Freeman earns World Series MVP after historic run
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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
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.”
While Freeman had a record-setting streak of six straight World Series games with a homer snapped, he just missed extending the mark to seven — Aaron Judge snagged a Freeman drive early in the game at the fence that might have cleared it.
The numbers for Freeman in the series were certainly MVP-worthy — .300, four 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 game winner, but like Gibson, Freeman was hobbled when he hit it. Freeman has battled 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,” said Frederick Freeman, Freddie’s father, after the game. “I don’t know any other person who could have done that.”
Whereas Gibson’s legendary dinger 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 set 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 career World Series appearances all time.
“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 managed to continue 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’s also collected at least one hit in each of his 11 World Series games.
Freeman, the NL 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.”
BOSTON — Red Sox manager Alex Cora will miss Monday’s series opener against the New York Mets at Fenway Park so he can attend his daughter’s college graduation.
Cora’s daughter, Camila, will be graduating from nearby Boston College.
“It’s going to be a very special day — one that I’m not going to miss,” Cora said before Sunday’s game vs. the Atlanta Braves. “I 100% will miss the game for that. I will do that any given day. It’s going to be a very special day for us.”
Cora reflected on how the time has seemed to go quickly and spoke about how fast his daughter seemed to grow up.
“It went fast, it went really fast,” Cora said of her time in college. “For a girl from divorced parents, her mom did an amazing job, staying the course while I was playing and coaching and doing my ESPN thing. … She’s actually a reflection of her. I appreciate everything she’s done for her and for us.”
Asked if he’ll be able to hold back his emotions at the ceremony, Cora smiled and said “We’ll see,” before bringing up memories of when his daughter was at the 2018 World Series victory celebration and a postseason series wrap-up win over Tampa Bay in ’21 at Fenway.
“It’s going to be an amazing day. It happened fast,” he said. “You put everything into perspective, you go back to the videos of ’18, she was a little girl.
“Then you go back to ’21 when she hopped onto the field when we beat Tampa, she was still a little girl. Now, she’s not a little girl,” he said. “She’s a woman. She had fun with it. She’s a great student and the future’s bright for her.”
MILWAUKEE — Brewers pitcher Tobias Myers is going back to the minors as he continues to struggle to match the success he enjoyed as a rookie last year.
The Brewers optioned Myers to Triple-A Nashville on Sunday while selecting right-handed pitcher Easton McGee from Triple-A and transferring left-handed pitcher Connor Thomas to the 60-day injured list.
Myers is 1-1 with a 4.95 ERA in six appearances, including five starts. He allowed four runs over 3 2/3 innings in a 7-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.
The right-hander had gone 9-6 with a 3.00 ERA last season and was selected the Brewers’ most valuable pitcher by the Milwaukee chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. He closed that season by pitching five scoreless innings in the decisive Game 3 of the NL Wild Card Series against the New York Mets, a game the Brewers lost 4-2 by allowing four runs in the ninth.
“I love the kid, man,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said after Saturday’s game. “You saw it in Game 3, that’s in there. So we’ve got to get back to that.”
The Brewers had optioned Myers to Nashville a week ago, but he didn’t actually pitch there before rejoining the big-league club after left-hander José Quintana went on the injured list with a left shoulder issue. Now he’s heading back to Nashville.
Myers entered Saturday having walked 10 batters over 16 1/3 innings. He didn’t walk anyone Saturday, but gave up a career-high 11 hits.
“My goal was to fill the zone up and kind of get away from the walks I’ve been dealing with,” Myers said after the game. “I think I just filled it up a little too much.”
McGee went 1-0 with a 3.44 ERA and 20 strikeouts over 18 1/3 innings in 13 relief appearances with Nashville.
McGee appeared in one game for Tampa Bay in 2022 and one game for Seattle in 2023.In the only two games he has pitched in the big leagues, McGee has allowed just one unearned run over 9 2/3 innings while striking out three and allowing five hits and one walk.
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