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NEW YORK — A championship trophy is a work of art. But the game that gets you that trophy? Sometimes not so much!
So let’s do our best to tell you about Game 5 of the 2024 World Series — the game that crowned the Los Angeles Dodgers the champions of baseball, but also very possibly the craziest World Series clincher ever.
All the massive Yankee Stadium scoreboard told you about it was — what else? — the score: Dodgers 7, Yankees 6. But seriously, that wasn’t even the half of it. Or even 10 percent of it, to be more accurate.
As weird, wild and utterly zany World Series finales go, we’d say this game was up there with 2016 (The Cubs Win Game) and 2001 (The Luis Gonzalez Game). Or possibly even 1993 (The Joe Carter Game) and 1960 (The Bill Mazeroski Game). But in truth, even that doesn’t do this one justice.
Yes, what happened at Yankee Stadium on this wacky Wednesday evening in October was as wild, in its own chaotic way, as those other four Series-ending classics combined. Here’s why …
It was a game — a World Series-clinching baseball game, remember — that included all of this:
• An inning that started with a Gerrit Cole no-hitter watch and turned into an almost incomprehensible five-run inning for the team he was no-hitting.
• Oh, and not just any five-run inning. A five-run inning in which all five runs were unearned.
• Hey, and did we mention that when that inning started, Cole and the Yankees had a five-run lead — and when it ended … well, they didn’t anymore.
• It was a game in which the Yankees sprinkled the highlight reels — wait, make that the lowlight reels — with three errors, a balk and a catcher’s interference, among other non-baseball-y type stuff.
• It was a game in which the most pivotal play somehow involved a pitcher not covering first base.
• It was a game in which the starting pitcher for the winning team (Jack Flaherty) got four outs … while the closest thing that his team has to a closer these days (Blake Treinen) arrived on the mound in the sixth inning — and stuck around to fire 42 pitches that were exhausting just to watch, let alone deliver.
• And finally, in a highly related development, this was also a game that ended with a save — a World Series-clinching save, we remind you — for a man (Walker Buehler) whose career big-league save total up to that point was zero.
So how about that? Was that nutty enough for you? Was that topsy-turvy enough for you? Was that upside-down enough to qualify as the craziest World Series clincher ever? We’re going with yes on that — unless someone makes a compelling case otherwise. So feel free.
But while you start assembling your list, we take you live to the raucous visitors clubhouse — because that’s where we found the team-building genius who constructed this Dodgers roster, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. Of course, we gave him the opportunity to try to explain the sporting event he’d just witnessed.
And luckily, he was in position to search for the right words amid the thoughtful atmosphere that only arrives when a man is 100 percent doused in various refreshing beverages and is literally shouting every one of his thoughts over the clubhouse sound system, which has been cranked to a volume level of approximately 1.8 billion decibels.
Nevertheless, back to the topic at hand. So you think that even those deep-thinking Dodgers saw this game coming, with all their fancy-dancy analytics and game-planning gurus digging into every possible scenario? That, friends, was impossible.
But here’s the thing. Friedman was only too happy to remind us that the impossibility is actually the best part of this sport.
“It’s the beauty of baseball,” he said. “That’s why the people who say: ‘Oh, they script out the games,’ you haven’t ever watched baseball if you think that. The games play out in all kinds of crazy ways. And tonight was maybe the crown jewel of that statement.”
The crown jewel, huh? Well, those rings the Dodgers will be receiving will be adorned with lots of crown jewels. So sure, let’s think of this game as the crown jewel of non-predictable baseball nuttiness.
And on that note, it’s time for our October Weird and Wild Department to let you know just how one-of-a-kind the final game of the 2024 World Series really was, with help from our friends at STATS Perform, who were literally researching this stuff all night!
Mookie Betts and the Dodgers celebrate their championship after a clinching game like no other. (Brad Penner / Imagn Images)
Mission impossible
If you’re a Yankees fan, we’re thinking that nothing about this game would inspire you to use the phrase, “the beauty of baseball,” to describe it. Heck, we can’t blame you for thinking some other choice phrases would be more fitting. So you might be best off not reading some of the horrifying numbers to come if you think there’s even an outside chance you might be scarred for life by the memory of this game.
But for everyone else, let’s start here — with the most basic question we could possibly ask about a game like this: How even?
How many other teams have ever had a game in which they …
• Blew a five-run lead (or larger)
• Coughed up at least five unearned runs
• Stuffed three errors into the ol’ box score
• And included both a balk and catcher’s interference in those festivities?
How many teams have ever done that, you ask? Exactly one team has ever done that … at least since earned (and unearned) runs became an official stat in both leagues in 1913. And that team was …
The 2024 Yankees … on Wednesday night … in the game that ended their World Series … and their season.
Oh, and there’s one additional cheery note about that feat. We’re not just asking that question about postseason games. In fact, the Yankees are the first team to have a game like that in any game in the last 112 seasons — postseason or regular season!
In other words, before Wednesday, you could have told us it was literally impossible to lose a World Series in a game like that, and who could have disputed it? But now … uh, never mind!
No-hit fever — don’t catch it
Giancarlo Stanton’s homer in the third gave the Yankees a 5-0 lead. (Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)
Still, when the fifth inning rolled around in this game, you would not have seen this coming — any of it.
The Yankees had already pounded three home runs. … Cole was blitzing his fastball up there at 99 mph. … The Dodgers had four more pitchers used (four) than hits (none). … And it was easy to start thinking about the possibility of the Yankees pulling a 2004 Red Sox trick (i.e., a comeback after being down three games to none) on Dave Roberts.
So it was Yankees 5, Dodgers 0 … and Yankee Stadium was possibly the loudest place in North America. But inside the dugout of the Dodgers, there was one indisputable baseball principle they kept repeating to themselves.
“It’s a long game,” said Max Muncy. “It’s a looonnnggg game.”
Turns out they were correct about that. One minute, some folks were wondering if Cole would be allowed to complete the Yankees’ first World Series no-hitter since Don Larsen. The next, those same folks were wondering: How the heck is this game actually tied?
And since we know how it ended, here’s what you may be thinking: How many other teams have ever taken a five-run lead and a no-hitter into the fifth inning or later of a postseason game … and then lost that game?
The answer, according to STATS, is exactly one. That was the 2013 Tigers, in a mega-weird, mega-wild ALCS against the Red Sox.
In Game 2 of that series, Max Scherzer carried a no-hitter and a five-run lead into the sixth inning. But Dustin Pedroia busted up the no-hitter in the sixth. Then David Ortiz crushed an unforgettable game-tying slam in the eighth — the one with Torii Hunter toppling into the bullpen. And you know the rest. But that was the only time a postseason game like that had ever happened … until Wednesday.
Don’t gimme five
Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts (not pictured) scored on Teoscar Hernández’s double as the Dodgers rallied for five runs in the fifth to tie the game. (James Lang / Imagn Images)
But let’s forget the no-hitter part of this plotline. Let’s just focus on the five-run lead part. You know how hard it is to blow a five-run lead in a World Series game — whether you’re giving up no hits or 12 hits?
It’s so hard that 233 teams had taken a lead of five runs or larger at any stage of any World Series game — but only six of them had ever blown one of those leads and lost. Here, courtesy of Baseball Reference’s Katie Sharp, are those six teams:
2022 Astros (Game 1 vs. Phillies)
2002 Giants (Game 6 vs. Angels)
1996 Braves (Game 4 vs. Yankees)
1993 Phillies (Game 4 vs. Blue Jays)
1956 Yankees (Game 2 vs. Dodgers)
1929 Cubs (Game 4 vs. A’s)
Now the 2024 Yankees obviously join that band — but not really. Because you know how many other teams on this list blew that lead in a game that ended their World Series? Once again, “none” would be an excellent guess.
You’ve (un)earned it
Now let’s get into the thorny details. Nothing about this five-run Dodgers rally would have been possible without the Yankees making baseball look so much harder than we’d like to think it is.
There was Aaron Judge clanking a routine fly ball in center field. That was one error.
There was Anthony Volpe making an unfortunate throw to third on an attempted forceout. That was two errors.
And then, with Cole one pitch away from escaping a bases-loaded, no-out disaster, he forgot one slight detail after Mookie Betts bounced a spinning five-hopper to Anthony Rizzo — the part where the pitcher is supposed to cover first base on balls like that.
Technically, there was no “error” awarded for that gaffe. But the key word there is “technically,” because a zero-run inning became a five-run inning, all thanks to Cole not covering first — and the Dodgers looking at each other after that happened and essentially saying: They just invited us to keep scoring so let’s keep scoring.
“We always think that,” Muncy said.
STATS came up with two incredible notes on all this:
Cover me — The first tidbit involves pitchers not covering first base in a postseason game. There’s no comprehensive database on that, naturally. But the one play like that STATS does have in its database was a very similar brain cramp by a Dodger: Pedro Báez, in what became a game-changing, five-run eighth inning by the Cubs in Game 5 of the 2016 NLCS.
Earned it — Now here’s the bigger-picture note. It’s your complete list of all the teams in World Series history that entered a half-inning trailing, then scored at least five runs in that inning to tie the game or take the lead … and … all those runs were unearned. You’ll find just three instances — out of 120 World Series — on this list:
Game 2, 1956 — Dodgers vs. Yankees (six-run second inning)
Game 4, 1982 — Brewers vs. Cardinals (six-run seventh inning)
Game 5, 2024 — Dodgers vs. Yankees (five-run fifth inning)
Three errors, catcher’s interference and a balk in the same game!
Now let’s steer away from the fifth inning and look at all the messy stuff the Yankees spewed all over the box score: three errors, a catcher’s interference (which, of course, is also one of the errors) and a balk (on Luke Weaver).
Once again, think about how hard that is – or should be – to do in the same game. Now here is the proof that it’s incredibly hard.
STATS found only 21 games over the last 105 seasons (aka, the live-ball era) in which a team pulled off that trifecta. But here’s the important part:
The first 20 were all regular-season games that were destined mostly to be forgotten. The 21st? That was Game 5 of the 2024 World Series, the only postseason game in history in which all that happened. Yikes.
But wait. We have a Weird and Wild footnote! There was only one game during the entire 2024 regular season where a team crammed all of that into the same game. That team was (yep) the Yankees, in an April 21 game against the Rays.
Three errors in an elimination game
Jazz Chisholm Jr. can’t handle Anthony Volpe’s throw as Kiké Hernández is safe at third in the fifth inning. Volpe was charged with an error. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / Getty Images)
Does making three errors in a game that could end your season ever seem like a good idea? We don’t recommend it.
On one hand, STATS tells us that the previous two teams to do it in a World Series game both won anyway. That would be the Cubs, in Game 7 in 2016, and the Cardinals, in The David Freese Game (Game 6) in 2011.
On the other hand, the Yankees have now lit the “E” light at least three times in five World Series games in their history — most recently in The Luis Gonzalez Game (Game 7) in 2001. They’re 1-4 when they try that. And the only time they ever committed that many errors and won was Game 7 of the 1952 World Series against the Dodgers, when they made four errors and still won (somehow).
Catch this!
Then there was the Dodgers’ two-run, eighth-inning rally that put them ahead for good in this game, 7-6. Also included in that inning — another action-packed, non-baseball-y display by the Yankees — was the aforementioned catcher’s interference call on Austin Wells … in what felt at the time like a huge moment, since Shohei Ohtani was batting with one out, the game tied and the potential go-ahead run on third base.
Instead, Ohtani’s bat collided with Wells’ mitt. He was awarded first. The bases were loaded. And Betts drove in the winning run, on a sacrifice fly, on the very next pitch.
So how weird (and also wild) is it to have a catcher’s interference call stuffed inside the middle of a game-winning World Series rally? Once again, that answer is: Just as weird (and wild) as you’d guess.
According to STATS, it was the first time in World Series history there was a catcher’s interference in a half-inning in which a team took the lead for good, because, well … of course it was!
Walker Buehler’s not day off
Walker Buehler celebrates after closing out Game 5 to win the World Series. (Wendell Cruz / MLB / Imagn Images)
It wouldn’t quite be accurate to say that Walker Buehler had never saved a game before Wednesday night. That’s because he did save one once — for the Triple-A Oklahoma Dodgers, against Round Rock, back on Aug. 13, 2017.
But was that the same thing as saving the game in which his team clinches the World Series? Um, not exactly.
So Wednesday, in the 150th game (regular season or postseason) that Buehler had appeared in as a big leaguer, he trotted to the mound in the ninth inning, because, basically, somebody had to pitch that inning. And the Dodgers had ripped through everyone else in their bullpen — except those who were burned out from previous use or were a member of their Low Leverage Society.
“Honestly,” said fellow reliever Daniel Hudson, “once we took the lead and Walker walked out to the bullpen, I was like, ‘He’s going to finish this.’ He didn’t say anything. I just knew. Just the look in his eye. I don’t think anybody else knew. I don’t think the pitching coach knew (beforehand) or the bullpen coach knew. I think he just walked out there like, ‘I’m here if you need me.’”
Naturally, in the ninth, Buehler then blitzed through the bottom of the Yankees order, 1-2-3, for the first save of his big-league life. And how often has that happened — that the pitcher who saves the clinching game of a World Series is a guy who has never saved any kind of big-league game before that?
It’s only happened two other times, STATS reports, since the dawn of the modern save rule in 1969. And let’s just say those other two times were also pretty friggin’ memorable:
Madison Bumgarner (Giants), Game 7, 2014
Mike Montgomery (Cubs), Game 7, 2016
“It’s kind of funny,” Friedman said. “All he’s ever talked about is how much he hates the bullpen … until tonight.”
It was getting late early!
And there was an excellent reason Buehler had to pitch that ninth inning. It was because the reliever the Dodgers had planned on getting those final outs — Blake Treinen – had to ride to their rescue slightly earlier than that …
By which we mean the sixth inning.
With the Yankees ahead again (6-5) and this game threatening to reel out of control again, Dave Roberts pushed that Sense of Urgency button that managers should always have handy in games like this.
So in came Treinen — to clean up a two-on, two-out adventure for the final out in the sixth. Then he stuck around to get the Dodgers through the seventh and the eighth – and wound up grinding through 42 pitches, his most ever as a Dodger.
But that’s not actually the Weird and Wild part. That part involves watching a reliever who was his team’s postseason leader in saves showing up in a World Series-clinching game in the sixth inning.
According to STATS, if we look only at relievers who were leading their team in postseason saves before that game, just one other closer ever arrived on the mound in a Series clincher in the sixth inning (or earlier). That was the great Rollie Fingers, who did it in Game 7 of the 1973 World Series, for the A’s. Fingers then stuck around to get the next 10 outs that day, because … well … 1973!
So Rollie Fingers … and Blake Treinen … because sometimes, in games like this, a team has to do what it has to do!
Studio 42
Hey, one more thing on Treinen’s spectacular outing: How often does a team’s postseason saves leader have to throw (huff, puff) 42 pitches in a World Series clincher? STATS looked at that, too. And the answer would be … um, never!
The only three who even threw 35 pitches or more since 1988, when pitch counting officially became a thing:
Aroldis Chapman, 2016 Game 7 (35)
Mariano Rivera, 2009 Game 6 (41)
Blake Treinen, 2024 Game 5 (42)
See you at five
Finally, this game was such a roller coaster, we could easily keep rolling here for another thousand words — and tell you all about …
The Yankees becoming the first team ever to hit back-to-back homers in the first inning of a World Series game …
Or about the Dodgers imitating The Madison Bumgarner Game by winning a World Series clincher even though their starter didn’t make it past the second inning.
But we’ll try to save all that for our end-of-year Strange But True Feats of the Year column. So for now, let’s stick to the biggest news of all.
The Dodgers just won the World Series … in a game in which they trailed by five runs. And just so we’re clear, that’s a sentence that has never before been typed in the history of the World Series.
Before Wednesday, no team had ever come from more than four runs back to win a World Series clincher. And not to suggest it had been a while since anyone even did that … but the only team that had ever come from four runs behind in a clinching game did it as recently as 99 years ago. (That was Pie Traynor’s 1925 Pirates.)
But now that’s not true anymore, because the 2024 Dodgers just won the craziest clinching game ever. And if that’s what it took, they couldn’t be prouder to say they did that.
“That game just epitomized our whole season,” Muncy said. “All year, we’d get dealt a blow, come back, get dealt a blow, come back. That’s just how our whole season went … and it’s special.”
(Top photo of Kiké Hernández sliding safely into second after Aaron Judge’s fifth-inning error: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
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