‘Gibby, Meet Freddie!’ Dodgers Take Game 1 on Freeman’s Walk-off Grand Slam

LOS ANGELES — The injured star meandered to the plate. Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the 10th inning, down a run in the first game of the World Series. It all happened so fast. A first-pitch fastball fired inside, elevated, square in the lefty happy zone. A short, powerful swing beat it to the spot. A towering line drive sliced through the chilly Southern California air, the crowd silent in awe and disbelief for a beat. Then pandemonium, earth-shaking stomps, elated feral screams pierced the air.

In an instant classic, Freddie Freeman, playing through an injured ankle, channeled the iconic Kirk Gibson home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, pounding a first-pitch heater into the right field bleachers for a walk-off grand slam to hand the Dodgers a 6-3 win over the Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium.

“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 dream about, two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game,” Freeman said. “For it to actually happen and get a home run and walk it off to give us a 1-0 lead, that’s as good as it gets right there.”

The 10th inning was a saga unto itself, a seesaw affair in which New York’s win probability swung from 90% to 0% in the span of a few minutes. It looked like the story of the game would be Los Angeles closer Blake Treinen and his inability or refusal to prevent stolen bases; Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled, stole second and third, and scored on a groundball to short to hand the Yankees a 3-2 lead.

After exhausting all of their preferred arms in the first nine innings, the Yankees were left to rely on Jake Cousins to try and close it out. Cousins retired the first hitter he saw before walking Gavin Lux and giving up a single to Tommy Edman.

That forced Yankees manager Aaron Boone’s hand. He didn’t want Cousins, a right-hander, to take on Shohei Ohtani, so he sought out the platoon advantage by bringing in Nestor Cortes, who was making his first appearance in over a month after dealing with a balky elbow. One pitch later, and Boone was looking like a genius — Ohtani put an awkward swing on a middle-middle heater, and left fielder Alex Verdugo sacrificed his body to corral the foul pop, lunging over the barrier along the line and front-flipping after securing the catch. Because Verdugo left the field of play after making the grab, both runners advanced; with two outs, and still seeking the platoon advantage, Boone intentionally walked Mookie Betts to bring up Freeman.

Cortes was not so lucky on his second pitch. He fired a fastball with 21 inches of induced vertical break; it was well-placed horizontally, hitting the inside corner, but not so much vertically. It hung up right where Freeman could mash it. Because the pitch was located inside, it allowed for a perfectly pulled fly ball, rocked at 109-mph and at a 30-degree launch angle. It was a true no-doubt dinger. Freeman triumphantly lifted his bat milliseconds after contact, aware he’d just delivered a legendary moment.

“It’s arguably one of the – might be the greatest baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve witnessed some great ones,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

Until then, it looked like Giancarlo Stanton had been the one to deliver the legendary moment. In the top of the sixth inning, the titanic slugger walloped a Jack Flaherty curveball 116.7-mph to the pull side for a go-ahead two-run dinger, handing the Yankees a 2-1 lead with their top bullpen guys lined up to shut the door. But the Dodgers knotted it up in the bottom of the eighth, linking an Ohtani double with a Betts sac fly to level the score at two.

Things got weird in the top of the ninth, when Gleyber Torres rocked a Michael Kopech fastball deep into left field. A Dodgers fan, unbelievably, reached over the left field wall, snagging the liner before it could complete its journey. The umpires ruled it a fan-interference double, and Torres was stranded at second, setting up the extra inning dramatics that followed.

Before that wild finish, the game was largely defined by the two starting pitchers: Flaherty and Gerrit Cole. They both turned in excellent performances, slicing through hitters and keeping their teams within striking distance.

Flaherty’s NLCS flipped between brilliant and shambolic, leading to questions about how he might equip himself in this series opener. In Game 1 against the Mets, Flaherty threw seven brilliant shutout innings, lending an exhausted Dodgers bullpen some much-needed rest. But in Game 5, Flaherty did not have his best stuff. The Mets lit him up for eight runs over just three innings as the Dodgers effectively punted the game.

As MLB.com’s Mike Petriello tweeted before the game, Flaherty’s performance likely would hinge on his fastball velocity. When Flaherty sits above 93 mph, the expected damage is low and the pitch gets a ton of whiffs. But when it averages 91.4 mph, as it did in his start in Game 5 of the NLCS, it is liable to get hit around.

Petriello proved prophetic: Flaherty’s fastball averaged 93.6 mph, topping out at 96, and the fastball did damage, notching 10 called strikes and a 38% CSW (called-strike-and-whiff percentage). But the knuckle-curve was the real weapon — the Yankees swung at it 17 times and came up empty on 12 of them. Unfortunately for Flaherty, one of those swings was that Stanton two-run homer. He finished with 5 1/3 innings pitched, six strikeouts, one walk, and two earned runs.

Cole might have been even better. Across six-plus innings, the Yankees ace allowed one run on four hits and no walks, and for the fourth time this postseason, he struck out exactly four batters. He flipped his tactics midway through the start, deploying a fastball-heavy approach the first time through the order and emphasizing his softer stuff on successive encounters with the Dodgers lineup. Through two innings, Cole had thrown 70% fastballs.

Navigating through the lineup for a second time, Cole switched up his approach. He went cutter/changeup/cutter to start off his second Ohtani at-bat; Ohtani secured the early edge, bringing the count to 2-1. Cole got back into the count with a cheeky sinker; even though it was located middle-middle, Ohtani could only manage a foul ball, perhaps fooled by the unexpected movement. Cole, sticking with his newfound soft stuff approach, buried a curve on 2-2 to punch out Ohtani.

To Freeman in the bottom of the fourth, Cole continued the assault; he got ahead with two consecutive cutters, breaking Freeman’s bat on a foul ball on the second of the offerings. Ahead once again, Cole jammed Freeman with a 98-mph four-seamer up and in; Freeman shattered his bat again, shoving the pitch to the pull side for a 47-mph exit velocity groundout.

The Dodgers scored the game’s first run off Cole in the bottom of the fifth. With one out, Enrique Hernández drove a heater down the right field line; Juan Soto overran the ball, allowing Hernández to reach third with a triple. It was the Dodgers’ second hit of the game and their second triple, after Freeman — of all people — tripled down the third base line with two outs in the first inning despite his barking ankle. On a 1-1 count, Will Smith lifted a low-and-outside cutter to Soto into relatively shallow right field. Soto caught it a bit awkwardly but produced a strong and accurate throw home; Hernández slid in head first, just ahead of the tag.

As the top of the sixth began, Roberts faced his first difficult decision of the game — let the locked-in Flaherty take on Soto and Judge for a third time, or opt for one of the flamethrowers in the bullpen. Going against the conventional wisdom, Roberts stuck with his horse — and it backfired. Boone made the same decision, and the outcome went his way. The third-time-through-the-order debates would be settled another day.

With Cole finally out in the bottom of the seventh, the Dodgers immediately threatened to tie the game. Clay Holmes started Max Muncy out with a sinker at his boots for ball one; the next pitch, a slider, was too far up, giving Muncy the 2-0 edge. On the third pitch, Holmes overcooked a backfoot sweeper, nipping Muncy’s toe and giving the Dodgers runners on first and second with no outs. Enrique Hernández laid down a bunt, giving up an out to move the runners into scoring position.

Even with a slight Yankees lead, FanGraphs live win probabilities gave the Dodgers a 54.3% chance of winning after Hernández’s bunt. That probability sunk to 37.3% after Smith popped up the first pitch he saw. That was the end of the line for Holmes; Tommy Kahnle, he of 47 consecutive changeups, came in to handle Lux. In the highest leverage at-bat of the first nine innings, Lux rolled over on a — surprise! — changeup, stranding the runners at second and third.

Kahnle stayed in to face Edman to lead off the eighth. He threw four changeups to Edman, who rolled over to short. Ohtani smashed Kahnle’s 56th consecutive changeup 113.9 mph, roping it off the center field wall for a double. Ohtani’s speed forced a hurried throw from Soto; it came up about three feet short, and Torres tried to pick it, but it deflected off his glove. He was unable to locate it right away, and by the time he did, Ohtani had scooted to third with just one out. Boone pushed the closer button, bringing in Luke Weaver to take on Betts and Freeman.

Weaver snuck ahead of Betts, working a 1-2 count, but Betts smoked a changeup to center. For a second, it looked like Judge wouldn’t be able to get to it, but he scampered back just in time, preventing the extra-base hit but catching it with no chance to stop Ohtani from scoring from third on the sac fly. After eight full innings, the game was knotted at two.

In the ninth, things got weird. Torres crushed a 99-mph up-and-in fastball to the very top of the wall for that fan-interference double. Then, Roberts intentionally walked Soto and pulled Kopech; Trienen came in to take on Judge with runners on first and second and two outs.

Treinen unleashed some typical wizardry, whipping two sweepers in the zone to gain the 0-2 edge; Judge ultimately skied a fastball about 200 feet in the air to end the threat.

Weaver took the middle of the Dodgers order in the bottom of the ninth. Teoscar Hernández lined out to Soto in right, and Muncy popped out to short for the second out. Then, Enrique Hernández shattered his bat on a duck snort liner; it looked like it might drop, but Verdugo made a nice sliding catch to retire him and end the inning. This game was going extras.

Trienen picked up right where he left off to start the 10th, dispatching Stanton on some filth. But he left a sinker over the plate to Chisholm, and the third baseman pounced, smacking it past Lux for his second single of the game; he nabbed second a 2-0 pitch to Anthony Rizzo. Pitching coach Mark Prior strolled deliberately to the mound.

After Chisholm took third with no throw, Volpe on a 1-1 count squared around to bunt — but missed. On 1-2, he hit a ground ball up the middle. Edman fielded, and looked like he might have a shot to turn two, but the ball got stuck in the webbing of his glove. Edman got Rizzo at second but Volpe beat the relay to first, staying out of the double play and allowing Chisholm to score the go-ahead run.

With New York’s main leverage arms expended, Boone went to his own sweeper wizard, Cousins, to try and close out the first game of the World Series. He started strong, inducing a Smith fly ball for the first out. But he fell behind Lux, ultimately walking him on a high fastball. Cousins did not mess around against the NLCS MVP Edman, but he couldn’t put the shortstop away, either. Edman laid off an 0-2 slider, then pushed a groundball single up the middle on the 1-2 pitch. Lux likely would have advanced to third, but he hesitated and then tripped rounding second base; he had to scurry back to the bag. The Yankees had two lefties, Cortes and Tim Hill, warming in the bullpen; after Edman reached, Boone went to Cortes, who had last pitched over a month ago.

The rest, we can be sure, will go down in history.