Freddie Freeman wallops his means into World Sequence historical past with walk-off slam that’ll float perpetually

LOS ANGELES — Carlton Fisk … Kirby Puckett … Derek Jeter … David Freese.

As he smoothed the grime within the batter’s field within the tenth inning Friday evening, Freddie Freeman by no means may have envisioned he’d be spending the remainder of his life hanging out with these October legends.

However then walk-off magic occurred.

Earlier than the subsequent wave of Freeman’s bat, no residing human may lean again in a straightforward chair and describe to you what a walk-off, lead-flipping, extra-inning World Sequence grand slam appeared like. However we will now. It appears to be like precisely like this.

FREDDIE FREEMAN WALK-OFF GRAND SLAM. #WORLDSERIES pic.twitter.com/5MIY5CaX6a

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 26, 2024

Historical past is an incredible factor to make — and a wide ranging factor to witness. A stadium rattles till it awakens each Richter Scale in Southern California. A walk-off hero jumps on house plate and disappears right into a sea of hugs and laughs and tears of pleasure.

A scoreboard tries to inform this story — Dodgers 6, Yankees 3 — however there may be a lot emotion and a lot historical past that may’t presumably be captured by the ultimate rating of Friday’s Recreation 1 of the 2024 World Sequence.

In order that’s the place this column turns out to be useful. There are specific nights in October that appear to exist so these of us at Bizarre and Wild World HQ may help you make sense of them. This was a kind of nights.

“Freddie simply hit a ball that’s going to be within the historical past reels perpetually,” Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech instructed us afterward. “So it’s a particular second — for him and for us.”

When a person hits a walk-off house run in additional innings — within the World Freaking Sequence — he can’t think about in that second that the baseball isn’t going to return down. However he may ask the fellows within the first sentence of this column …

Carlton Fisk … Kirby Puckett … Derek Jeter … David Freese.

They’re in that hallowed Additional-inning World Sequence Stroll-off Membership. So Freddie can ask them the subsequent time he sees him. And even higher …

He may stroll throughout his clubhouse and ask Max Muncy.

Six years in the past, it was Muncy who stepped to the plate at 12:30 within the morning — California time — and pounded an 18th-inning walk-off house run of his personal, to complete off the longest World Sequence sport ever performed: Recreation 3 of the 2018 Sequence.

It turned out to be the one sport the Dodgers received towards the Pink Sox in that World Sequence. However in case you assume that signifies that house run was forgotten, Muncy is right here to set you straight.

“Yeah, Freddie is gonna hear about this one for a very long time,” Muncy stated Friday evening. “Freddie has hit some huge house runs, particularly within the postseason. However he’s gonna hear about this one.”

So why is that? What’s it about house runs like this that trigger them to reverberate via historical past and stick in our reminiscence banks? We may help clarify that!

Additional particular

This was the 693rd sport in World Sequence historical past. So take into consideration how wild (and bizarre) it’s that no hitter, in any of these different 692 video games, had written a script to match Freddie Freeman’s script.

What number of walk-off slams had ever been hit, in every other World Sequence sport? Yep, that will be none.

Actually, just one walk-off slam had ever ended a sport in any different postseason spherical. That was hit by Nelson Cruz, in Recreation 2 of the 2011 ALDS. So what had been the chances that Cruz could be within the park for this one, as a member of the Spanish-language Univision broadcast crew? Baseball!

However shifting proper alongside, right here comes a distinction even wilder than that. Wouldn’t you assume that someday, within the 119 earlier World Sequence, someone would have dug right into a batter’s field someplace, along with his crew trailing, and hit an extra-inning house run that turned a loss right into a win?

You’ll assume that, all proper. However you’d assume incorrect — as a result of the entire listing of males to try this consists of …

Freddie Freeman!

Or wouldn’t you assume that someone would have hit a house run that a minimum of tied a World Sequence sport in additional innings? Nope. Nobody has ever hit a kind of, both.

So what we noticed Freeman do Friday, within the tenth inning at Dodger Stadium, was produce an all-time October second. And who can ever get sufficient of them!

“If you get instructed you do one thing like that, on this sport that’s been round a really very long time — I like the historical past of this sport,” Freeman stated. “To be part of it, it’s particular.”

She is … gone

Because the tenth inning started Friday evening, certainly one of my fellow baseball scribes turned to me and requested: What are the probabilities that Kirk Gibson limps out of the dugout to hit on this inning?

We laughed on the thought. However looking back …

Within the historical past of the World Sequence, simply two males have ever stood in a batter’s field with their crew one out from defeat … after which hit a walk-off house run that modified every part:

Kirk Gibson, Recreation 1, 1988
Freddie Freeman, Recreation 1, 2024

(Hat tip: Paul Casella, MLB.com)

Geez. Holy Chavez Ravine. Gibson, after all, flipped that 1988 script within the ninth inning, not the tenth. However, is that goosebumpy sufficient for you — even when Freeman hadn’t been limping round all week, very like Gibson did again within the day?

However when a number of of us tried to recast The Kirk Gibson Story afterward, with Freeman as the brand new lead on this manufacturing, Freeman’s teammates had been not all in on that. Particularly not after Freeman had tripled in his first at-bat of the Sequence. In any case, Gibson may barely make it to 3rd base after his house run again in ’88. So are we positive this was the identical factor?

C’mon, Muncy stated, “Freddie’s been hobbling too quick. He’s shifting good. He had a triple tonight. So I don’t know in case you can examine that. From every part I heard, Gibson had half a leg.”

Seems like a superb time to point out Kirk Gibson’s walk-off house run in Recreation 1 of the 1988 World Sequence pic.twitter.com/PC2PuhRwAf

— FOX Sports activities: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 26, 2024

In a 12 months that has been so unbelievable …

When Freeman wriggled into the field with two outs within the tenth, the Dodgers’ possibilities of profitable this sport had been solely 26.7 p.c, based on Baseball Reference. That modified swiftly, clearly. One moonshot into the right-field pavilion later, these possibilities had been extra like one hundred pc.

So in case you’re including alongside at house, you understand what meaning: Freeman’s homer had simply jumped their Win Likelihood by a staggering 73.3 p.c, with one swing of the bat. Does that appear good? We’ll do you a favor, by stepping exterior these decimal factors to inform you simply how good.

This was formally one of many largest, most game-changing swings within the historical past of the World Sequence!

So there. Does that assist make sense of it? And the way cool is it that we will measure that with Baseball Reference’s useful dandy Pivotal Play Finder, which may rank each World Sequence hit by its Win Likelihood Added. So we did that.

Most pivotal extra-inning homers 

Most pivotal extra-inning hits 

 (*game-tying single in 10^th)

Most pivotal bases-loaded hits 

(*lead-flipping double with two outs in ninth)

And eventually, right here it comes, the leaderboard you’ve been ready for however won’t have identified you had been. It’s the …

Most pivotal World Sequence walk-off hits ever 

(Supply: Baseball Reference)

Their intentions had been good

However wait. There’s extra. This grand slam wouldn’t have been potential if the Yankees hadn’t stuffed up the bases by deliberately strolling Mookie Betts to pitch to Freeman. So how uncommon is a postseason grand slam following an intentional stroll?

Whoa, we hadn’t had a kind of since … 12 days in the past, when these similar Dodgers deliberately walked Francisco Lindor to fill the bases for Mark Vientos … on this similar stadium. The baseball gods work in mysterious methods, don’t they?

But when we simply confine this dialogue to intentional walks that arrange a slam within the World Sequence, now we have solely 4 of these in historical past:

(Supply: STATS Carry out)

However you’ll discover this was the primary extra-inning intentional stroll to arrange a grand slam in World Sequence historical past — and solely the second in postseason historical past. The opposite was issued by … Dave Roberts, who deliberately walked a man named Juan Soto to get to Howie Kendrick within the tenth inning of Recreation 5 of the 2019 NLDS. That didn’t go fairly as effectively for the Dodgers supervisor as this!

No surprise Roberts would later describe this sport as perhaps “the best baseball second I’ve ever witnessed.”

However he was not alone. We’ve measured the cool issue of this house run with a number of numbers. But perhaps the truest measure was the euphoria this epic blast infused in Freeman’s teammates. An hour later, that feeling hadn’t subsided — not even a bit of.

“I can’t think about how Freddie is feeling proper now,” stated Michael Kopech, “as a result of I really feel like I’m floating.”

There’s one other baseball sport to play Saturday. So the Dodgers will present up and play all 9 innings of it (assuming that’s sufficient). However we must always allow them to in on a secret. In the event that they go on to win this factor, after they all shut their eyes — in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years — and assume again on this World Sequence, they’ll nonetheless be floating …

Identical to Freeman’s walk-off slam for the ages.

Social gathering of Three

OK, hold with us for simply one other minute. There are three extra issues it’s worthwhile to learn about this sport!

EMPTY NESTOR — Any individual has to surrender these momentous house runs. On this case, that someone was Nestor Cortes. So what’s his declare to fame? As Eric Orns, certainly one of our favourite readers/baseball stat gurus, stories, Cortes turned the primary pitcher in postseason historical past — a minimum of within the pitch-count period (1988-present) — to surrender two runs on two pitches.

First pitch — spectacular catch by Alex Verdugo on Shohei Ohtani’s foul looper down the left-field line.

Subsequent pitch (after an intentional stroll that now requires zero pitches) — walk-off slam.

Hey, a minimum of the Dodgers didn’t run up his pitch depend.

GRAND SLAM FEVER — Does it really feel like there’s a grand slam each week on this postseason? It ought to — as a result of this was the fifth of the postseason. And we’re not via enjoying but. In order Orns reminds us, it might take just one extra slam to interrupt the document for many in a single postseason.

The 2 years with 5 of them: 2021 and 1998. Keep tuned!

TRIPLE THREAT — Lastly, have we talked about that Freeman had a triple in his first at-bat of this sport and a walk-off extra-inning homer in his final at-bat? We had a hunch he was the primary participant in historical past to try this in a World Sequence. Boy, had been we incorrect. But it surely was price checking … as a result of what a listing of fellows who’ve hit a triple and an extra-inning walk-off in the identical World Sequence sport.

(Supply: Baseball Reference / Stathead)

Simply taking a look at that listing, it reminded us that we keep in mind these video games as The David Freese Recreation … The Derek Jeter “Mr. November” Recreation … and The Kirby Puckett “We’ll See You Tomorrow Evening” Recreation. So little does Freeman realize it, however what we noticed Friday will go down within the annals as (what else) The Freddie Freeman Recreation. Which tells you all it’s worthwhile to learn about a traditional October night of …

Baseball!

(High photograph: Keith Birmingham / MediaNews Group / Pasadena Star-Information through Getty Photos)