Freddie Freeman
Dear Commons Community,
Freddie Freeman homered leading off the bottom of the 18th, Shohei Ohtani went deep twice during another record-setting performance and the Los Angeles Dodgers outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays 6-5 in an instant classic Monday night.
The defending champion Dodgers took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven matchup and still have a chance to win the title at home — something they haven’t done since 1963.
“That could go down as one of the greatest games of all time,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Freeman drove left-hander Brendon Little’s full-count sinker 406 feet to straightaway center field, finally ending a baseball marathon that lasted 6 hours, 39 minutes, and matched the longest by innings in postseason history.
“Oh gosh, just pure excitement,” he said. “That’s as good as it gets.”
The only other World Series contest to go 18 innings was Game 3 at Dodger Stadium seven years ago. Freeman’s current teammate, Max Muncy, won that one for Los Angeles with an 18th-inning homer against the Boston Red Sox in a game that took 7 hours, 20 minutes.
It was Freeman’s second World Series walk-off homer in two years. The star first baseman hit the first game-ending grand slam in Series history to win Game 1 in 10 innings last season against the New York Yankees.
“This one took a little longer,” Freeman said. “But this game was incredible. Our bullpen was absolutely incredible.”
Will Klein, the last reliever left for the Dodgers, got the biggest win of his career. He allowed one hit over four shutout innings and threw 72 pitches — twice as many as his previous high in the majors.
“We weren’t losing that game,” Klein said, “and so I had to keep going back out there.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw 105 pitches Saturday at Toronto in his second consecutive complete game, was warming up in the bullpen as Klein worked out of trouble in the top of the 18th.
“I don’t know how I kept going, but I just knew every inning that I went out there, it was going to be another zero. If I had to keep going out, there were going to be more zeros,” Klein said. “I was sitting at home in Arizona last month, you know? This is crazy.”
A total of 19 pitchers — 10 for the Dodgers — combined to throw 609 pitches in a game that ended at 11:50 p.m. on the West Coast. Three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw came out of the LA bullpen to escape a bases-loaded jam in the 12th, pitching in extra innings for the first time in his illustrious career.
“The Dodgers didn’t win a World Series today,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider cautioned. “They won a game.”
The Dodgers felt like they won the Series!
Tony
P.S. I confess – I watched the game but went to bed around 11:30 pm (EDT) while the game was still tied!
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