MLB storylines to watch for Game 1 of the Yankees-Dodgers World Series

It's been a very long week to get this World Series started, hasn't it? The final NLCS game was played on Sunday; Game 1 of the World Series finally begins on Friday. That's generally too many days without baseball, and that's it definitely Too many days wait for the Yankees and Dodgers to start a Fall Classic.

Here are the five biggest storylines for Game 1 on Friday at Dodger Stadium.

1. Can Cole lead the Yankees to the promised land?
This is the fifth year of the nine-year contract the Yankees signed Cole prior to the 2020 season. It must be a huge relief for everyone involved – from Cole to the Yankees' front office – that he's finally arrived exactly where they put him: on the mound for Game 1 of the World Series.

The season couldn't have started worse for Cole, who was on the injured list until mid-June with a right elbow injury. He wasn't the same Cy Young Award winner he was last year (or the shutdown ace he was back when he filled the same role for the Astros), but he's been getting into shape lately. That was especially true in the decisive ALDS Game 4 win over the Royals, in which he gave up just one run in seven innings. His start in ALCS Game 2 against the Guardians was less inspiring (4 1/3 innings, two runs), but the World Series is a new opportunity.

The Yankees gave Cole $324 million as a starter for Game 1 of the World Series. Here he is. Now let's see what happens.

2. Will Freddie Freeman be ready to go?
Have you ever sprained your ankle? It's terrible! It takes so much longer for it to heal—and for you to be comfortable stepping on it without thinking—than you think. Now imagine having to deal with that while also competing against the best pitchers in the world during the high-stress phase of postseason baseball.

It's been a full month since Freeman badly sprained his right ankle in Game 2 of the World Series, and it's fair to say he hasn't looked much like the former NL MVP Award winner and likely future Hall of Famer this postseason Famer that we all got to know and love. But Freeman gets a week off between his final game and the start of the World Series, and time is the only thing that truly heals a sprained ankle.

You can still imagine the Dodgers using him against, say, left-hander Carlos Rodón, but it certainly looks like a green light for Freeman against Cole and all other right-handed hitters. The Dodgers lineup was red hot without Freeman is at his best this October. Imagine what it would look like if he were healthy.

3. Which Flaherty do we get?
The Dodgers never in their wildest dreams could have imagined what they would get from Flaherty in Game 1 of the NLCS: seven innings, two hits, six strikeouts, no earned runs. For a team that was worried about having no reliable starting players (for the second straight postseason), Flaherty came out looking like a stone-cold ace.

But then came Game 5. Not only did the Mets pound Flaherty for eight runs in three innings, but Flaherty's fastball was two ticks slower than it was in Game 1 – a very ominous development. Flaherty has always been inconsistent, capable of both dominating and frustratingly futile in transition starts, which the NLCS highlighted. The Dodgers will likely already host one, maybe two bullpen games in this series, like they did in the NLCS despite Flaherty gives them seven innings in Game 1. If he gets knocked over early in this one, they'll be behind eight balls from the start.

4. Which star will make this series their own?
It's truly incredible how many stars there are in this World Series. Of the seven players wearing the best-selling jerseys in MLB this year, we'll look at four: Shohei Ohtani (No. 1), Aaron Judge (No. 3), Mookie Betts (No. 4) and Juan Soto ( No. 7). That doesn't even take Giancarlo Stanton, Cole and Freeman (number 18 on the list, by the way) into account. There are a whole host of likely future Hall of Famers in this series, and every single one of them will be looking to create a moment that spearheads their induction role.

Betts and Soto (and Cole and Freeman) have been to a World Series before, but the two biggest stars, Ohtani and Judge, are here for the first time. They are some of the greatest players we have seen in many years, but they are still new on this particular stage. You may never have a better chance of getting a ring and being immortalized in the process than now.

5. Can this live up to the hype?
You really can't ask for more from this World Series: huge stars, huge markets, teams desperate to win a title, huge fan bases, stands full of famous people. But at some point we'll all stop talking about what we think will happen in these games and actually play them. And you can put all the stars on the field you want, you can attract every eyeball you can, but if these games all turn out to be failures or if this is a one-sided swing in one direction, it's going to feel like a… feel disappointment.

Imagine how exciting it will be to see Ohtani or Judge stand at the plate in extra innings trying to win his first ring. Exciting, right? If that's going to happen, this series has to stay tight…as tight in reality as it is in our imaginations. This is a fall classic just waiting to play seven games. Game 1 will give us the first sign of whether we are on the right track.