LOS ANGELES — After a 15-year wait, the Yankees returned to the World Series with a classic.
And with the kind of emotional roller coaster and dizzying devastation that can only be delivered in October.
Playing in the Fall Classic for the first time since 2009, the Yankees squandered one-run leads in the eighth and 10th innings and let Game 1 slip through their fingers with one Freddie Freeman swing at a sold-out and shaking Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
The Yankees were stunned by a walk-off grand slam, Freeman pouncing on the first pitch he saw from Nestor Cortes, for a 6-3, gut-punch of a loss to begin a World Series of heavyweights.
“It is tough. We played a good ballgame,” Gerrit Cole said after six one-run innings went for naught. “Obviously, they just did enough to win the game.”
The Yankees surged ahead in the 10th on the back of a Jazz Chisholm Jr. single, two steals and an RBI groundout from Anthony Volpe, but any exhale was followed by a slap to the face.
In the bottom of the 10th, Jake Cousins walked Gavin Lux before Tommy Edman singled.
In came Cortes, fresh off a flexor strain, who did his job against Shohei Ohtani with Alex Verdugo’s assistance.
The left fielder crashed into the foul wall and tumbled over it for a remarkable grab.
“We got a big guy out there, and we just got to get one more,” Verdugo said of his thought process. “We got the bases-loaded, lefty-lefty matchup that we wanted.”
But the matchup they wanted backfired. Aaron Boone’s decision to go with Cortes over Tim Hill did not work out when Freeman blasted Cortes’ fastball into the Los Angeles night.
“Just liked the matchup,” Boone said of the decision. “The reality is [Cortes has] been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he’s gotten ready for this.”
Cortes said he was ready, and his velocity was intact.
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But he wanted the four-seamer 2 or 3 inches higher, and instead it was low enough for Freeman to destroy.
“I knew this runway was for me,” Cortes said of his relief appearance, “and I didn’t get it done tonight.”
This all-timer included: a Cole-Jack Flaherty old-fashioned pitchers’ duel; Juan Soto defensive deficiencies leading to the first Dodgers run; a Giancarlo Stanton two-run moonshot; an Ohtani demolished double leading to the tying run; a Gleyber Torres deep drive that turned one fan into Jeffrey Maier, reaching out and gloving a ball that was ruled a double; and Aaron Judge getting his chance and letting it go, all before the 10th-inning uppercut.
Yes, the most-hyped Fall Classic in recent memory delivered in drama and delivered in competitiveness: The two starry teams that seemed to be about evenly matched sure looked about evenly matched.
In such tight contests, small mistakes are magnified, and the Yankees made those small mistakes.
The Dodgers tied it in the eighth with some help from sloppy defense.
Ohtani sent a double off Tommy Kahnle and off the right-field wall that Soto handled and threw to second.
The ball deflected off Torres’ glove and bounced into no-man’s land, allowing Ohtani to take third.
The extra 90 feet mattered when Luke Weaver entered and allowed a Mookie Betts sacrifice fly.
The Yankees came maybe a foot shy of retaking the lead in the top of the ninth when Torres smacked a deep fly ball to left-center.
It had a chance and ended up in the glove of a fan — who had reached into the field of play for the souvenir.
Torres was only awarded second base and stranded on third, Judge popping out with the bases loaded.
The Yankees’ offense was frustrated all game with the exception of Stanton, who blasted a two-run homer in the sixth that looked to be the only runs the Yankees’ staff would need.
Cole was more brilliant than dominant through six innings in which he allowed four hits, walked none and struck out four.
The Dodgers’ run against the ace came in the fifth, when Kiké Hernandez sent an extra-base hit into the right-field corner.
Soto went for the catch rather than the carom, the ball just out of reach and Soto running past it.
The overrun allowed Hernandez to wind up at third with a one-out triple.
Will Smith lifted a fly ball down the right-field line that became a sac fly when Soto hurled a two-hop throw home that arrived too late, the game’s first run scoring.
The last four runs would hurt the most.
“We’ve already talked about it,” Boone said of the crusher. “We’re good.”
