LOS ANGELES -- For eight and a half innings on Friday night, a string of zeros dominated the scoreboard at Dodger Stadium.
Enter Freddie Freeman.
Battling through a full count in the bottom of the ninth, Freeman hammered a 3-2 fastball from Angels reliever Kirby Yates deep into center field, breaking the scoreless tie and handing the Dodgers a dramatic 1-0 victory in the Freeway Series opener.
While the team mobbed Freeman at home plate, the blast instantly wrote itself into the history books. It was the first time a Dodger hit a walk-off home run for a 1-0 victory since Yasmani Grandal did so on May 3, 2015. It also marked the first 1-0 walk-off blast in the Majors since Christian Encarnacion-Strand accomplished the feat on Aug. 18, 2023.
The 404-foot blast also marked Freeman’s 20th career walk-off hit (including the postseason), tying him with Hall of Famer Andre Dawson and future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols for the fourth-most since the RBI became an official stat in 1920. Freeman trails only Roberto Clemente (21), Tony Perez (21), Dusty Baker (21), David Ortiz (23) and Frank Robinson (26).
More notably, despite a career defined by massive moments, this was Freeman’s very first regular-season walk-off home run since joining the Dodgers.
"Freddie just has that aura," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "There's not too many guys in baseball that you'd want up in a game-winning situation. And Freddie does it once again. It's pretty remarkable how he can kind of want to be that guy and come through as many times as he does."
Freeman’s heroics felt right in line with his recent offensive consistency. While early-season adjustments had him searching for his usual rhythm, the veteran first baseman has settled into a dominant groove over the last few weeks. He owns a .327/.412/.618 slash line with 12 RBIs and 10 walks over his past 15 games,
"I wish I had the exact answer," Freeman said of his recent surge. "You know, sometimes you just go through stretches where you just feel good. Obviously I've been feeling good lately. I was tweaking a lot of things early on, just trying to find a consistent spot, feel for things. And sometimes it's just, get a couple hits and you get some confidence to get going. So nothing really crazy. It's the same routine ... and things have been working."
That confidence was on full display in the ninth against Yates, a member of the 2025 Dodgers. Freeman got ahead 3-1 in the count, laying off a couple pitches in the dirt before fouling off an outside fastball to work a full count.
On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Freeman got exactly what he was looking for: a 91.6 mph four-seamer left up in the zone.
"When you face Kirby, you've got to look up fastball, splitters," Freeman explained. "If you look down, you're probably going to chase the splitter. So, you know, I had a nice game plan going into it, looking up and, I was able to get a pitch.