Dodgers erase 5-run deficit to win first full-season World Series title since 1988

NEW YORK — For all their sophisticated analytical brainpower, there is one set of numbers the Dodgers had not been able to make add up.

One short-season title in 11 seasons.

But the math has been re-set. The Dodgers fought back from a five-run deficit and beat the New York Yankees, 7-6, in Game 5 on Wednesday night, taking the eighth World Series in franchise history, the first since that ‘bubble’ title in 2020 and – say it with me – their first full-season championship since 1988.

“Now it’s two, baby. Now it’s two,” third baseman Max Muncy said in the celebratory clubhouse, acknowledging that the criticism “absolutely” stung the Dodgers’ core group. “What are you going to say now?”

So many special moments were lost to the pandemic in 2020 – birthdays, weddings, graduations. The Dodgers reclaimed theirs – specifically the nine players from that team who participated in this year’s World Series. They will get their parade.

“This is No. 2 for us. The first one was just as much as this, in my opinion. People can say what they want, but this was No. 2 for us. Hopefully we get a few more,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said.

“We’ve been wanting a parade since 2020. We couldn’t do it because of the circumstances, but I can’t wait to celebrate with our fans, the best fans in baseball.”

In Dodgers lore, it will be remembered as a heroic comeback – the largest comeback ever in a World Series-clinching victory – in Game 5, closed out by Walker Buehler cementing his big-game credentials. But it was one of the most horrendous defensive innings in World Series history that brought them back.

Unable to put the New York Yankees away with a bullpen game in Game 4 on Tuesday night and unwilling to go for a potential knockout blow by deploying their best relievers in a losing game (albeit one with a one-run margin in the middle innings), the Dodgers gave the Yankees the gift of life Tuesday night.

Held to just three home runs in the first three games, the major-league leaders in longballs hit three in Game 4 and three more in the first three innings of Game 5.

Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty has been both good and bad, alternately, during this postseason. The bad version showed up Wednesday night.

He walked the second batter he faced, Juan Soto, then gave up back-to-back home runs to Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr.  Flaherty gave up a leadoff double in the second inning and an RBI single to Alex Verdugo and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts brought out the Yu Darvish hook – the one that is both quick and too late at the same time. Darvish lasted just 10 batters in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series but five of them scored and the Dodgers couldn’t recover.

Roberts has said multiple times this year that the difference between this year’s Dodgers team and those previous teams that fell short of the ultimate goal was their willingness to fight.

Down 5-0 without a hit through four innings against Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, they fought.

“This game was no different than our entire season,” Muncy said. “Get dealt a couple blows, come back from it. Get dealt some more blows, come back from it. This game was literally our season in a nutshell.”

Kike’ Hernandez led off the fifth inning with a single. Then the bungling began.

Judge made a spectacular catch at the wall in the fourth inning, but he flubbed a line drive right at him for an error. Will Smith hit a ground ball to shortstop Anthony Volpe. He had the lead runner at third base but made a poor throw into the dirt and everyone was safe.

With the bases loaded and no outs, Cole struck out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts dribbled a ball to first baseman Anthony Rizzo. The inning should have been over.

But Cole had stopped running to cover first base and could only watch helplessly as Rizzo, playing back, was too slow to beat the hustling Betts. The Dodgers’ first run scored and the inning went on.

“After they scored three in the first, every half inning we came in, we were like ‘Just get one. Chip away, chip away,’” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “Obviously we didn’t do that the first couple of innings. In this game, when you’re given extra outs, you’ve got to capitalize. That’s what we were able to do in that fifth inning.”

Freeman drove in two with a single to center field. His 12 RBIs in five games tied the World Series record (Bobby Richardson of the Yankees in the seven-game 1960 Series) and earned him the World Series MVP trophy.

Teoscar Hernandez followed with a drive to the wall in center field for a two-run double to tie the score. All five runs in the inning came after there were two outs – and should have been four.

“We just take advantage of every mistake they made in that inning,” Hernández said. “We put some good at-bats together. We put the ball in play.”

But Brusdar Graterol walked three in the sixth inning and the Yankees regained the lead on a sacrifice fly.

But the Dodgers still had some fight in them. A broken-bat single by Kiké Hernandez and an infield single by Tommy Edman started the eighth-inning comeback. Mix in a walk, a catcher’s interference and two sacrifice flies and the Dodgers emerged leading for the first time in the game.

Flaherty’s early exit turned Game 5 into yet another bullpen game and Roberts had another night of antacid moments.

“We’ve got to give Doc his flowers tonight,” Freeman said later. “An inning and a third (from the starter) – he covered that whole game and our bullpen was incredible.”

Bullpen and their plus-one.

Roberts trusted Blake Treinen to shut down the Yankees in the sixth inning then rode him through the seventh and eighth innings.

Judge doubled off Treinen with one out in the eighth and Chisholm walked. Manager Dave Roberts walked to the mound with Treinen at 37 pitches.

“I looked in his eyes. I said how you feeling? How much more you got?” Roberts recalled. “He said: ‘I want it.’ I trust him.”

Treinen retired Stanton on a flyout and his 42nd pitch struck out Anthony Rizzo with two runners on to end the eighth.

It was an heroic effort – but Roberts needed another hero to get him three more outs. On came Game 3 starter Buehler, who would have been throwing his between-starts bullpen session in preparation for a Game 7 start.

Instead, he retired the side in order in the ninth for his first major league save and the Dodgers celebrated on the field at Yankee Stadium.

“There were 30 other guys on this team that would have taken that inning,” Buehler said. “I was just in the right spot.”

Playing with an injured shoulder after Game 2, Shohei Ohtani – the $700 million man who set so much of this year’s story in motion – was just 2 for 19 in his first World Series with no RBIs and just 14 for 61 (.230) in his first postseason.

But he filled in the only blank on his baseball resumé and was at the center of the post-game celebration, hoisting the trophy as if he had two good arms and spraying champagne with abandon.

“I think there is a legitimate argument that he is the greatest player to ever play this game,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “Obviously all this does is help further that.

“Seeing him tonight, celebrating, he said, ‘Alright, nine more!’ In his first year, we won a championship so he thinks this is easy. We’ll just do this nine more times.”