Freeman earns World Series MVP after historic run

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.

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.

“I wish I could explain the zone — you just get into one of those zones where everything seems to slow down just enough … sometimes it’s just to get another pitch,” Freeman said during a postgame interview with Fox when asked by David Ortiz to explain what it feels like to be in the zone he’s been in during this postseason run.

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.

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.

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.