The Los Angeles Dodgers are going to the World Series to face the New York Yankees. The Dodgers topped the New York Mets 10-5 in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday night at Dodger Stadium, and with the win they clinched their first NL pennant since the abbreviated season of 2020. Now comes a reprise of the most storied World Series rivalry of all.
In that Game 6 that sent the Dodgers to the Fall Classic and sent the Mets home, Tommy Edman emerged as the hero for the victors. In the bottom of the first, Edman with one out doubled home two runs to turn a 1-0 early deficit into a 2-1 advantage. It was the first and last lead change of the series.
Then in the third, Edman with a runner on first did this a 1-2 fastball from Sean Manaea:
That's a 406-foot home run, and that's a 4-1 Dodgers lead. For Edman, it was also a bit of Dodgers postseason history, as he tied the franchise NLCS record with his 11th RBI. Dave Roberts' decision to bat Edman in the cleanup spot raised an eyebrow or three, especially since Edman had batted ninth earlier in the series. However, it's defensible from a matchup standpoint. Manaea, the Mets' starter, is a lefty, and the switch-hitting Edman for his career has slugged .506 against left-handers but just .375 against right-handers. Thanks largely to Edman, Manaea wound up allowing five runs on six hits in just two innings of work.
The Mets made it a game again in the fourth with Mark Vientos' fifth homer of the 2024 postseason. New York also had plenty of traffic on the bases against what turned out to be a parade of seven Dodger relievers in Roberts' planned bullpen game – a bullpen game in the most extreme sense of the term. However, the big hit eluded them too often. In all, the Mets on Sunday left 13 runners on base and went 2 for 9 with RISP. The Mets were within range going into the bottom of the eighth, but then the Dodgers blew it open with a three-run frame. The 10 runs the Dodgers scored in Game 6 was a fitting capstone to what was a dominant series by the L.A. offense, which put 46 runs on the board across those six games.
While the Dodgers now ready themselves for Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and the Yankees, the Mets head into the offseason having fallen six wins shy of their first title since 1986 and coming off an improbable run of late-season and playoff miracles. It figures to be an active winter for the Mets, particularly with the aforementioned Soto headed for the free-agent market and with owner Steve Cohen likely planning a serious run at him. For now, though, it's the sting of unrealized goals.
Now for some relevant takeaways.
The Dodger bullpen has done the job
It wasn't the cleanest of nights in Game 6, as all those Dodger relievers permitted five runs and plenty of traffic. They did enough, though, and all postseason long they've stepped into the breach in an essential manner. That's because the Dodgers in these playoffs are down a rotation and then some. What once looked like enviable rotation depth was dismantled by injury upon injury, and Roberts managed the Dodgers to the pennant with exactly three healthy starting pitchers. He also did it in the NLCS without Alex Vesia, perhaps the Dodgers' best reliever during the regular season who's presently down with an intercostal-muscle injury. Roberts has had to run bullpen games on multiple occasions, and the bullpen as a result has been worked hard. In these playoffs, Dodger relievers, including openers, have pitched to a 3.28 ERA, and they've done that across a span of 60 1/3 innings. In other words, L.A. relievers have averaged roughly 5.5 innings per game during this postseason. Without that heavy lifting, the Dodgers wouldn't have won the pennant.
This might have been Pete Alonso's last game as a Met
Alonso is a beloved figure among Mets fans, and he's an organizational lifer – a Met since being drafted with a second-round pick in 2016. He memorably hit 53 home runs as a rookie in 2019, and overall has socked 226 home runs in six seasons. The decorated slugger, however, is slated for free agency this offseason, and despite occasional whispers of extension talk, nothing has been realized. Lead decision-maker David Stearns is probably loath to invest much in a first baseman who already may be showing some soft signs of decline and who turns 30 in December. In light of all that, the current expectation is that Alonso will sign elsewhere for 2025 and beyond. That was certainly the vibe at Citi Field in the late innings of Game 5. No matter how the future plays out, Alonso will always be a hero in Queens.
It's a marquee matchup in the World Series
The Dodgers on Sunday clinched the 26th pennant in franchise history. The only team with more? That would be their World Series opponents, the Yankees, who have won 41 pennants. Yes, the Dodgers and Yankees are the two most storied franchises in baseball – old-line, vaunted clubs with proud histories and, these days, vast resources and cultural footprints. They also have a long and substantial history when it comes to the World Series. In all, they've met 11 times in the Fall Classic – the most frequent matchup of all, by a wide margin – starting in 1941 and most recently in 1981. Of those 11 clashes, the Yankees prevailed in eight of them. The Dodgers, however, drew last blood by taking the '81 series in six games. This edition features plenty of star power – Shohei Ohtani, Judge, Soto, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Gerrit Cole – and has the immediate potential to be a classic.