The 2017 And 2024 World Series Were Separated By Just A Few Inches

After Freddie Freeman hit the second most consequential post-season home run in Dodgers’ history, after being hobbled in the NLCS Freeman hit a ball to nearly the same spot in the bleachers at Dodger Stadium at precisely the same time as THE most consequential post-season home run in Dodgers’ history (8:37 pm), after the team again won a World Series Game 1 that was all but lost moments before, which then led to winning the World Series in five games, nearly everyone was equating the 2024 World Series to the 1988 version.

And why wouldn’t they? The dramatic walk-off winner with the same backdrop and the incredible call (back) by Joe Davis (“she is…gone!”) gave baseball fans a shiver up their collective spines.

However, for a wholly different reason, the 2024 World Series was, in many ways, more akin to the 2017 edition. Or at least the final game was.

This year, the Los Angeles Dodgers had a chance to sweep the New York Yankees, but lost Game 4 in New York by the lopsided score of 11-4. The Yankees were attempting to protect their home turf in Game 5; attempting to send the series back to L.A. with a bunch of momentum and increased pressure on the National League pennant winners. And protect they did, sprinting out to a 5-0 lead after three innings. As we all know, things unraveled in the top of the fifth, when the Dodgers scored five unearned runs to tie the game. What a difference a few inches, a few feet, and some competent defense make.

2017 World Series

In Game 7 of the 2017 World Series, the Dodgers fell behind 2-0 after just three batters. This ambush was not the product of what we later learned to be the “banging scheme,” which the Astros employed at Minute Maid Park that season. No, this was the product of Dodgers’ starter Yu Darvish tipping his pitches. Before the Dodgers came to bat, the Astros had a 69% win expectancy.

Regardless, the Dodgers had an opportunity to get back into the game in the bottom of the first. A double and two hits-by-pitches loaded the bases for Joc Pederson. When Pederson came to the plate, he was slashing .316/.381/.947 in the playoffs, with three home runs, and the Dodgers had knocked ten percentage points off the ‘Stros’ win expectancy. On an 0-2 pitch, Pederson grounded hard to Jose Altuve at second, was easily retired, and the Dodgers left the bases loaded (and the tying runs in scoring position). Had Pederson hit a slow roller to Yuli Gurriel at first, and had Lance McCullers, Jr. not covered the bag, it could have been 2-1 Astros with the bases still loaded and Logan Forsyth coming to bat (this would have moved it down to 53%).

A walk, a double, and a George Springer two-run homer in the top of the second extended the Astros lead to 5-0, and increased their win expectancy to 84.5%. In the bottom half, the Dodgers put two runners on with one out, but Chris Taylor then lined into a 6-4 double play. A few inches to the left or right, the score is 5-1 with Corey Seager coming to the plate.

In the bottom of the third, the first two batters reached (single and HBP). Yasiel Puig hit a high drive to deep center. Less than inch on his bat, and the score is 5-3. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, it landed in Springer’s glove just shy of the warning track. Pederson then struck out to end the threat. After three innings, the Astros led 5-0 (sound familiar?) and the Dodgers had left six runners on base, including three in scoring position. At this point, Houston had a 95% win expectancy.

Los Angeles put two runners on in each of the fifth and sixth innings and cashed in one run. It was way too little, way too late (94.2%). The Dodgers ultimately fell to the Astros 5-1, lost Game 7, and lost the World Series.

2024 World Series

If, in the fifth inning of Game 5, Anthony Rizzo had made the same jaunt to first base that he made in the first inning on a Mookie Betts grounder, or had Gerrit Cole covered first base in the same manner he has thousands of times in his career, the fifth inning ends with the Yankees leading 5-0 on their way to a Game 5 victory and a trip back to the West Coast (this would have been a 97% win expectancy). Or, even after that snafu, had Freeman’s liner to center been hit either just a little softer or a little harder – it was 78.8 MPH off the bat and traveled 199 feet (Freeman’s average exit velocity this season was 89.4 MPH) – the Yankees retire him and leave the bases loaded. They get out of the fifth with a 5-1 lead, giving them a chance to win Game 5 and have a trip back to Los Angeles (95%).

After Freeman’s soft hit found grass in the outfield, the score stood 5-3 (still a 77% win expectancy). But once Teoscar Hernández doubled home Betts and Freeman to tie the score, the Yankees win expectancy dropped to 52%.

The Bronx Bombers were able to move their win expectancy back up to 73% when Giancarlo Stanton hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth to give the Yankees a 6-5 lead. And when Max Muncy struck out looking to end the seventh inning, New York increased that to 79%. Two singles, a walk, a catcher’s interference, and two sacrifice flies in the top of the eighth once again flipped the game on its head, as the Dodgers left that inning with a 7-6 lead and a 70% win expectancy.

Watching the Dodgers claw back from a 5-0 deficit to beat the Yankees in 2024 was a stark reminder of the many missed opportunities they had to claw back from 2-0 and 5-0 deficits in 2017 (10 LOB for the game, 1-for-13 with RISP). This year, they were the recipients of some poor defense and at least one massive mental error, whereas seven years earlier, they ran into a more fundamentally sound team and were just plain unlucky.

Ninety-five years ago, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Harold C. Burr wrote: “A baseball game is often lost on a slimmer margin than a foot and a yard. It’s truly been said it’s a game of inches.” Last week in the Bronx, that adage was never more apparent. And that yard, that foot, and those inches, gave the Dodgers a World Series title.