World Series: Yankees lose heartbreaker to Dodgers in Game 1 on Freddie Freeman's 10th-inning grand slam

LOS ANGELES — The Yankees got Kirk Gibson’d but good.

Whether they will suffer the same fate as the A’s did 36 years ago remains to be seen.

Nestor Cortes, brought in to protect a one-run lead in the 10th inning on Friday night in Game 1 of the World Series, retired the first batter he faced, no small task in that it was presumed National League MVP Shohei Ohtani.

But after an intentional walk to Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, dealing with a right ankle sprain suffered late in the regular season, hit a walk-off grand slam on Cortes’ first pitch to him to send the Yankees to a crushing 6-3 loss in front of a boisterous sellout crowd of 52,394 at Dodger Stadium.

“It’s tough,” Cortes said. “Walking in here [the clubhouse], I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I felt more that I let my team down. The guys scratched and clawed for three runs. Our bullpen kept it close enough for us to get that run in the 10th. Just sucks I couldn’t come through for the guys.”

The Yankees, who went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners, had taken a 3-2 lead in the 10th when Jazz Chisholm Jr., who hit all of .147 in the first nine games of the postseason, singled with one out, stole second and third and scored on Anthony Volpe’s forceout.

With Luke Weaver having pitched 1 2⁄3 scoreless innings, closing fell to Jake Cousins, who retired Will Smith on a flyout to right. But he walked Gavin Lux and allowed an infield single by Tommy Edman.

That paved the road to the disastrous finish — from the Yankees’ perspective — that followed.

Ohtani swung at a first-pitch fastball from Cortes and lifted toward the seats in foul ground in leftfield. Alex Verdugo, sacrificing his body, made a terrific running catch before flipping into the stands, and both runners were awarded an extra base.

The intentional walk to Betts loaded the bases and Freeman, dealing with a lower-body injury as Gibson was in 1988, unloaded on the first pitch he saw, driving a 409-foot no-doubter to rightfield, just like Gibson’s homer off Dennis Eckersley.

“We just gotta get one more [out],” Verdugo said. “We got that bases-loaded, lefty-lefty matchup that we wanted. A guy made a really good swing on a pitch.”

Cortes said he wanted the pitch “maybe two or three inches up higher.”

“I thought I got it to the inside part of the plate where I wanted to but didn’t get it up enough,” he said.

There was the question, naturally, of why Cortes was in rather than another lefthander who was up with him in the bullpen before the 10th, Tim Hill. The sidearmer had been terrific in the playoffs, pitching to a 1.59 ERA in seven games, and Cortes had not pitched since Sept. 18 after suffering a flexor strain in his left elbow.

“Just liked the matchup,” Aaron Boone said. “The reality is he’s [Cortes] been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he’s gotten ready for this. I knew with one out there, it would be tough to double up Shohei if Tim Hill gets him on the ground, and then Mookie behind him is a tough matchup there. So felt convicted with Nestor in that spot.”

It didn’t hurt that Ohtani came into the night 2-for-12 (both hits were singles) in his career against Cortes.

“Why don’t you ask Boonie?” Hill said of the bullpen decision. “I just pitch, bro.”

The Yankees received a brilliant outing from Gerrit Cole and more effective work from their bullpen, taking a 2-1 lead in the sixth courtesy of Giancarlo Stanton’s 412-foot two-run homer off Jack Flaherty. For Stanton, who grew up in the Los Angeles area going to Dodgers games as a child and who earned ALCS MVP honors after homering four times in that five-game series, it was his sixth homer of this postseason.

Gleyber Torres couldn’t handle Juan Soto’s throw and was charged with a critical error in the eighth that allowed Ohtani to take an extra base on his double off the upper part of the rightfield wall, and he wound up scoring on Betts’ sacrifice fly to tie it at 2-2. It stayed that way until the punch-counterpunch action in the 10th.

“You never want that ending. We’ve taken a blow like that before this postseason,” said Stanton, referencing the Yankees’ walk-off loss to the Guardians in Game 3 of the ALCS (which made that series 2-1). “But obviously not at this level of stakes. But you’ve gotta win four anyways. No one said it’s going to be easy.”

 With Tim Healey