Either You Want it or You Don't

 

From a storytelling perspective, the right team won. 

There were so many storylines in play. The Dodgers not getting the full glory, and the full credit, in 2020. The Dodgers failing to actually win with all their big stars. The best teams never taking the glory after the playoff expansion. Ohtani finally playing for a competitor. The pitching revealing a skeleton crew. Freeman recovering from both a personal tragedy and an injury. All of this farming in a five year timeline to lead to an incredible win, and a HUGE win at that, is what baseball can be at its best. You want a full-season storyline with definite heroes? There you go. The best team won, and it wasn't an easy win, because in an alternate universe the Padres keep the leverage. The Dodgers had to become a well-oiled machine in October after breaking down throughout the second half, and they refined themselves and became unstoppable.

Watching this team keep fighting throughout this series, with all the Freddie Freeman highlights, all the incredible pitching energy from Yamamoto, Buehler and Vesia, all the quick contact moments late, was incredible. There was so much fight in this team, and they only got more hungry as the series went on. Any other team couldn't have come back from a 5-0 deficit tonight, and they not only did it, but erased any possibility of a Yankee surge. 

All things considered, this was the outcome that made the most sense. The Dodgers earned this. They fulfilled their promise to the fans from 2020, and undid the punchline of dropping early. They should be very proud.

Now...if I can be honest...the Dodgers shouldn't have won that game. I'm sorry, but there was only so much that the Dodgers themselves did that couldn't be chalked up to mistakes the Yankees made. This game had multiple fielding errors, a catcher's interference, a balk, and a pitching missed tag. And 5 runners left in scoring position. The Yankees were constantly put into position to win this game, and they refused. And it honestly sums up this Series for them. They had so many opportunities, so many moments they could have owned, and they just couldn't. 

And for all of this to happen after 4 innings of beautiful baseball, Aaron Judge shushing the haters, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton going yard, Gerrit Cole working on a beaut and Judge robbing a Freeman homer. It felt like this team was flipping the script, at last. And then everything fell apart, and all of the flaws this team had been working to hide just burst open. And despite conscious efforts to keep at it, it just felt like something broke. 

The Yankees could have won, and chose not to. This game, this series. A more bitter person could make a case that it was less the Dodgers winning this series and more the Yankees losing it. I'm not gonna do that. The Dodgers did a lot right, and earned this win. But they were certainly helped by the Yankees blowing every last opportunity that came their way. 

You also have to think of it this way: Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, Clay Holmes, Alex Verdugo, Tommy Kahnle and possibly Anthony Rizzo might all be gone next year. This season was the perfect storm, and a tip of a lot of the Boone regime's quest to make the deeper postseason. And while next year the Yankees will still be competitive, I don't know if they'll have a lot of the pieces that made themselves a World Series team, and they may be in danger of falling off. Even if they keep Soto, which'll prevent subsequent moves probably. 

So that's where we're at. The Dodgers won at the right time, and can build off of this World Series win, while the Yankees lost at the wrong time and have a rockier path to staying at this level. What a happy, joyful end to a really entertaining season.