Freddie Freeman homers in record 6th World Series game

Regardless of how the 2024 World Series pans out, Freddie Freeman’s performance will be remembered for a while.

The Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman made history in Game 4 on Tuesday with a two-run homer off New York Yankees rookie Luis Gil that put the Dodgers up 2-0 in the first inning of an elimination game for New York. It wasn’t the longest homer, at 343 feet, but Yankee Stadium will help a lot of left-handed power bats.

For the first time in this series, Freeman’s home run wasn’t enough to help propel the Dodgers to victory. The Yankees rallied for an 11-4 victory to extend the World Series to Game 5 on Wednesday and cut their deficit to 3-1. Freeman finished his night 1-for-4 at the plate with the home run, one run scored and three RBI.

The story Freeman made is twofold. He is the first player ever to homer in the first four games of a World Series, tying the record held by Barry Bonds and Hank Bauer by three years. He also has now homered in six consecutive World Series games after going deep in the final two contests of the Atlanta Braves’ 2021 victory.

Freeman has been among the best in the MLB for years, but he’s reached another level in this Fall Classic. He also entered this series with no shortage of trouble, having sprained his right ankle near the end of the regular season and been significantly limited in the first two rounds of the postseason.

Freeman didn’t hit an extra-base hit in the NLDS or NLCS, and he missed a few games to help his ankle heal, but he now has four homers plus a triple in the games that matter most. The most memorable of those home runs, of course, was his walk-off grand slam in Game 1, the first of its kind in World Series history.