MLB playoffs: How Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman fought to the NLCS
LOS ANGELES — They wore black T-shirts commemorating their return to the National League Championship Series and congregated in front of the Dodger Stadium pitcher’s mound Friday night, in prime position for a team photograph. But it quickly became clear that someone was missing. And so roughly 70 members of the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers — players, coaches, trainers, doctors, clubbies — chanted for him in unison.
Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!
Freddie Freeman emerged from an interview and hobbled over, lifting both arms to the sky before plopping down in front of them.
Fifteen days earlier, Freeman had suffered an ankle sprain that should have kept him out for as many as six weeks. He returned in a little more than one, somehow taking 12 at-bats and playing 29 defensive innings to help the Dodgers vanquish their hated rivals, the San Diego Padres, in the division series. Every prep step was the result of a laborious pregame routine that often ran the emotional gamut. Every swing qualified as a near-miracle.
“It’s hard to put into words, exactly, what it meant to see Freddie doing that,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “Almost gives you chills a little bit.”
Freeman turned himself into a modern-day iron man, playing in 99% of his games over the last five years, by mastering the aspects within his control. If he could hone in on a sound routine and never waver from it, Freeman thought, he’d minimize the unpredictability around him. The 2024 season — beset by fluky injuries and family trauma —broke down all of that. And yet Freeman continually found a way, most notably in October, while hobbling toward a .353 batting average through the first six games of these playoffs.
The Dodgers, who had spent an entire season navigating a litany of starting-pitcher injuries, knew they needed Freeman’s presence in their lineup. They later learned they needed to channel his mindset. Their past two seasons had followed the same disheartening script — win the NL West, secure a first-round bye, get trounced in the division series by an inferior division rival — and left them searching for an edge in these playoffs.
In many ways, Freeman’s indomitable will provided it.
“When you see him, you know he’s got broken bones all over the place and he can barely f—ing walk, and he’s out there making plays, stealing bases — they just don’t make them like him anymore,” Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux said. “He’s different, man. He’s a different breed. We all see him out there competing his ass off, even though he can barely walk, and it just makes us compete even harder.”
