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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff WriterOct 31, 2024, 12:11 AM ET
- Sports reporter, Kansas City Star, 2002-09
- Writer, Baseball, Baseball Prospectus
- Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus
- Member, Baseball Writers Association of America
- Member, Professional Basketball Writers Association
NEW YORK — Freddie Freeman set the course in the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ run to the championship with a historic homer — and kept right on swatting his way to World Series MVP.
Freeman homered in each of the first four games of the Series, then drove in two runs with a clutch two-out single during the Dodgers’ 7-6 clinching win in Game 5 on Wednesday night.
“It seems like we hit every speed bump possible over the course of this year,” Freeman said. “And to overcome what we did as a group of guys, it’s special. This is what we start out to do every single spring training is to win a championship. I think it’s the hardest thing to do in sports because you just never know what’s going to happen.”
Though Freeman had a record-setting streak ended of six straight World Series games with a homer, he just missed extending the mark to seven — Aaron Judge snagged a Freeman drive early in the game at the fence.
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Freeman’s numbers in the World Series were certainly MVP-worthy — .300, 4 homers and 12 RBIs — but it was Freeman’s dramatic Game 1 homer that set the tone for L.A.’s victory.
With two outs in the 10th inning and the Dodgers trailing 3-2, Freeman pulled a Nestor Cortes fastball into the right-field seats at Dodger Stadium for the first game-ending grand slam in World Series history.
That was dramatic enough, but the blast almost precisely echoed the game-ending homer by the Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson in Game 1 of the 1988 Fall Classic. The similarities were eerie: Not only was the homer a come-from-behind winner, but like Gibson, Freeman was hobbled when he hit it. Freeman has dealt with an ankle sprain during the Dodgers’ postseason run, a malady that required almost constant treatment.
“He’s tougher than I am, that’s for sure,” Frederick Freeman, Freddie’s father, said after the game. “I don’t know any other person who could have done that.”
Whereas Gibson’s legendary homer was his only at-bat of the Series, Freeman kept on mashing. He hammered a solo homer in Game 2 and two-run homer in the first inning of Game 3. He homered again in the first inning of Game 4, another two-run shot, breaking a record for homers in consecutive World Series games held by Houston‘s George Springer.
The homer streak began when Freeman won his first World Series ring in 2021 with the Atlanta Braves. For his World Series career, Freeman has hit .310 in 11 games with six homers and 17 RBIs, the most RBIs by any player through his first two World Series appearances.
“You don’t really think about [the hot streak] when you’re up there,” Freeman said. “Things seem to be slowing down. That’s kind of what you’re just trying to do. And I think obviously experience definitely helps in this situation.”
Freeman, who signed with the Dodgers before the 2022 season after 12 seasons with Atlanta, has continued to stand out, even in the star-laden L.A. clubhouse. That’s especially so for his manager, Dave Roberts.
“If I had one player,” Roberts said, considering his next words. “I’ve said it before, if you — all encompassing, he’s my favorite player to be around, as far as what he does for the culture, the organization, the team.”
Freeman has an active streak of seven consecutive World Series games with an RBI, tied for the third-longest stretch in history. He also has collected at least one hit in each of his 11 World Series games.
Freeman, the National League MVP in 2020, becomes the 12th player to win a regular-season and a World Series MVP. Ten of the previous 11 are in the Hall of Fame.
“To come through in those situations, that’s what you dream about as a kid, doing that in the World Series,” Freeman said. “It’s hard to talk about right now, but maybe in a few days when I’ve let it settle in, I’ll have better answers for you. Right now I’m just ecstatic.”
