Outside The Confines: LA Story

The Dodgers break out to a 2-0 lead in the World Series thanks to Freddie Freeman’s dramatic home run. The Yankees and Aaron Judge search for answers. And other news from the World Series and baseball.

Good morning. Has anything in baseball happened since Friday?

I’m going to assume you know how Game 1 ended and who won Game 2 and that Los Angeles has a two-games-to-one lead in the World Series.

• Bob Nightengale gets reaction from the Dodgers after his walk-off grand slam to win Game 1 in ten innings. Manager Dave Roberts called it “the greatest baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed.”
• Kyle Glaser has an appreciation of Freeman and all he’s gone through this year and draws the comparison to Kirk Gibson’s famous walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
• There were some odd similarities between Freeman’s home run and Gibson’s.
• Jason Beck gets Gibson’s reaction to Freeman’s home run. Gibson said he had a premonition that something like that was going to happen.
• Jack Baer argues that the other star of Freeman’s home run was Fox broadcaster Joe Davis, who channeled Vin Scully’s famous home run call Freeman’s homer.
• Noah Furtado speaks with Davis about his call and his “Gibby, meet Freddie” line. (The Athletic sub. req.) Davis said he questioned his call afterwards until he was told everyone loved it by his wife.
• Gabe Lacques speaks to Nestor Cortes, the Yankees pitcher who allowed Freeman’s home run. Cortes says that he’s not going to feel down about making a bad pitch.
• Ben Clemens second-guesses Yankees manager Aaron Boone about his moves in the tenth inning of Game 1. He’s OK with the intentional walk to Mookie Betts before Freeman’s home run, but thinks that there is no way that Cortes should have been pitching at that moment.
• Ben Lindbergh thinks the playoffs were overdue for a big managerial mistake and Aaron Boone delivered one in a big way.
• Matt Snyder writes that Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto proved that he was an “October ace” pitcher in Game 2.
• The big story of Game 2 was a late-game injury (a shoulder subluxation) to Shohei Ohtani. But Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said that they expect Ohtani to play in Game 3.
• Matt Kelly and Manny Randhawa have teams that won the pennant or World Series despite missing star players.
• Ken Rosenthal writes that it would be a big loss for baseball if Ohtani was not able to play. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• For one, all of Japan is transfixed by the World Series, despite the 13 hour time difference. Justin McCurry reports.
• It’s doing well in the US as well as it’s the most-watched first two games of the World Series since 2017.
• Jeff Passan asks if the Yankees have what it takes to get back into the Series.
• Dayn Perry has four things the Yankees have to do to have a chance to win the Series.
• Mike Lupica thinks a Yankees comeback starts with outfielder Aaron Judge and manager Aaron Boone.
• Judge talked about his World Series struggles. He said he needs to “step up” and that such struggles “eat at you.”
• Jake Mintz asks if the Dodgers have broken Aaron Judge.
• Anthony Castrovince writes that the legacies of some players are at stake in the Series. Judge is at the top of his list.
• The Athletic watched the first two games of the Series with four MLB players and got their immediate reactions to big moments. (sub. req.) One of the four players was Jameson Taillon.
• Sarah Langs has facts and figures from Game 2.
• Do-Hyoung Park reports on Yankees pitcher Tommy Kahnle and the 56-straight changeups he’s thrown over four playoff games.
• Will Leitch has the big storylines going into Game 3.
• Alex Kirshner thinks that outfielder Juan Soto’s impending free agency is a sword hanging over the Yankees.
• Soto addressed his free agency for the first time in quite a while and implied that money would not necessarily be the biggest factor deciding where he’d play next year. I’ve been saying that for a while.
• Anthony Gharib remembers back to 1981, the last time that the Dodgers and Yankees faced off in the World Series.
• Michael Clair talks to the broadcasters of the World Series for Indian TV and the challenges of bringing baseball broadcasts to that cricket-mad country.
• Mike Scioscia spoke to Bill Dwyre about his memories of Fernando Valenzuela. No one caught Valenzuela more during his career than Scioscia.
• Howard Bryant shares stories of Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, which he calls the “best baseball game I’ve ever witnessed live.” That’s the game with the 11th-inning walk-off home run by Aaron Boone.

I’ve taken my name out of the running as well.

• MLB wants to know where the Rays will play in 2025 by Christmas.

• And finally, 17-year-old Naomi Ryan is the youngest player on USA Baseball women’s team. Clinton Yates explains how she got to go to Los Angeles to see Game 1 of the World Series thanks to The Jennifer Hudson Show and her high school manager Billy Wagner.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.