ON TOP OF THE WORLD: Dodgers rally past Yankees, conquer World Series

NEW YORK (AFP) — The Los Angeles Dodgers produced a stunning fightback to defeat the New York Yankees and clinch the World Series on Wednesday with a dramatic come-from-behind 7-6 victory.

On a night of spellbinding drama at the Yankee Stadium, the Dodgers sealed their second Major League Baseball championship crown in five seasons and eighth overall after recovering from 5-0 down to complete a 4-1 series victory.

“It’s unbelievable,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

“A lot of people counted us out. These guys believed in each other even when we were down 5-0 they persevered, kept fighting and now we’re world champions.”

The Yankees, who had kept the series alive with an 11-4 rout in Game 4 on Tuesday, had looked poised to take the series back to Los Angeles for Game 6 after home runs from Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton.

Yankees starter Gerrit Cole, meanwhile, produced a masterful performance from the mound to keep the Dodgers’ potent offensive line-up scoreless through four innings.

But a catastrophic fifth inning by the Yankees, which included a litany of defensive errors, saw the Dodgers pile on five unearned runs to tie the score at 5-5.

Although the Yankees regained the lead through a Stanton sacrifice-fly in the sixth inning, the Dodgers hit back in the eighth with sac-flys of their own from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts to claim what turned out to be a winning 7-6 lead.

The Dodgers then brought back game three starter Walker Buehler to bag the final three outs in the ninth to clinch victory.

“Obviously, (we’re) resilient, but there’s so much love in this clubhouse, care — that care won this game today,” said Dodgers star Betts.

“That’s what it was. It was love, it was grit. It was just a beautiful thing and I’m just proud of us and I’m happy for us.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone was disconsolate at the nature of the defeat, lamenting the self-inflicted errors that had allowed the Dodgers back into the game.

“As I said to the guys, obviously it stings now — but this is going to sting forever,” Boone said. “We just didn’t take care of the ball well enough... against a great team like that, they took advantage.”

Dodgers star Freddie Freeman, who blasted four consecutive home runs in the opening four games of the series, was named Series Most Valuable Player.

“I think we were all saying the first three innings — ‘let’s just get one, just chip away, we can do this,’” said Freeman, who drove in two runs in the fifth inning rally with a single. “There’s a couple of mistakes that happened, you’ve got to capitalize.”