The Los Angeles Dodgers smelled blood in the water.
Down 5-0 in Game 5 of the World Series, the Dodgers capitalized on several Yankee blunders in the fateful fifth inning to tie the game and eventually win 7-6 to clinch the franchise’s eighth championship.
“Everybody saw it. We’re all thinking it: (The Yankees) kind of (expletive) down their leg,’ Dodgers utilityman Chris Taylor said.
Outfielder Mookie Betts hosted a roundtable on his podcast following the team’s celebration in Los Angeles, with other Dodgers players agreeing that the vibes shifted and victory seemed a foregone conclusion once the chaos began to unfold.
“You could feel the energy shift in the stadium,’ Max Muncy said. “It was almost like those fans were waiting for something bad to happen … When all that started unfolding, I could just feel it. We’re about to take over this game.”
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Enrique Hernandez led off the inning with a single, then Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge dropped a fly ball to put Tommy Edman on base. Will Smith hit a grounder to short, with Anthony Volpe making New York’s second error of the inning to load the bases. With two outs, Betts drove in a run on an infield single with some help from a mental error by pitcher Gerrit Cole, who failed to cover first. That opened the floodgates in the Bronx, with Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez following Betts with two-RBI hits to tie the game.
Said Taylor, drink in hand: ‘They were pressing. It was like one thing after the next … our energy in the dugout was kind of feeding off that. It was like ‘all we got to do is put the ball in play.”
Veterans and champions before, Betts and World Series MVP Freddie Freeman praised the team’s togetherness as the deciding factor, with players sacrificing throughout the postseason to attend every workout and team dinner.
‘The best thing from my perspective? After we won the World Series, we were so together we all said, ‘(Expletive) it,’ we’re just going to argue with our wives so we can ride back (from New York) together,’ Betts joked.
‘That’s dope. That’s why we won the World Series.’
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