Finding his groove, Freeman slugs HR in Toronto

TORONTO -- Freddie Freeman has played in Toronto often over the course of his 15-year career, but playing north of the border will always be special for the Dodgers’ star first baseman.

Freeman’s mother, Rosemary, who passed away when the first baseman was a child, grew up just outside the Toronto area. Over the course of his professional career, Freeman has continued to find ways to represent his family and his Canadian roots. Freeman continues to play for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic in order to honor his mother and share her story.

His father, Fred, made the trip from Orange County, something he has done routinely whenever Freeman plays a game in the Canadian city. Despite the Dodgers’ 3-1 loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday at Rogers Centre, which snapped LA’s six-game winning streak, Freeman was able to share a nice moment with his father after hitting a solo homer in the sixth inning, his sixth at Rogers Centre.

“It is nice, especially here in Canada,” Freeman said. “I know he’s seen a few of them in his day, but being here in Toronto and in this special place for our family, I’m happy I was able to do that for him. It’s been a good, good trip for my dad and I and my stepmom.”

Regardless of where the homer came, however, Freeman was also happy to watch a ball go over the wall on a Kevin Gausman fastball. Freeman hadn’t hit a homer since March 28 against the Cardinals, a span of 27 games.

As Freeman constantly reminds everyone, his approach at the plate never changes. His goal is to always hit it over the shortstop’s head. But as he continued to search for more consistency at the plate, Freeman says he has taken three times as many swings pregame as he normally does.

In that quest, Freeman has taken more rounds of batting practice on the field, a rare occurrence for him during the course of a season. Over the last week, however, Freeman said things have started to get better.

“If I knew exactly, I would do the same thing every day and get lots of hits every day, but this game is hard sometimes,” Freeman said. “And everything's kind of been working. [I’ve] just been kind of doing really, really slow, soft swings in BP and let[ting] the adrenaline of the game take the swing a little bit hard, and things have been, the last week, been a lot better."

The numbers back up what Freeman is feeling. In the Dodgers’ nine-game homestand before this road trip, Freeman went 7-for-33 with three extra-base hits. Four of those hits came in the last two games against the Mets.

In the current trip, things have gone much better for Freeman. He has recorded at least one hit in all six games, with three extra-base hits. He's also walked in every game of the trip. The homer on Sunday was the latest sign that the former NL MVP is getting back into form.

“Things are starting to more often be a good swing than feeling one good swing every couple days,” Freeman said. “Not trying to hit home runs. I don't care. I just know once the swing is there for being a good hitter, the power will come behind it."

While Freeman’s numbers would be an overachievement by just about any other player in the Majors, the Dodgers first baseman hasn’t had the start to the season he would like, or one Los Angeles has come to expect. Since joining the Dodgers before the ‘22 season, all Freeman has done is hit. He batted .328/.408/.540 over his first two years with the club, including 50 home runs and an eye-popping 106 doubles. There has never been any panic in the organization, knowing it’s only a matter of time before Freeman turns it on.

Manager Dave Roberts joked that he has never seen someone so disappointed with a .300 batting average. But with what Mookie Betts (.387), Shohei Ohtani (.336) and Will Smith (.367) are doing at the top of the order, the Dodgers can be even better once Freeman gets going. That’s getting closer by the day.

“Freddie’s in a good spot,” Roberts said on Friday. “He was in a dark spot a few days ago, but the sun came up. Even in Toronto. So Freddie’s fine. He’s doing well.”