The Los Angeles Dodgers are World Series champions for an eighth time after roaring back from five runs down to win 7-6 over the New York Yankees in a tightly wound Game 5 clincher on Wednesday night in the Bronx.
The Yankees appeared bound to send a series they’d once trailed 3-0 back to Los Angeles for a sixth game when Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr pounced on Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty with back-to-back homers in the first inning, staking a 3-0 lead while igniting the rollicking sold-out crowd of 49,263. Alex Verdugo’s RBI single in the second chased Flaherty after just four outs, while Giancarlo Stanton’s solo shot to right in the third extended the margin to 5-0.
But the Dodgers piled on five unearned runs to go level in the fifth behind a series of dreadful errors from the Yankees and RBI hits from Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández, all off Yankee starter Gerrit Cole, who’d brought a no-hitter into the frame. Miscues by Judge in center and Game 4 hero Anthony Volpe, compounded by Cole’s failure to cover first on Betts’ grounder, left the contest on a knife’s edge.
The Yankees nosed ahead 6-5 on a Stanton sacrifice fly in the sixth, but the Dodgers took the lead for good in the eighth on a pair of sacrifice flies by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts off Luke Weaver after having loaded the bases with no outs against Tommy Kahnle.
New York made one final push in the bottom of the eighth when Judge reached second on a one-out double off Blake Treinen and Chisholm walked on five pitches to set the table for Stanton. But Treinen coaxed the Yankees’ $325m designated hitter into a pop-out to short right field before striking out Anthony Rizzo on a nasty 85mph sweeper to end the threat.
“I looked in his eyes. I said how you feeling? How much more you got?” Roberts said of his mount visit to Treinen after walking Chisholm. “He said: ‘I want it.’ I trust him.”
Game 3 winner Walker Buehler, making his first relief appearance in more than six years, struck out Verdugo swinging for the final out after many of the Yankee faithful had already filed out of the stadium, putting the finishing touches on the Dodgers’ second title in five years and their seventh since controversially leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles in 1958.
The 30-year-old Buehler became only the second pitcher in World Series history to earn a win as a starter and record the save in the clinching victory after the Madison Bumgarner, who did it for the San Francisco Giants in 2014.
After Flaherty was pulled in the second inning, the Dodgers deployed no fewer than seven relievers to keep the resurgent Yankee lineup at bay. The eight pitchers used was a World Series record for a clinching win.
“There’s just a lot of ways we can win baseball games,” Buehler said. “Obviously the superstars we have on our team and the discipline, it just kind of all adds up.
The Dodgers, whose 98 regular-season victories were the most in the majors, became the first team in a World Series-clinching win to come back from down five or more runs. The previous mark was held by the Pittsburgh Pirates, who overturned a four-run deficit to win Game 7 of the 1925 World Series.
The home runs by Judge and Chisholm marked the first back-to-back homers by the Yankees in a World Series since Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson in Game 5 of the 1978 Fall Classic, but the early outburst wasn’t enough to extend their chase of a 28th championship.
None of the 25 teams to have faced a 3-0 deficit in the World Series have managed to extend it to a Game 6 much less come back to win. The Yankees, who were back in the Fall Classic for the first time since 2009, are only the fourth team to have averted a sweep and even forced a fifth game, joining the 1970 Cincinnati Reds, the 1937 New York Giants and the 1910 Chicago Cubs.
“As I said to the guys, obviously it stings now,” New York manager Aaron Boone said after the defeat. “But this is going to sting forever.”
Freeman, who homered in the first four games and whose record streak of six straight World Series games with a home run came to an end, hit a two-run single to tie the Fall Classic record of 12 RBIs set by Bobby Richardson over seven games in 1960. The 35-year-old first baseman was a straightforward choice for Most Valuable Player honors.
Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ record $700m signing, finished his first World Series with a .105 batting average (2-for-19) with no RBIs after separating his shoulder during a stolen base attempt in Game 2.
The Dodgers and Yankees were meeting in the World Series for a 12th time, making it the most frequent matchup in the history of the Fall Classic, but it marked their first encounter in 43 years.
