Dodgers upend Yanks with historic comeback for 8th World Series title

NEW YORK – To win it all, the Dodgers had to give it all. Had to stare down an ugly early deficit. Had to empty their bullpen. Had to rally against Gerrit Cole and then against the Yankees’ best relievers. Had to get a World Series-clinching save from starter Walker Buehler, of all people.

With an unflappable team effort, the Dodgers claimed their second World Series title in the last five years and their first in a full season since 1988 by beating the Yankees in Game 5 on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

And in this 7-6 victory, the Dodgers earned their champagne celebration the hard way, becoming the first team in a World Series-clinching win to come back from down five or more runs. They also became the first team in MLB postseason history to fall behind by five-plus runs, erase that deficit, fall behind again and yet still win the game.

They did it to clinch the World Series title.

“We’re obviously resilient, but there’s so much love in this clubhouse that won this game today,” Mookie Betts said on the field postgame. “That’s what it was. It was love. It was grit. It was just a beautiful thing. I’m just proud of us, and I’m just happy for us.”

The Dodgers trailed 5-0 against an unhittable Cole early, only to score five unearned runs by taking advantage of the Yankees’ many defensive miscues in the fifth. They got only 1 1/3 innings out of starter Jack Flaherty a night after a bullpen game, which meant deploying an army of arms to navigate a revived Yankee lineup. And they trailed again in the late innings, only to manufacture the tying and go-ahead runs off high-leverage relievers Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver.

In a World Series stocked with superstars and heavy on historical significance, the Dodgers proved themselves the deeper and more fundamentally sound club. And in hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy on the heels of a 162-game season, they quieted anyone who claimed that their ongoing run of NL West dominance – including 11 division titles, 12 consecutive postseason appearances and five seasons with 100-plus wins dating back to 2013 – was marred by mostly empty Octobers, save for one burst of brilliance in the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

The Dodgers are champions now in a format that needs no additional explanation. En route to the franchise’s eighth title, they outlasted the division-rival Padres in a scintillating five-game Division Series, overwhelmed the Mets in the NLCS and humbled a Yankees team that had reached the Fall Classic for the first time since 2009 and had the raucous home crowds to prove it.

L.A. was led by one of the greatest offensive performances in World Series history from Freddie Freeman, whose pair of RBIs in Game 5 gave him a Fall Classic record-tying 12 in only five games and the World Series MVP honors. But the Dodgers’ performance in the clincher was also evidence of how they don’t always need a gargantuan walk-off grand slam like the one Freeman provided in Game 1 – or, in fact, any balls over the wall – to piece together a postseason win.

The Dodgers won a Game 5 of wild extremes.

After going hitless in the first inning in each of the World Series’ first four games, the Bronx Bombers erupted in the first inning of this one. Facing Flaherty, Aaron Judge shook off his persistent postseason struggles with a 403-foot homer to the opposite field in right. And when Jazz Chisholm Jr. went back to back with a solo shot of his own to make it 3-0, Yankee Stadium was shaking.

Seemingly unlocked by Anthony Volpe’s Game 4 grand slam, the Yankee offense kept coming in the third, when Giancarlo Stanton obliterated Ryan Brasier’s elevated fastball for a solo blast – his seventh homer of this postseason.

Three innings, three dingers, and the Yankees were ahead, 5-0. The series, it appeared, would be heading back west.

But then came one of the most damaging defensive innings you’ll ever see.

It happened in the fifth. To that point, Cole had held the Dodgers hitless. But Kiké Hernández broke it up with a leadoff single. Tommy Edman then sent a fly ball Judge’s way in center field, and Judge simply and shockingly dropped the can of corn for his first error of 2024. Will Smith then reached on a fielder’s choice when Volpe fielded a grounder to short and threw errantly to third on an attempted force play.

Thanks to the two errors, the Dodgers had the bases loaded. Cole settled down to strike out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. But then he made an inexplicable gaffe of his own when he didn’t cover first on a Betts grounder down the first-base line. First baseman Anthony Rizzo couldn’t beat Betts to the bag, Hernández scored, and the Dodgers were on the board.

It only got worse for the Yankees from there. The unstoppable Freeman smacked a single to center to drive in a pair and make it 5-3. Then Teoscar Hernández lofted a long double off the wall in left-center to bring Betts and Freeman home to tie it at 5, with all the Dodgers’ runs in the inning unearned.

Now, Yankee Stadium was stunned. But when New York regained the lead on a Stanton sacrifice fly in the sixth, the anticipation of a Game 6 was in the air again.

The Dodgers, though, just wouldn’t go away.

In the eighth, they loaded the bases against Kahnle. The Yankees turned to closer Luke Weaver, and Lux lifted a sac fly to center to bring in the tying run. A catcher’s interference called on Austin Wells on an Ohtani swing loaded the bases again, and Betts lifted another sac fly to center to make it 7-6.

After a one-out double from Judge in the eighth, Blake Treinen got some of the biggest outs of the evening when he got Stanton to fly out and Anthony Rizzo to strike out swinging. And with the ‘pen fully employed, manager Dave Roberts summoned Buehler, the winning pitcher in his Game 3 start on Monday, for the final outs.

When Buehler finished a perfect inning by getting Alex Verdugo to swing through strike three, he raised his arms to his sides as the Dodgers sprinted toward the mound. It was an odd end to an odd game, but it was yet another example of the 2024 Dodgers having all the answers.

“This trophy belongs to everybody," Roberts said. “Even when we were down 5-0, they persevered, kept fighting, and now we’re world champions.”