On Wednesday, Oct. 30, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler threw a looping curve past Alex Verdugo, striking out the Yankees’ left fielder and sealing the eighth World Series victory in Dodgers history. Here are some of the key takeaways from the five game series:

Dodgers Take it in Five

Although the series was fairly one-sided, it still provided some legendary moments living up to the matchup. Game 1 started relatively tame, but in the bottom of the 8th, with the Dodgers behind 2–1, Dodgers superstar slugger Shohei Ohtani ripped a double and advanced to third on an errant throw. The next batter, All-Star right fielder Mookie Betts, drove him in on a sacrifice fly, tying the game 2–2. Although the Yanks were able to take a 3–2 lead in the top of the 10th inning on savvy baserunning by third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr., Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman sent them off into the night, smashing a walk-off grand slam with the Dodgers one out away from losing. Freeman played the entire series in pain, as he fought to be available through rib and ankle injuries, but he made his presence known early and often.

With the wind knocked out of their sails, the Yanks were not able to recover in Game 2 or 3, as they suffered a pair of 4–2 losses, stifled by stellar L.A. pitching. In Game 2, Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto shut down the Yanks through six and a third innings of one-run-ball, and Buehler pitched five shutout innings in the following game to stop the Bronx Bombers. Freeman homered in both games, continuing his unlikely tear and supporting the starting pitching, on the way to a 3–0 series lead for the Dodgers. Only one team has ever come back from being three games down in a postseason series, and it didn’t exactly go the Yankees’ way (the Boston Red Sox grabbed the pennant from the Yanks in 2004 coming back from a 3–0 deficit) but now the Yankees were tasked with repeating the feat.

In Game 4, the Yankees offense woke up. A fourth-inning grand slam from Yankees hometown hero shortstop, Anthony Volpe, broke the game open, giving the Bombers a 5–2 lead, and they never let up, winning the game 11–4 thanks to homers from second baseman Gleyber Torres and catcher Austin Wells, as well as five innings of shutout baseball from their bullpen. 

With one more game to go in the Bronx before returning to L.A., the Yanks looked to keep their momentum going in Game 5, and initially, they did. Back-to-back first-inning home runs by Judge and Chisholm put the Yanks up 3–0, and a Verdugo RBI single in the bottom of the second and Giancarlo Stanton homer in the third extended the lead to 5–0. In the top of the fifth inning, the Yankees forgot how to play baseball. Yankees ace pitcher Gerrit Cole did not allow a single hit through the first four innings of his outing, but the fifth began with a single by center fielder Kiké Hernandez, followed by two errors in a row, a Little-League-esque dropped fly ball by Judge, and a failed force out by Volpe, which loaded the bases. Cole pitched like an ace as he struck out second baseman Gavin Lux and Ohtani to get the first two outs, but then he failed to connect with Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo on a soft ground ball, allowing Betts to reach and a run to score. Giving all of these second chances to a team as good as the Dodgers is bound to lead to runs, and that’s what happened as Freeman singled and left fielder Teoscar Hernandez doubled, each driving in two runs, tying the game 5–5. The Yanks were able to take another lead on a Stanton sac-fly in the bottom of the sixth, but the Dodgers, refusing to take the pressure, had two sac-flies of their own in the top of the eighth to take a 7–6 lead, and that brought the game to the Buehler vs. Verdugo at bat. 

With the win, the Dodgers proved that their massive signings of Ohtani and Yamamoto were well worth it, and Freeman showed true grit playing through injury to take home the World Series MVP with 4 homers and 12 RBIs. With their second title in five seasons, the Dodgers have begun to solidify their status as a dynasty, and with great players under contract for years to come, they’re not done yet.

Marquee Matchup Doesn’t Deliver

A Yankees vs. Dodgers matchup always brings historical value, but in 2024 it brought star value as well, as Yanks captain Aaron Judge took on L.A.’s 700-million-dollar-man Shohei Ohtani (both the presumptive MVPs of their respective leagues). This is the matchup that the MLB wanted, and they weren’t ashamed to admit it, playing commercials featuring only the two sluggers before the New York Mets or the Cleveland Guardians were even eliminated. But any script-based conspiracies aside, this matchup had serious star-power potential, and…it did not deliver. 

Ohtani lived up to the hype in the six-game NLCS directly preceding the series as he slugged his way to a 1.185 OPS, but in the World Series, he went quiet. Over the course of the five games, he went 2–19 with a .385 OPS. L.A. won despite him, not because of his performance. 

Judge struggled all postseason and comparatively turned on the jets in the World Series, but he was still nowhere near his regular season production. In the first three games of the series, where L.A. went out to a 3–0 lead (essentially sealing the Yanks’ fate), Judge was a miserable 1–12 with seven strikeouts. In the final two games, he went 3–6 with a home run and 3 RBIs, sending his series from terrible to meh, but his haunting error in the fifth inning of game five overshadowed his uptick in production.

While both superstars will be shadowed by their lackluster showings, Judge is likely to bear the brunt of the narrative, because his postseason struggles date back to 2017. As we enter his 10th year in pinstripes, the question of whether Judge can bring a title to the Yanks will be louder than ever.

Dodgers Silence the 2020 Haters

L.A. has been no stranger to postseason baseball, with 11 consecutive postseason berths before 2024, but their only World Series victory during that span was during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 campaign. With a regular season of 60 games (instead of 162), the Dodgers secured the best record at 43–17 and swept their way to the NLCS before taking down the Atlanta Braves in seven games and the Tampa Bay Rays in six to secure the World Series title. 

Since then, many have given the series an asterisk, including the aforementioned Verdugo, looking back on the series in 2022. 

“A 60-game season, it’s still hard to judge to this day,” Verdugo said. “Anyone could ball out for 60 games. That extra 102 is a big difference. They won it, it’s a true one, for what we call it. But I still call it as I see it, it’s still a 60-gamer.”

Verdugo’s comment comes into clearer focus when you learn that he was dealt from L.A. to the Boston Red Sox before the start of the 2020 season in a deal that brought superstar Mookie Betts to the Dodgers. Well, in ’24 Verdugo got his shot to show his former team that 2020 was a fluke, but instead, he waved at Buehler’s curveball to seal the deal.

After the victory, Buehler had some words for the haters (but mostly Verdugo):

“It’s everything, man,” Buehler said. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve played a lot of really good baseball and haven’t gotten it done. 2020 everybody talked shit. Can’t really say much about it now.”

Ratings Up

The 2023 World Series was the least-watched of all time, averaging just over nine million domestic viewers per game. With both teams coming out of the Wild Card round and an overall declining trend of World Series viewership, this was unsurprising, but the 2024 match-up had the fan bases to reverse the trend. With over 15 million domestic viewers per game, the series was the most watched since 2017, but Ohtani and Dodgers’ pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto brought another fanbase with them: An average of over 12 million Japanese viewers tuned in to each game, taking place at 9 a.m. local time. 

The 2024 World Series gave us excitement, storylines, and another chapter in the storied rivalry of these two great teams.

Ethan Lee can be reached at ejlee@wesleyan.edu.