Thirty-six years later, the impossible happened again at Dodger Stadium.
Hobbled by a bad ankle sprain for the entire playoffs, Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman channeled Kirk Gibson by ripping a walk-off grand slam off Nestor Cortes in the 10th inning to give his team a 6-3 victory and a 1-0 series lead.
“I want to run through this table and tackle all you guys. It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight,” Freeman said of his adrenaline postgame, according to Newsweek’s J.P. Hoornstra.
It was the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history and second in postseason history, joining Texas’ Nelson Cruz in Game 2 of the 2011 ALCS. Freeman is the third player to hit a walk-off homer in the World Series while his team was trailing, joining Gibson – whose iconic pinch-hit blast ended Game 1 of the 1988 World Series at Dodger Stadium – and Joe Carter’s series-winning homer in 1993.
“It felt like nothing. I was just kind of floating,” Freeman said when asked to describe what it felt like rounding the bases, per SNY. “Those are the kind of things, when you’re 5 years old with your two older brothers and you’re playing wiffle ball in the backyard, those are the scenarios you kind of dream about.”
Asked about comparisons to Gibson’s homer, Freeman quipped: “I played the whole game, though,” according to Dylan Hernández of the Los Angeles Times.
New York took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 10th, with the bottom of the Dodgers’ lineup due up. But Yankees reliever Jake Cousins, looking for just his second career save, allowed Gavin Lux and Tommy Edman to reach base and bring Shohei Ohtani to the plate.
Cortes entered to face Ohtani and got the superstar to fly out to Alex Verdugo, who tumbled into the stands while making a dramatic catch. New York then intentionally walked Mookie Betts to load the bases for Freeman and give Cortes, who was making his first appearance since Sept. 18, the left-on-left matchup they preferred.
“We’ve been seeing it all year. They’ve been walking Shohei to get to Mookie, walking Mookie to get to me. That’s what’s good about our lineup,” Freeman said, per Hoornstra.
Freeman hurt his ankle in the final week of the regular season. The injury would normally require an IL stint, but he sat out of three games this postseason and went just 7-for-32 with no homers during the first two rounds.
On Friday, the 35-year-old looked much more like himself even before the grand slam. Moving less gingerly, he shocked everyone in Dodger Stadium by ripping a first-inning triple.
“I actually felt pretty good,” Freeman told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. “The last six days we treated it pretty well. … Right when I ran out to give high-fives to my teammates (pregame) I felt pretty good, ’cause that was the first time I ran all week.”
The instant classic Game 1 was scoreless through four innings as starters Gerrit Cole and Jack Flaherty dueled. L.A. opened the scoring on Will Smith’s sacrifice fly in the fifth, but the Yankees struck back in the top of the sixth when Giancarlo Stanton ended Flaherty’s night by homering in his fourth straight playoff game to grab a 2-1 lead.
The Dodgers finally got to New York’s bullpen in the eighth. Ohtani ripped a liner off the wall for a double and scooted to third on Juan Soto’s throwing error. He was quickly brought home on Betts’ sacrifice fly to tie the game at 2-2.
Gleyber Torres looked like he had the go-ahead homer for a moment in the top of the ninth, but umpires correctly called fan interference, leaving him with a double. Pinch runner Jasson Domínguez was ultimately stranded at second.
Both starters fared well against dominant lineups. Flaherty bounced back from last week’s meltdown against the New York Mets, striking out six on five hits with just two runs allowed in 5 1/3 innings. Cole, making his first World Series start since 2019, gave up four hits over six-plus frames with four strikeouts.
Yankees superstar Aaron Judge went 1-for-5 with three strikeouts in his World Series debut.
