MILWAUKEE — Given his eventual World Series heroics, it may be easy to forget that Dodgers superstar Freddie Freeman got off to quite a slow start last postseason.
Battling right ankle and rib injuries, he entered the Fall Classic with zero extra-base hits and only one RBI through his first six games of the 2024 postseason. Then, he hit a walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees — and it seemed to flip a switch.
That kicked off a stretch in which Freeman homered in four consecutive games. He mashed his way to World Series MVP honors by racking up four homers and 12 RBIs in just five games.
Locked in a scoreless pitchers’ duel, Freeman finally broke through with a moonshot that just cleared the right-field wall for a solo home run. It marked not only Freeman’s first home run of the postseason, but his first RBI. He entered the night just 5-for-23 (.217) without an RBI in six games — the longest RBI drought in a single postseason of his career.
Freeman put a resounding end to that skid with his 10th career go-ahead postseason home run. That’s tied with Jose Altuve for the most in MLB history.
“That was huge,” said Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts. “That’s Freddie Freeman for you. It’s just one of those things where you just have to figure out a way where somebody has to get a big swing.”
The way Dodgers starter Blake Snell was dealing — he faced the minimum over eight scoreless innings — it looked as if Freeman’s one big swing may be all the Dodgers needed.
“When you get one for Blake, you’re feeling good,” Freeman said. “But you always want to get more.”
As it turned out, Betts’ bases-loaded walk in the top of the ninth forced in the eventual game-winning run as the Brewers’ furious rally in the bottom of the ninth ultimately came up short.
Still, it was Freeman’s towering home run that helped the Dodgers settle in, especially after the must-see wild double play in the fourth inning that had the potential to swing the momentum in Milwaukee’s favor.
As he’s done so many times over the years, though, Freeman silenced the sold-out crowd just one inning later.
“Freddie Freeman has been a Brewer killer for a while,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “So, hopefully, he’ll oversleep tomorrow or something.”
To that point, the last time Freeman played a postseason game against the Brewers prior to Monday night came in Game 4 of the 2021 NLDS as a member of the Braves. Freeman hit a back-breaking go-ahead homer off star closer Josh Hader with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning that ended Milwaukee’s season.
Overall, Freeman is now 6-for-18 (.333) with four extra-base hits and a 1.232 OPS in five career postseason games against the Brewers. Dating back to 2017, he’s hitting .307 with 12 homers, 36 RBIs and a .966 OPS in 53 games (including playoffs) against the Brewers.
Freeman has reached base safely in 48 of those 53 contests.
“There is no rhyme or reason to it,” Freeman said. “It could literally be I just feel good about my swing during the course of the regular season, and those three to four days that we play the Brewers.
“Sometimes, as a hitter, when you feel good it doesn’t really matter who you’re facing. Sometimes, when you’re feeling bad, it doesn’t matter who is on the mound — you’ve got no chance. I don’t know what it is. I’m not going to try to find a reason for it.”
That said, he may want to at least double check his alarms before he goes to sleep Monday night.
“Murph and I are very close,” Freeman said when Murphy’s joke was relayed to him. “I don’t think I’m going to oversleep tomorrow.”
