Dodgers beat Yankees to win 2024 World Series

NEW YORK — After winning the 2020 World Series, the Dodgers have overcome the frustration that came with their 32-year championship drought. What they didn't do, however, was silence all the noise from the naysayers.

The Dodgers have heard it all.

It wasn't a full season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They played in a bubble. They never had to travel and play in front of hostile crowds in the postseason. It's only real when you celebrate it with a parade.

Well LA, get ready for this parade. The Dodgers are World Series champions for the eighth time in their history after a 7-6 comeback win over the Yankees in Game 5 on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium.

“Now there are two, baby. Now it’s two,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “What are you going to say now?”

The Dodgers made sure there was nothing left to say. And they did it their way. In a season that featured some of the best comebacks in franchise history, the Dodgers saved their best for last. When the Yankees took a five-run lead in the first innings, it looked like the series would return to Los Angeles for Game 6.

Jack Flaherty didn't have his best and was retired after recording just four outs. The first helpers who followed also had their problems. The sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium was ready to celebrate.

But as long as the Dodgers still had outs, there was always a chance. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts turned to seven different relievers to finish the game, including Walker Buehler, who volunteered to pitch on Wednesday and recorded the final three outs. That gave the Dodgers offense more than enough time to attack.

Aided by a variety of errors from the Yanks defense, the Dodgers scored five runs in the fifth. They then took the lead in the eighth inning with two sacrifice flies by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts. That helped them complete the five-run comeback, the largest World Series win in baseball history.

“We’re grinders,” Betts said. “We never thought we would be out of there. We just had to score one thing at a time. It was crazy how it turned out. I mean, you have to play a clean game to beat us and our character came through.”

Celebrating the World Series was exactly what the Dodgers expected when they built a runaway success over the winter. After adding superstar Shohei Ohtani, Japanese phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Teoscar Hernández, they knew the expectation was to win a championship. Anything else would have been a failure. That's the pressure that comes when you sign deals worth more than $1 billion.

What the Dodgers didn't know, however, was the adversity this group would face along the way. In the end, it's a group known above all for their resilience, which even overshadows their immense talent.

“This game was no different than our entire season,” Muncy said. “Take a few hits and come back from it. Take a few hits, come back from it. This game was literally our season in a nutshell. And it was special.”

Over the course of the summer, the Dodgers were without Muncy and Betts for an extended period of time. Freddie Freeman, the World Series Most Valuable Player, also battled injuries and took time off to tend to the health of his 3-year-old son, Max.

On the pitching side, there seemed to be a new injury every week. Yamamoto was out for several months and there were real concerns that he could be out for the season with a serious right shoulder injury. Gavin Stone has gone down for the year. The same goes for Clayton Kershaw. Late in the season, they learned that Glasnow would have to sit out the rest of his season. The wave of injuries lasted so long that Roberts decided to hold a meeting in Atlanta in September.

At this meeting, Roberts challenged his players. He didn't want them to feel sorry for themselves, even though they had every reason to. As a team, they all looked around the room and realized that they had more than enough talent to complete the task.

“We've been through a lot, but I have to say we still had the best record in all of baseball this year,” Roberts said. “It wasn't easy, but our boys really fought and played every day to win. Due to injuries, a lot of talent has been brought in and a lot of young players have had their first experience, which is good. But one thing is: we just kept going.”

After securing the best record in sports, the Dodgers' challenges continued in October. During the second-to-last regular season, Freeman suffered a severe right ankle sprain that typically takes four to six weeks to heal. He only needed one to get back on the field.

Entering the NL Division Series against the Padres, the Dodgers were underdogs after falling behind two games to one and were eliminated in the first round for the third straight year. That’s when Kiké Hernández and the rest of the leadership in the clubhouse decided to speak up. They wouldn't go down without a fight.

Three weeks later, there was no team left that could have tried to knock out the Dodgers.

“It seems like we've hit every possible speed bump over the course of this year. And it’s special to overcome what we did as a group,” Freeman said. “That’s what we strive for every single spring training: We want to win a championship. I think that's the hardest thing in sports because you just never know what's going to happen. I mean, we were down 2-1 in the NLDS and it could have easily gotten away from us. And to come back and win those two games and keep going like we did, that’s just a special group of guys.”

It's a group that has weathered disappointments all year, but has been preparing for this moment for several seasons. Betts was the first piece of the puzzle after being acquired from the Red Sox in 2020. Freeman joined him as a free agent two years later. With Ohtani on the team, the Dodgers are now ready to compete for multiple championships.

That's where they expect to be. But until then they will celebrate this one. They will do it in a parade around Los Angeles leading to Dodger Stadium. There's nothing left to say this time.

“We can celebrate with our fans,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “Being able to take it and drive it through the streets of Los Angeles and Dodger Stadium, that’s all going to be special.”