Month of MLB: Day 26

When I was in the third grade, I spent a long time working my way through a book called Stars of the Series.  It was a history of the World Series from 1903 up to 1964, with detailed descriptions of each series, and thrilling descriptions of the most dramatic games in baseball history.  By the time I was 10 years old, I was familiar with the Miracle Braves of 1914, Walter Johnson's triumph in the Seventh Game of the 1924 World Series, Enos Slaughter's run for the Cardinals over the Red Sox in 1946, Willie Mays's catch of Vic Wertz's long drive in 1954, and many other such events.

Last night, in Game One of the World Series, the Dodgers and the Yankees played a thriller worthy of that history.  It was the best game in the World Series since at least 2016, and one of the best baseball games ever played.  Here is a brief summary of what happened.

Jack Flaherty (13-7) started for the Dodgers, and Gerrit Cole (8-5) started for the Yankees.  They were both sharp, and there was no score after four innings.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Dodgers opened the scoring.  With one out, Enrique Hernandez tripled to right field.  Will Smith then hit a long fly to right.  Most of the time, Hernandez could have trotted home with the run -- but Juan Soto plays right field for the Yankees, and his arm is a cannon.  Soto's throw was excellent, but Hernandez dashed home, just sliding under the tag and putting the Dodgers ahead 1-0.

However, Soto led off the top of the sixth with a ringing single to center.  Flaherty got Aaron Judge to strike out, but Giancarlo Stanton reached down and golfed a pitch 417 feet into the left field seats.  It was a stupendous blow, and it put the Yankees up 2-1.

The Dodgers had a great chance to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth, after Tommy Edman led off the inning with a double.  But Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts grounded out, and Freddy Freeman stranded Edman at third when he flied out to right.  Still 2-1 for New York.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Dodgers had another great opportunity.  Teoscar Hernandez led off with a single that ended Cole's evening.  Clay Holmes came in to pitch, and promptly hit Max Muncy, putting runners on first and second with no outs.  Hernandez laid down a beautiful sacrifice to put men on second and third.  But Holmes got Will Smith to pop up, and Tommy Kahnle (a new Yankee pitcher) retired Gavin Lux on a groundout to end the inning.  Still 2-1 for New York.

Tommy Edman led off the bottom of the eighth by grounding out, and Ohtani came up for what would likely be his last chance unless something changed.  On the radio, Eduardo Perez said that Kahnle was not a good choice to pitch to Ohtani, because Ohtani is dangerous against the type of off-speed pitching Kahnle relies upon.  Ohtani then made Perez look like a genius, as he crushed the next pitch to right field.  At first, it looked like a home run, but it was one of those balls that has a top spin, and it ended up banging off the top of the right field wall.  Ohtani easily made it to second -- and advanced to third when Soto's throw got away from the Yankees second baseman.  For the third inning in a row, the Dodgers had the tying run on third with one out.  Yankees manager Aaron Boone brought in his closer, Luke Weaver, to try to prevent the run.  But after a great at-bat, Mookie Betts hit a 1-2 pitch on a long fly to center to bring home Ohtani and tie the game.  Freeman then flew out to Judge.  Dodgers 2, Yankees 2 after 8.

With two out in the top of the ninth, and Michael Kopech now pitching for the Dodgers, Gleyber Torres blasted a drive to left that was caught by a fan.  The umpires concluded -- and video replay confirmed -- that if the fan had not caught the ball, it would have bounced off the wall.  So they awarded Torres second base, where he was replaced by a pinch hitter.  The Dodgers intentionally walked Soto to bring up Aaron Judge, and then brought in former Nat Blake Treinen to pitch to judge.  Throwing Judge a series of sweeper pitches, Treinen eventually got Judge to pop out and end the inning.

In the bottom of the ninth, Weaver mowed down the Dodgers 1-2-3, and for the third year in a row, Game One of the World Series went to Extra Innings.

In the top of the tenth, Treinen struck out Giancarlo Stanton, but then Jazz Chisholm went to war for the Yankees.  He singled to right.  He stole second base.  He stole third base, and then he scored on a grounder by Anthony Volpe.  Treinen avoided further damage, but the Yankees led 3-2 going into the bottom of the 10th.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, they could no longer use Weaver, so they brought in Jake Cousins (2-1, 2.37 ERA in 37 appearances).  Cousins could win the game if he retired the Dodgers' 7-8-9 hitters.  He got Will Smith to fly out to right, but then he walked Gavin Lux, and then allowed a single to Tommy Edman.  Lux had a chance to reach third, but fell down rounding second and had to scramble back to the bag.  The Dodgers replaced Lux with pinch runner Chris Taylor.

With the tying run on second, the winning run on first, and Shohei Ohtani coming to the plate, Aaron Boone decided to make another pitching change.  This time he went with Nestor Cortes, a left-hander who is normally a starter.  In the regular season, Cortes went 9-10 with a 3.77 ERA in 30 starts, but he hadn't pitched since September 18.  Now he pitched to Ohtani, and Ohtani jumped on the first pitch.  However, he didn't hit it solidly -- it sailed off to left field, slicing foul.  It looked like it might go into the stands, but Alex Verdugo made a spectacular diving catch that actually carried him over the low wall that runs down the left field line in Dodger Stadium.  So now there were two outs, but the runners advanced to second and third.  With Mookie Betts coming to the plate, Boone decided to walk him, load the bases, and let Cortes go after Freeman to win the game.

Freeman has had foot problems for months, and at one point there were serious concerns that he might have to sit out of at least some of the playoffs.  But after a week off, he was moving better last night than he had in a long time, and he had beaten out a triple earlier on the night.  Now he, like Ohtani, swung at Cortes's first pitch -- but he, unlike Ohtani, hit it solid.  If you've been paying close attention to this narrative, you know that the Dodgers hit one ball after another to right field last night, but all of them came up short of a home run.  So when Freeman hit a fly ball to right, I was immediately fearful that he had flown out to end the game.  But Fox kept its camera focused on Freeman, and you could see the Dodger fans going nuts in the background.  You could also see that Freeman wasn't moving -- he was just standing there watching the ball.  Then he did a gesture I don't ever remember seeing before.  He took the bat with one hand, and extended it straight up over his head, like King Arthur holding up Excalibur.  And that's how I knew that Freddy Freeman had hit the first walk-off Grand Slam in 120 years of World Series games, and that the Dodgers led the Series one game to nothing after a 6-3 victory in ten innings.

There were some Yankees fans who complained about Boone going to Cortes, and the Yankees could also regret leaving 11 men on base, but on the whole both teams played at an extraordinarily high level, and both of them will like their chances going forward.  Tonight they meet again in Dodger Stadium at 7:08 P.M. Central.  The Yankees will start Carlos Rodon (16-9, 3.96 ERA in 32 starts).  The Dodgers will counter with Yoshinobu Yamamoto (7-2, 3.00 ERA in 18 starts, as he was limited due to injury).  It should be another good one.