I did a game by game diary of the NBA Finals. Of course, I had to bring it back for the World Series with the Dodgers playing the Yankees. I’ve been waiting for the World Series my whole life. It’s the most common World Series of all time. It happened 11 times in the 41-year stretch from 1941-1981. But then we went 43 years before it happened again. So for the first time in my life, we got Dodgers-Yankees in the World Series. I was hoping it would be like 2008, when I got the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals I had been waiting for (it had happened before in my lifetime, but 2008 was the first Celtics-Lakers Finals I could remember and it was wonderful). When the Celtics won the championship this year, my blog post was Party Like It’s 1981 and one of the reasons I picked 1981 for the title (there are lots of years I could have chosen for the Celtics) was because the Dodgers won the World Series later that year. Much like 1981 (and 1959, 1963, and 1965), the Celtics and Dodgers have won championships in the same year. This was the first time I got to experience my two favorite professional teams winning championships in the same year. So anyway, here we go.
I did not expect this for most of the season. |
Game 1
I wore my 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers World Champions shirt. I heated up a leftover slice of Little Vincent’s and a leftover slice of Chefs broccoli cheddar and drank a Brooklyn Lager as the game started. I was ready to enjoy this game. Game 1 was a great baseball game. While it still looked like I might not be happy about the result, it was a great baseball game. And then we got the most memorable ending of a World Series Game 1 since 1988. Both teams got good pitching from their starters. Jack Flaherty was good, but Gerrit Cole was better. Fortunately Flaherty was a lot better than he was in Game 5 against the Mets. NLCS MVP Tommy Edman (what a great acquisition by Andrew Friedman) had a really good game that will probably end up being forgotten. He had two hits, scored a run, and saved a run with a really good play in the field. Gleyber Torres came very close to giving the Yankees the lead in the ninth, but it ended up being a double on fan interference instead of a home run. When it happened, I thought right away that it wasn’t a home run. I’m glad that was the initial call, because I don’t know if you could overturn it if it had been ruled a home run. It was reviewed and they said the call was confirmed. But it didn’t seem confirmed to me looking at the replays. Like I don’t think it was going to be a home run, but I’m not 100% sure. The fan clearly reached out over the wall, but he also caught it above the wall. Blake Treinen stranded two runners in the top of the ninth, but then he gave up a lead in the top of the tenth. He stranded a runner at second and we went to the bottom of the tenth with the Dodgers trailing 3-2. I felt like they had a pretty good chance. If one runner reached, Shohei Ohtani would get to hit as the game winning run. Gavin Lux walked and then Tommy Edman got his second hit of the game. With one out and the game winning run on first, the Yankees brought in Nestor Cortes, who hadn’t pitched in more than a month with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman coming up. Ohtani hit a fly ball that Alex Verdugo made a really nice catch on. The problem for the Yankees was that Verdugo had to go into the stands to make the catch. I knew the rule and that meant that the runners got to advance. I knew they would then walk Betts and have Cortes pitch to Freeman. Freeman didn’t waste any time and hit a game winning grand slam on the first pitch. The Dodgers won 6-3 and it was amazing. It didn’t take any stupid Rob Manfred rule to end an absolute classic game in ten innings. Joe Davis had a fantastic call that referenced Vin Scully’s call of Kirk Gibson’s home run in Game 1 in 1988. I’ve watched it like 15 times already (I’m writing this like an hour after the game ended). So that was Game 1. It was amazing. But it’s a long series. I don’t expect this to be like the NBA Finals when I expected the Celtics to win fairly easily (I’m still confused about why people thought the Mavericks would win). The Dodgers have beaten the Yankees thrice in the World Series. And in two of those three series, they lost Game 1. So there’s a long way to go in this one.
Game 2
We all know that the Astros cheated in 2017, but the Dodgers still could have won that World Series. They let Game 2 slip away. The Dodgers almost let Game 2 slip away tonight, but fortunately they held on to win. The Dodgers did their scoring early. Tommy Edman continues to be amazing. He got it started with a home run in the second. The Yankees quickly answered with a home run by Juan Soto in the third. Juan Soto is terrifying. But that was the only hit Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed. He was fantastic for six and a third. I’m hoping his season is now done because he is in line to pitch Game 6. If Game 6 doesn’t happen, the Dodgers will be World Series Champions. Anyway, the Dodgers quickly retook the lead with a two run home run by Teoscar Hernandez and then a solo home run by Freddie Freeman in the third. And that was all of their scoring. Anthony Banda and Michael Kopech were excellent out of the bullpen. But Blake Treinen was shaky in the ninth. He gave up a run and loaded the bases. But he struck out Anthony Volpe for the second out. After Treinen got two outs on 33 pitches, Alex Vesia got the third out on one pitch when he got Jose Trevino to fly out to center. So the Dodgers won 4-2. I would think Treinen should pitch in no more than one game in New York. He’s thrown a lot of pitches the last two nights. I would go to Kopech or Graterol in the ninth in Game 3. But the big concern is Shohei Ohtani. He got caught stealing and hurt his shoulder. The way he looked coming off the field wasn’t good. It’s good to be up 2-0, but this series is far from over. The last two times these teams met in the World Series, a team went up 2-0 and then lost the next four games. So hopefully that history won’t repeat itself this year. Also Notre Dame beat a ranked team, Brian Kelly predictably lost a big game on the road, and the Celtics won. So today was a good day of sports.
Game 3
The Dodgers are one win away from being World Series Champions. Walker Buehler was excellent for five innings. He had a pretty bad year coming back from his second Tommy John surgery, but he’s looked good in the playoffs. He’s going to be a free agent so he’s picked a good time to start pitching well again. We’ll see what happens in free agency, but he will always be a big part of helping the Dodgers win two championships as long as they can finish this off. Freddie Freeman hit another home run and he’s on his way to being World Series MVP. Teoscar Hernandez made a great throw to get Stanton at the plate and end an inning. The bullpen was a little shaky. They got out of some jams and then Kopech gave up a two run home run in the ninth, but they held on to win. Tomorrow is a bullpen game. Up 3-0, the Dodgers will probably use at least two of Landon Knack, Ben Casparius, and Brett Honeywell. So the Yankees should have a decent chance to get a win, but there’s always the possibility that the Dodgers score 10 runs and don’t need a great game from their pitchers. I’m in favor of that tomorrow.
Game 4
Well, this was like Game 4 for the Celtics. I wore my Sandy Koufax jersey hoping for the sweep like 1963, but the sweep was not to be. Freddie Freeman hit a first inning home run (to break cheater George Springer’s record for most consecutive World Series games with a home run), but the rest of the game wasn’t good. Ben Casparius and Landon Knack were solid. Daniel Hudson and Brett Honeywell were not. The good news is that they were able to rest the high leverage bullpen guys other than Hudson. Hopefully they’ll finish it off in five like the Celtics did.
Game 5
I planned on doing a running diary of Game 5 like I did for Game 5 of the NBA Finals when the Celtics finished off the Mavericks. I started it and gave up in the second inning. Here are two of my entries from before I gave up:
8:21- Jazz Chisholm hits a home run. It looks like we’re getting bad Jack Flaherty like we did in Game 5 against the Mets. The good news is the Dodgers are up 3-1. The bad news is that unlike against the Mets, the Dodgers don’t have their low leverage relievers available today to eat up innings so they’ll probably have to use their high leverage guys even if this game isn’t competitive.
8:25- Anthony Rizzo strikes out. If the Dodgers can somehow get into the Yankees’ bullpen early tonight, they’ll have a chance. If Cole pitches well, the game will probably be out of reach by the time it gets to the bullpen.
Well, they had to use their high leverage guys. Cole pitched well, but the game was not out of reach by the time it got to the Yankee bullpen because of some truly horrendous fielding in the fifth inning. The Dodgers scored five runs when they shouldn’t have scored any that inning. After two errors, Mookie Betts drove in a run on an RBI single because Cole didn’t cover first base on a ground ball to Anthony Rizzo. Freddie Freeman drove in two runs with a single. And Teoscar Hernandez drove in two more with a double to tie the game. The Yankees retook the lead with a sacrifice fly by Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth. The Yankee bullpen couldn’t get it done. Tommy Kahnle gave up two hits and a walk to load the bases. The Yankees brought in Luke Weaver. He gave up sacrifice flies to Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts and the Dodgers led 7-6. The problem for the Dodgers was the problem I thought was going to ruin their season. They were running out of pitchers. Brusdar Graterol got two outs and allowed three walks and a hit and gave up the run that gave the Yankees the lead back. Blake Treinen came in and gave the Dodgers everything he had. He got seven outs. He got out of a jam in the eighth after Roberts went to the mound with one out and left him in. They still had one more inning to go and the only relievers they had left were all guys that pitched yesterday. Hudson was the only high leverage guy left and he wasn’t good yesterday. Casparius, Knack, and Honeywell all threw a lot of pitches. So Dave Roberts went to Walker Buehler. Walker Buehler had a terrible regular season coming back from Tommy John surgery. I wasn’t excited about him pitching in the playoffs, but the Dodgers really had no choice because they only had two other starting pitchers left. He made one start in each series. His numbers against the Padres were bad, but that was almost entirely because of bad fielding. He was good against the Mets, but he only got through four innings. He was great in the World Series for five innings in Game 3 and then he got the save two days later. Freddie Freeman obviously deserved the World Series MVP (looking back, there was no way the Dodgers could lose this series after the Freeman grand slam to win Game 1), but Walker Buehler will forever be a Dodger legend. He’s pitched in three World Series now. He’s 2-0 in 19 innings pitched with one run allowed and a save in a World Series clinching game. He’s going to be a free agent. The Dodgers let Corey Seager get away and that was a mistake. They need to bring back Walker Buehler.
Walker Buehler already would have been remembered favorably by Dodger fans, but now he's a legend. |
When the Dodgers swept the Yankees in 1963, Sandy Koufax said, “I had two great thrills in the World Series–when I thought it was over and then when it actually was over.” That’s how I felt about this series. It was a thrill to go up 3-0. But after losing Game 4, I definitely wanted to wrap it up in Game 5. If the Yankees won Game 5, the Dodgers still would have been in very good shape, but anything could have happened at that point. Fortunately the Dodgers didn’t let the Yankees come back to Los Angeles with them.
Four years ago, the Dodgers didn’t get the parade they deserved. I didn’t get to celebrate with my favorite beer, Summer Ale (if not for the pandemic, I definitely would have made sure I had enough Summer Ale to get me through November). Well, the Dodgers will get their parade on Fernando Valenzuela’s birthday and I just enjoyed a Summer Ale. I am particularly happy for the guys who were on the team in 2020 (Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Max Muncy, Kiké Hernandez, Austin Barnes, Chris Taylor, Gavin Lux, Tony Gonsolin, Brusdar Graterol, Dustin May, Blake Treinen, and Joe Kelly). If there are any other 2020 players who aren’t currently under contract with another team, I would invite them to the parade. Right now I’m drinking a Brooklyn Lager in honor of the Dodgers’ roots. If I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow, I would drink an Octoberfest also (I completely missed out on Octoberfest in the fall of 2020 because of the pandemic).
Andrew Friedman deserves a lot of credit. He made some great acquisitions with Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Teoscar Hernandez in the offseason. Flaherty, Kopech, and Edman were in-season acquisitions who all helped the team in big ways (even if Flaherty was bad tonight). Dave Roberts was masterful in the postseason. I’ve always been a Dave Roberts fan, but a lot of Dodger fans criticize him constantly. Finding a way to win the World Series with the pitching staff in the condition that it’s in is absolutely amazing. He’s going to the Hall of Fame as a manager and I hope he stays with the Dodgers for many years to come. And Clayton Kershaw gets his second World Series ring. Injuries derailed his season. He only made seven starts and didn’t pitch in the postseason. It’s kind of like he gets the ring that he deserved in 2017. I hope things go better for him next year.
In one of his interviews after Game 5, Mookie Betts credited Clayton Kershaw with helping getting the team going when they were struggling. |
Baseball is a weird sport. The Dodgers were the best team in baseball. They finished with the best record. They beat the Padres and the Mets, who were pretty much the two best teams in the NL for the last four months of the season. They beat the Yankees, who were the best team in the American League. So there is definitely no argument to make that any other team was the best team in baseball, but there have definitely been better Dodgers teams in recent years that didn’t win the World Series that were better than this year’s team (2017*, 2019, 2021, 2022). The Dodgers easily could have lost to the Padres in the Division Series. But they found a way to win. Once they beat the Padres, I was hopeful that they would beat the Mets and Yankees, but anything could have happened. Once they got to the World Series, I thought they would win, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they lost. It pretty much did turn out to be my baseball version of the 2008 NBA Finals.
Like 1959, 1963, 1965, and 1981, my favorite basketball and baseball teams have won championships. Of course, I wasn’t alive for any of those. I completely expected the Celtics to win the championship this year. I did not expect the Dodgers to do it for most of the season (they were bad when I saw them in Los Angeles in July and in September I wrote a post where I mentioned how they were running out of pitchers). In 1966, the Celtics and Notre Dame both won championships. In 1988, the Dodgers and Notre Dame both won championships. It’s never happened that the Celtics, Dodgers, and Notre Dame all won championships in the same year. There’s still a chance that Notre Dame could do it this year (it’s a long shot, but we have a solid chance to make the College Football Playoff). As one of four Notre Dame/Dodgers/Celtics fans in the world (my dad, cousin, and uncle being the other three), I hope 2024 is the year.