Freddie Freeman shines as Dodgers’ World Series MVP with historic performance
Freddie Freeman played a pivotal role in the Los Angeles Dodgers' championship run, making history with his remarkable home run streak and earning the title of 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, News.Az reports, citing ESPN."It seems like we hit every speed bump possible over the course of this year," Freeman said. "And to overcome what we did as a group of guys, it's special. This is what we start out to do every single spring training is to win a championship. I think it's the hardest thing to do in sports because you just never know what's going to happen."
Though Freeman had a record-setting streak ended of six straight World Series games with a homer, he just missed extending the mark to seven -- Aaron Judge snagged a Freeman drive early in the game at the fence.
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.
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 winner, but like Gibson, Freeman was hobbled when he hit it. Freeman has dealt with an ankle sprain during the Dodgers' postseason run, a malady that required almost constant treatment.
"He's tougher than I am, that's for sure," Frederick Freeman, Freddie's father, said after the game. "I don't know any other person who could have done that."
Whereas Gibson's legendary homer 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 held 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 World Series appearances.
"You don't really think about (the hot streak) when you're up there," Freeman said. "Things seem to be slowing down. That's kind of what you're just trying to do. And I think obviously experience definitely helps in this situation."
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