By Zachary McMahon-
The New York Yankees played Game 1 of the 2024 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night. This is the first time since 2009 against the Philadelphia Phillies that the Yankees have been in the Fall Classic.
Gerrit Cole tossed six innings for the Yankees, allowing one earned run on four hits, no walks and four strikeouts. Trade deadline acquisition Jack Flaherty pitched 5 ⅓ innings, he allowed five hits, two earned runs, a walk, and six strikeouts.
There were no scoring before the fifth inning when Dodgers catcher Will Smith hit a sacrifice fly to right in order for Enrique Hernandez to score the first run.
Giancarlo Stanton hit a two-run homer in his first World Series game in the sixth and Mookie Betts tied it up at two in the eighth.
The game went into extras and both teams got to work, Jazz Chisholm in his first World Series game after being traded from the Marlins at the deadline, singled and then stole both second and third, before Tommy Edman made a stop on a ball hit by Anthony Volpe, and it was a fielder’s choice due to Anthony Rizzo being out at second, and Chisholm scored to make it 3-2.This is the second time in a World Series extra inning that the same player had multiple steals as in 1907 World Series Jimmy Slagle had multiple steals for the Chicago Cubs in the bottom of the tenth in game 1 against the Detroit Tigers. With that, Jazz also tied the World Series record for most steals in a World Series game, as the last one was Rajai Davis in 2016 Game five for Cleveland.
In the bottom of the tenth, with Jake Cousins coming in to pitch for the Yanks, Smith was the first out of the inning as the lead off batter as he flew out to Betts over at right field. Gavin Lux walked, and Edman hit an infield single, and Nestor Cortes relieved Cousins after that. A foul ball hit by Shohei Ohtani advanced both Chris Taylor (running for Lux), and Edman, and Betts was intentionally walked, and Freddie Freeman entered into the batter’s box.
On the first pitch, Freeman hits a walk off grand slam for a Hollywood Ending in LA, and the Dodgers won game 1 6-3. This home run was reminiscent of Kirk Gibson who walked-off the Oakland Athletics in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, it’s the second time in World Series that a 2-out as it is the second time that a 2-out walk-off home run while trailing happened in the World Series, and the third in postseason history as Yordan Alvarez did it in Game 1 of the 2022 ALDS for the Houston Astros. In general, this is the third time that a walk-off homer while the team was trailing as Joe Carter did it in 1993 for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Freeman, who had missed three games in the postseason with a knee injury, also hit a triple in the first, as he’s the third player in postseason history to hit a triple and a grand slam in the same postseason game. He was followed by Kazuo Matsui, who did this in the NLDS Game 2 against the Phillies in 2007, and Elmer Smith who did it in the 1920 World Series with the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) against the Brooklyn Robins, who became the Brooklyn Dodgers, and are now the LA Dodgers.
This is the ninth time in the MLB Wild Card era that a grand slam was hit after an intentional walk, and the second time this season as Mark Vientos did it in the 2nd game of the NLCS for the New York Mets against the Dodgers. This is the second time it had happened twice in one year as in 1999 Ricky Ledee and Troy O’Leary did those things. This was also the 10th time that a walk-off win happened in the first game of the Fall classic, and eight out of the previous nine times, the winning team would go on to win the World Series, with the only loss coming in 1958 when the Milwaukee (now Atlanta) Braves lost to the Yankees. This was the fifth grand slam league wide in the postseason, which is the third season that that has happened, with 2021 and 1998 also having five grand slams, which is the most in a postseason.
This was the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history, and the second time in postseason history as Nelson Cruz did it in the 2011 ALCS Game 2 for the Texas Rangers against the Detroit Tigers, who would go on to win ALCS MVP.
The two teams will play Game 2 on Saturday at 8:08 pm eastern with Carlos Rodon going up against Yoshinobu Yamamoto on FOX.
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