The Los Angeles Dodgers roared back from a 5-0 deficit late Wednesday to beat the New York Yankees 7-6 and win baseball’s 2024 World Series in five games.
The championship is the eighth in the Dodgers’ 140-year history and was clinched in front of nearly 50,000 fans at Yankee Stadium in New York, most of whom hoped the Yankees could pull out a victory and take the series back to Los Angeles.
The Yankees, trying to hold off elimination, jumped out to an early lead on the strength of home runs from sluggers Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton.
But the Dodgers tied the game with five runs in the fifth inning, aided by an error in center field by Judge, who dropped what appeared to be an easy fly ball off the bat of the Dodgers’ Tommy Edman.
After the Yankees scored in the next inning, Los Angeles went ahead for good with two runs in the top of the eighth, with the go-ahead run coming via a sacrifice fly from star outfielder Mookie Betts.
Walker Buehler, normally a starting pitcher, entered the game in relief to shut down the Yankees in the bottom of the ninth inning and clinch the title.
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman was named the World Series’ Most Valuable Player after hitting four home runs and driving 12 runs during the five-game series.
The Series drew high TV ratings not only in the United States but also in Japan because of the Dodgers’ Shohei Otani, who began his career in his native land and is a lock to be named National League Most Valuable Player after hitting a league-topping 54 home runs this season.
The Dodgers won the first three games of the Series before the Yankees claimed game four. No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the World Series.
This was the Dodgers’ first championship since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Fans of the Yankees, baseball’s most successful and renowned franchise, were hoping for an end to a 15-year title drought. This was the first time the Yankees had reached the World Series since winning the championship in 2009.