in 16 2/3 innings.
The Dodgers suffered an eventual loss in Game 4 using mostly low-leverage relievers. Despite trailing by just one run after five innings and heading into the eighth, the idea was to save their best relievers for Game 5. Those relievers started early in the second inning as Factory allowed four runs on back-to-back homers by Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. and an RBI single by Alex Verdugo.
Anthony Banda, Ryan Brasier, Michael Kopech, Alex Vescia, Graterol and Treinen — representing a group of arms that has stepped up often this postseason — combined to hold the Yankees to just two runs on four hits in 6 2/3 innings. slap down. innings, consolidating a title.
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