World Series: The Dodgers personify fight one last time to win the Fall Classic
by Cary Osborne
Every year, it’s a different formula.
Some years it’s the hottest team of the postseason that wins the World Series. Other seasons it’s the team with the most talent.
This year, it’s the team with the most fight.
Their name is the Dodgers.
The fifth inning in Game 5 of the World Series personified that fight.
Down five runs, their starting pitcher long removed and being no-hit by Yankees ace Gerrit Cole to that point, the Dodgers unleashed an incredible five-run comeback in the fifth inning.
And after the Yankees took the lead back in the sixth, the Dodgers fought back to earn their first lead of the game in the eighth inning.
A microcosm of the regular season, a microcosm of the postseason — the Dodgers fought back to beat the Yankees 7–6 in Game 5 of the World Series.
They are World Series champions.
“This game was no different than our entire season,” said third baseman Max Muncy. “Get dealt a couple of blows, come back from it. Get dealt some more blows, come back from it. This game was really our season in a nutshell. And it was special.”
The fifth inning was hard to believe.
Kiké Hernández led off the inning with the first hit of the game against Cole — a single. The next two Dodgers reached on errors, but Cole then struck out Gavin Lux. Then he struck out Shohei Ohtani.
Cole got what looked to be the final out of the inning when Mookie Betts grounded to first baseman Anthony Rizzo deep in the infield dirt, but Cole never broke to cover first base.
Betts reached safely and that widened the door.
World Series MVP Freddie Freeman hit a two-run single. Teoscar Hernández hit a two-run double.
It was tied.
“When you’re given extra outs and you capitalize in that kind of game, that’s huge,” Freeman said. “For us to get it back to even, you could just feel the momentum just coming along.”
But the Yankees took the lead again with in the sixth inning with a Giancarlo Stanton sacrifice fly.
The Dodgers’ eighth inning was more fight.
Single. Infield single. Walk.
That led to two run-producing sacrifice flys — first Gavin Lux, then Mookie Betts.
Incredibly, the Dodgers took a lead.
But the question was: How were the Dodgers going to hold on?
Starter Jack Flaherty was shaky early, allowing four runs. Manager Dave Roberts pulled the plug in the second inning. It began the march of high-leverage relievers. The Dodgers reached five of them by the time the sixth inning rolled around and Blake Treinen, who closed out four of the Dodgers wins this postseason, was in.
The veteran right-hander pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings.
“I emptied the tank,” Treinen said. “Let’s go to the next guy and let’s steal this thing.”
The next guy was Walker Buehler — who pitched one of the greatest games of his career, shutting out the Yankees over five innings in Game 3. Two days later, he ended the game retiring the final three Yankees he faced.
“I definitely didn’t plan it out this way,” said manager Dave Roberts. “Certainly a lot of emotions from the way it started to certainly the way it finished. I’m just so grateful to be in this chair, and what our guys did, the resilience, the fight that they had.
“Certainly all the momentum was on the side of the Yankees, and Gerrit was throwing the heck out of the baseball. For us to keep scratching and clawing, we were just kind of to the last guy available. To see what Walker did, what Blake did, all those guys, and the big at-bats to get us back in the game was huge.”
In the seventh inning, Buehler told Roberts he would be available. Then he went out to the bullpen.
Buehler, who has pitched many of the biggest games of the last decade for the Dodgers, then went out and did something legendary.
He won the Dodgers a World Series championship.
World Series: The Dodgers personify fight one last time to win the World Series was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.