Reporter’s Notebook: Dodgers Win The World Series, Beating Yankees 7-6

[Editor: Pasadena Now’s Eddie Rivera is a longtime Dodger fan]

Capping a remarkable season that included losing nearly a dozen pitchers to injuries, along with achieving the best regular season record in Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees to win the 2024 World Series in five games.

Wednesday’s  7-6 win was the largest comeback victory in World Series history.

”I’m just so grateful to be in this chair,” said a happy and weary Dodger Manager Dave Roberts, at a post-game press conference.

“And for what our guys did, the resilience, the fight that they had,” he said. “Certainly all the momentum was on the side of the Yankees, and they were throwing the heck out of the baseball, and for us to just keep scratching and clawing, we were down to the last guy available.

“With Walker (Beuhler) and Blake (Trienen), and what they did, and the hitters, it was just huge.”

“This is going to sting for a while,” said Yankee Manager Aaron Boone, adding several times, “This is heartbreaking.”

Fans all over Los Angeles celebrated the victory, crowding intersections and creating impromptu street parties. On Colorado Boulevard, patrons poured out of the 35er Bar, and onto the sidewalk, as cars honked in celebration.

It is the Dodgers’ eighth World Series championship, coming against the arch-rival Yankees in a memorable series that saw the Dodgers take a three-game series lead before dropping one Tuesday in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees were cruising to certain victory Wednesday night, with a 5-0 lead, before staging a historic defensive meltdown that saw the Dodgers score five runs in the fifth inning to tie the score.

The Yankees committed three major errors in the inning—a dropped fly ball in center field by Aaron Judge, a bad throw from Anthony Volpe to third base, and an inexplicable failure by both Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rizzo to cover first base on a single by Mookie Betts.

Along with a hit from Kike Hernandez,  a two run-double by World Series MVP Freddie Freeman and a double by Teoscar Hernandez, the Dodgers tied things up.

The Yankees went ahead in the sixth with a sacrifice fly by Giancarlo Stanton, but by then, a Dodger victory was beginning to look inevitable.

After the Dodgers recovered the lead, Blake Treinen slammed the door shut on any more Yankee heroics.

Dodger starter Walker Beuhler, brought in as a reliever,  then pitched the bottom of the ninth, retiring the side in order.

The Dodgers’ victory parade will be held, Friday, November 1, at 11 a.m., beginning at LA City Hall.