NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the New York Yankees 7-6 in Game 5 on Wednesday to win the World Series four games to one.
The Dodgers were trailing 5-0 before they scored five runs in the fifth inning — all of which came in the wake of three fielding miscues by the Yankees. New York retook the lead in the sixth inning, but two sacrifice flies by Los Angeles in the top of the eighth put the visitors ahead for good.
“We just took advantage of every mistake that they made that inning,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández said of the fifth. “We put some good at-bats together. We put the ball in play. A lot of people say ‘when you put the ball in play, things might happen.’ It happened to us in that inning, and we scored five runs.”
First baseman Freddie Freeman won World Series MVP, hitting four homers and driving in 12 runs across the five games. Freeman homered once each in the first four games of the series.
“Every spring training this is our goal,” Freeman said after the win. “For it to come true with this group of guys, I couldn’t ask for a better year. Holy cow.”
The Dodgers have won two World Series in the last five years, having also won during the pandemic-shortened season in 2020. Los Angeles’ last title after a full season was in 1988.
The Dodgers were dominant both in the batter’s box and on the mound during their postseason run.
Los Angeles beat the New York Mets in six games in the National League championship series, outscoring the Mets by a combined 37-7 in the four wins.
Against the Yankees, the Dodgers’ pitching staff continued to stifle a high-powered lineup, as Los Angeles held New York — which finished third in MLB with 815 runs in the regular season — to only seven runs combined in the first three games of the series.
Several players on this year’s Dodgers team were also on the World Series team in 2020, including Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Kiké Hernández and Walker Buehler. Freeman won a title with the Atlanta Braves in 2021.
It’s the third championship for manager Dave Roberts, who led Los Angeles in 2020 and also won once as a player in 2004 with the Boston Red Sox.
“This team has zero quit in it,” Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen said postgame. “If we don’t have the outcome that we want, there are always guys out there picking each other up and challenging ourselves to be better. That’s why we won tonight.”
Meanwhile, it’s the first World Series win for Los Angeles superstar Shohei Ohtani, the presumptive NL MVP, who signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers before the season. Ohtani had not appeared in the playoffs before this year. He deferred $680 million of his salary in part to help the franchise spend more around him.
The Yankees won 94 games during the regular season, best in the American League. Center fielder Aaron Judge, who hit 58 home runs and drove in 144 runs during the regular season, is expected to win AL MVP. But he struggled in the postseason, hitting only .184 with three homers in 14 games.
New York has not won a World Series since 2009.
By ROHAN NADKARNI/NBC News