A Dodgers Thanksgiving

However you are spending this Thursday, here’s a look back at Game 7 of the World Series, a mere 26 days ago. A lot of things had to go right for the Dodgers to win a second straight championship.

First came Max Muncy, whose solo home run in the eighth inning cut the Dodgers deficit to one run.

Two outs away from the season ending, Miguel Rojas — who earlier in the game picked up his first hit in exactly one month — hit a game-tying home run to keep the Dodgers alive. A home run so memorable that Rojas teared up upon seeing artwork depicting the blast.

In the bottom of the ninth inning with one out and the bases loaded, any non-out would have ended the Dodgers season. Up first came a hot shot at a drawn-in Rojas, who gathered his bearings and threw home to a stretching Will Smith on a bang-bang play at the plate to prevent the winning run from scoring.

Next, a drive by Ernie Clement seemed destined to land in deep left field, especially when Kiké Hernández first took a step in before racing to just get to the ball. In came Andy Pages barreling in from center field, just five pitches after entering the game on defensive in the middle of the inning.

Will Smith, whose 73 innings behind the plate were the most by any catcher in World Series history, hit the game-winning home run in the 11th inning.

For that lead to hold up, the Dodgers relied on World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, pitching his third inning of Game 7 after throwing 96 pitches in six innings of Game 6 the day before. A leadoff double put the tying run in scoring position, but after a sacrifice bunt and walk, Yamamoto induced the final two outs on one play, with Mookie Betts touching second base and throwing cleanly to Freddie Freeman at first base to finish the job.