NEW YORK -- Just days after losing in the World Series, New York Yankees slugger Juan Soto will hit the open market as one of the most sought-after players in recent history.

Soto's talent and age -- he turned 26 last week -- make him attractive to just about any team.

"It's going to be exciting," Soto said not long after the Yankees' Game 5 loss to the Dodgers on Wednesday. "It's going to be a good experience. I think every player in the big league wants to experience this. So it's exciting to see how it's going to be."

Soto is coming off a monster regular season. He posted a .288 batting average, 41 home runs and 129 walks and a .989 OPS. He ranked fourth in fWAR and is a Gold Glove finalist in right field. He also hit .327 with four home runs this postseason, helping the Yankees earn a spot in the Fall Classic.

"I'm proud of the year that Juan had," teammate Aaron Judge said. "It was fun to come to work with him every single day. Even when the guy was hitting .320, I'd see him hitting late after games. If he had a oh-fer, he was showing up early doing work. Whatever he decides, whatever him and his family decide ... he's going to make the right decision for him. We were definitely lucky to have him here, and it would be great to keep playing with him because he's definitely a special player."

Judge and Soto formed a dynamic duo in the Yankees lineup, combining for 99 home runs, but Soto was noncommittal about giving the Yankees a leg up on re-signing him. He's not closing any doors on them -- or any team in baseball.

"I'm really happy with the city, with the team, but at the end of the day we will see," Soto said. "We're going to look at every situation, every offer that we get. I don't know what teams want to come after me, but definitely I'll be open to listen to every single team. I don't have any doors closed or anything like that, so we're going to be available for all 30 teams."

Though every team could use his talent, only a handful are likely to afford his massive payday. Both New York teams are natural fits, as are almost all of the other big-market franchises. Soto was asked about the possibility of receiving a deal that could be worth over $600 million.

"It's a lot of money that people are talking about here and there, but definitely we are going to shake it out," he said. "What's my value?"

That's a question that will begin to get answered by his agent, Scott Boras, starting next week at the general manager meetings in Texas. If the past is any indication for Boras' top clients, a decision won't come quickly. In the meantime, the Yankees can make their pitch -- both from the manager's office and clubhouse.

"I hope he's here forever, but I also know I'm excited for him and what the next few months are for him," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "But from my standpoint, I couldn't have asked for better."

Judge added: "I think everybody in this room wants him back. ... He just does a lot of the little things that people don't notice that truly make him one of the best players, if not the best player in the game."

Soto was asked what his priority will be in free agency.

"I feel like everybody wants to be on a winning team," he said. "That's one of the biggest things that you look up to. You want to be part of this. Even if you don't make it to the last team standing, you want to be involved in all these [games], so I think that's one of the biggest things I'm looking for."

The Yankees also have a handful of other decisions to make regarding potential free agents, beginning with a $17 million option on first baseman Anthony Rizzo for next season. On Thursday, he'll have X-rays on two broken fingers he was playing through during the postseason. No matter the team's decision, Rizzo, 35, said he wanted to keep playing.

"I don't know what the future will [hold]," Rizzo said. "Talk with Cash [Brian Cashman], see what they're thinking. We have a lot left to give in this game in a lot of different ways."

Pitchers Clay Holmes and Tommy Kahnle are also free agents, as are infielder Gleyber Torres and outfielder Alex Verdugo.

"I just really started thinking about it right now," Verdugo said about free agency. "It's been the closest group of guys I've been with and these guys get me emotional just because how much they mean to me and how much they accepted me and let me in. So we got some things to think about, but I definitely want to be back in pinstripes to help us win one."

Soto expressed a desire to win it all as well after coming up just short with the Yankees. But will it be for the other New York team or someone else? The intrigue probably will be similar to Shohei Ohtani's free agency last offseason, when he signed for over $700 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who beat the Yankees to win the World Series. Soto's deal isn't likely to reach Ohtani levels, but it will certainly be rich.

"Leaving any place that is a winning team? It's always hard, and definitely this place was really special," Soto said. "It's been a blast for me. I've been really happy. If I'm here or not, I'm really happy for the teammates that I have and the people that I got to know in here. This was a really special group."

NEW YORK -- All year, right through the American League Championship Series, the New York Yankees overcame a tendency to play sloppy baseball by vanquishing opponents with overwhelming talent. The metrics calculated -- and eyes figured -- they were the worst baserunning team in the majors during the regular season. They regularly committed head-scratching defensive miscues. They were not nearly as fundamentally sound as one would expect for a 94-win, AL champion.

But the Yankees flaunted superstars. They had Aaron Judge and Juan Soto fueling an offense that banged home runs. They had Gerrit Cole fronting a topline starting rotation. They discovered an effective bullpen formula in time for October. Ultimately, they out-talented teams. Until they couldn't.

Their shortcomings finally caught up with them in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night. A total defensive meltdown in the fifth inning, one that will be remembered as one of the worst in postseason history, cost the Yankees their season in a 7-6 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium, ultimately ending their bid to become the first club to overcome a 3-0 deficit in the World Series.

"This is like as bad as it gets," Cole, the Yankees' starter, said.

Cole was on the mound for the fifth inning debacle. The right-hander, pitching on four days' rest for the fourth time this season, cruised up to the disaster, holding Los Angeles scoreless over four hitless innings. Cole threw just 49 pitches. The Dodgers' only baserunner reached on a walk. Trouble did not appear imminent. Then everything fell apart for New York.

It started with Enrique Hernández breaking the modest no-hit bid with a leadoff single. Four pitches later, Tommy Edman hit a routine line drive to Judge in center field. The sure-handed Judge had made a highlight catch crashing into the wall to steal extra bases from Freddie Freeman an inning earlier. This time, he flubbed the liner for his first error in 2024 -- regular season or postseason.

"That doesn't happen, we got a different story tonight," Judge said.

Five pitches after that, Will Smith hit a groundball to shortstop Anthony Volpe's right side. Volpe, a Gold Glove winner last season and a finalist this year, fielded the ball cleanly but short-hopped his throw to third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. attempting to nab the lead runner. Chisholm failed to corral the throw, loading the bases with no outs. Yankee Stadium went silent.

Then Cole went to work. He struck out Gavin Lux on four pitches, finishing him off with a 99.4 mph fastball. Up next: Shohei Ohtani. Cole needed four pitches to strike out the superstar, too, getting Ohtani to wave through a curveball at the bottom of the strike zone.

Suddenly, an escape without any damage seemed possible. It seemed like a certainty when Mookie Betts hit a 49.8 mph squibber to first baseman Anthony Rizzo. Because the ball bounced to Rizzo with so much spin, he did not charge it, instead staying back to make sure he gloved it cleanly. That meant he needed Cole to cover first base to beat Betts to the bag. But Cole didn't dash to first base to cover the bag, and Betts reached base without a throw.

"I took a bad angle to the ball," Cole said. "I wasn't sure really off the bat how hard he hit it. I took a direct angle to it, as if to cut it off because I just didn't know how hard he hit it. By the time the ball got by me, I was not in position to cover first. Neither of us were, based on the spin of the baseball and him having to secure it. Just a bad read off the bat."

The Dodgers scored their first run on the gaffe, which went down in the box score as an infield single. It will be memorialized as the beginning of the end of the Yankees' season. Freeman, the third straight former MVP Cole was tasked to retire, slashed a two-run single to center field. Teoscar Hernández followed with a game-tying two-run double to left-center field, completing a stupefying sequence that left the crowd stunned.

"You can't give teams like that extra outs," said Judge, who clubbed his first career World Series home run in the first inning to give New York a quick 2-0 lead. "They're going to capitalize, especially [with] their one, two, three top of the order. They don't miss."

Cole needed 38 pitches to survive the inning. He kept the game tied and rebounded to pitch into the seventh inning. He exited the game with one out and with a one-run lead -- Giancarlo Stanton's sacrifice fly in the sixth inning put the Yankees back on top -- but the fifth inning changed the game.

"We didn't take care of the ball well enough in that inning," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Against a great team like that, they took advantage."

With little margin for error, Tommy Kahnle entered to pitch the eighth inning. He surrendered a leadoff single through the left side to Enrique Hernández and lost his command from there. Edman reached on an infield single. Smith was walked on four pitches. Boone decided that was enough and replaced Kahnle with closer Luke Weaver.

"I let my team down," Kahnle, his eyes red from emotions, said.

The Yankees' best reliever in October, Weaver yielded a sacrifice fly to Lux that tied the game again and brought up Ohtani with runners on the corners. Weaver got ahead with the first pitch, getting Ohtani to foul off a changeup. But Austin Wells was called for catcher's interference behind the plate on the swing, which loaded the bases for Betts. He delivered another sacrifice fly to give the Dodgers their first lead. It was the only lead they needed.

In the end, the Yankees committed nearly every miscue in the box. There was Judge's inexplicable physical mishap, Volpe's throwing error, Cole's mental blunder, Wells' catcher's interference and, finally, a balk from Weaver in the ninth inning. The balk didn't impact the scoreboard, but it typified the Yankees' flaws on a night when they were exposed for the world to see.

"Capitalizing on mistakes, probably, and opportunities," Stanton said when asked what he believed was the difference in the series.

It certainly was the difference in the two games that bookended the series. In Game 1, Gleyber Torres' inability to corral a throw from the outfield on Ohtani's double in the eighth inning allowed Ohtani to advance to third base. Ohtani then scored on a sacrifice to tie the score. The run ultimately forced the game into extra innings, where Freeman, with the Dodgers down one, swatted a walk-off grand slam.

The gut-punch loss marked the beginning of the Yankees' 3-0 hole. They had a chance Wednesday to continue digging themselves out of it. But the fifth inning changed everything. After the game, after Alex Verdugo swung through a curveball from Walker Buehler to end their season, the Yankees didn't open the clubhouse to the media for 45 minutes, such an unusually long time that Boone began his news conference by apologizing for the delay.

The manager explained players were "pouring their hearts out" with "heartfelt messages." He emphasized, as the team has all October, this club's closeness. He said the defeat "is going to sting forever." In the clubhouse, players said their goodbyes with backslaps and hugs.

"I think falling short in the World Series will stick with me until I die, probably," Judge said.

In the end, the Yankees' talent was more than enough to win the AL East and claim the league's No. 1 seed. It won out against the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians, clubs with a sliver of the Yankees' $300 million payroll, in October. But the Dodgers, another high-priced roster brimming with star power and future Hall of Famers, were too good for that to happen again. They were the better, more fundamentally sound baseball team. The fifth inning Wednesday showed that.

CLEVELAND -- With the game all but decided early in the second half, the Cavaliers cruising toward a 134-110 win and their first 5-0 start since 2016, the Cleveland crowd started rooting for the other team Wednesday night.

Specifically for Los Angeles Lakers rookie Bronny James, son of LeBron, the greatest player in Cavaliers history.

A "We Want Bronny!" chant started midway through the third quarter and was picked back up midway through the fourth when Lakers coach JJ Redick acquiesced, subbing him in for just the second regular-season game action of his budding career.

And this time, he got his first NBA bucket.

Bronny scored on a 14-foot stepback jumper from the left wing over Jaylon Tyson with 2:03 remaining in the fourth quarter, causing the wave of fans that stuck around to see the moment to stand up and show appreciation for the hometown product.

"It was insane," Bronny said of the reception after finishing with 2 points, 2 assists and 1 steal in five minutes. "Much more than I anticipated for sure. But it's all love. It was insane. It was a nice moment. The chants really got me. I was straight-faced, but I felt it and it felt really good, especially coming from here.

"Yeah, it was a special moment for me for sure."

LeBron said that type of moment might have swallowed him up when he was a rookie with the Cavs in 2003.

"He's better than I would have been in that situation -- 20,000 fans screaming my name to get in the game and wanting me to be in the game, and if the role's reversed, I don't know if I would have been able to handle it," said LeBron, who scored 26 points but committed six turnovers as he lost in Cleveland as an opponent for just the third time in 12 games. "To see him get his first NBA basket in this arena where he grew up not too far away from here, it's an unbelievable moment.

"An unbelievable moment for him, first of all. For our family. It's just pretty cool to be a part of it."

Bronny last played on opening night, subbing in against the Timberwolves in the second quarter along with LeBron, and going 0 for 2 in three minutes. This time, he took the floor with his dad watching from the sideline and his grandmother, Gloria, sitting in the stands with a Lakers hat on as she watched another generation compete in the family business.

"I've been just taught to play the right way my whole life," Bronny said as he sat next to LeBron during their postgame news conference. "So, just me going in there and playing my game is always something that I'm going to do."

The crowd clamored for Bronny to shoot the ball from the moment he checked in with 5:16 remaining in the fourth quarter. His teammates accounted for seven shot attempts in the next three minutes before he finally hoisted one up.

The game came 10 years to the day when LeBron played his first game in his second stint with the Cavs -- a four-year span when he led the team to four straight NBA Finals appearances and delivered the only championship in franchise history in 2016, breaking a 53-year title drought for the city.

While the Akron, Ohio, native was initially vilified by Cleveland sports fans when he signed with the Miami Heat as a free agent in 2010, his return healed old wounds, and the region rallied around LeBron and his family. That was abundantly clear Wednesday, with the Cavs greeting LeBron and Bronny with welcome images of them celebrating the title over the Golden State Warriors on a video screen by the visitors locker room and then using a first-quarter timeout to play a tribute video for the father-son pair.

"We spent a lot of years here," LeBron said afterward. "We're part of this community, obviously. ... We were born not too far from here, 35 miles south of here, [our] hometown of Akron. And I spent 11 years of my NBA career -- half of my career -- here.

"We have so many great moments. We have so many great moments not only on the floor at this arena, no matter what the name is, if it was the Gund Arena or the Q, and now it's Rocket Mortgage. ... A lot of great memories on the court, but a lot of great memories off the floor as well in this community. To have the mutual respect and love for what we was able to accomplish in the years that we were here, it's definitely very humbling."

For Bronny, who said he used to play pick-up games on a practice court tucked away on the top floor of the arena while his dad was playing NBA games, he got to experience his time on center stage.

"Pretty much since I picked the ball up," Bronny said when asked how long he's envisioned scoring his first basket in the pros. "I've been watching [my dad] for a minute playing in the league. Just dreaming of me being in those players' steps, not only [LeBron's] but players he used to play against and with.

"So yeah, it was just a dream come true for me."

MIAMI -- Someone asked coach Tom Thibodeau before New York's game Wednesday night what else he's looking to get from Karl-Anthony Towns as this season goes along.

Thibodeau didn't sound worried.

A couple hours later, Towns showed why.

In only his fourth game with the Knicks, Towns went wild -- 44 points, by far the most by any New York player in this still-young season, leading his club to a 116-107 win over the Heat.

He might be a perfect fit into the decades-long Knicks-Heat rivalry. Towns averages 25.4 points in his career in games at Miami, his second-highest road average against any opponent. He averages 25.8 points in games at Indiana.

"The weather," Towns told MSG Network after the game, when asked why he likes games in Miami so much. "I was in Minnesota. It's cold. It's hot here. I like that."

Towns, traded by Minnesota to New York as camps were opening about a month ago in the deal that sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to the Timberwolves, wasn't off to a bad start to the season by any measure. His first three games: 12 points, 21 points and 13 points, with two double-doubles. Not eyepopping, but not bad, either.

Game 4 of his New York career was different from the get-go.

He had 24 by halftime, kept rolling in the second half, was 17 of 25 from the floor, grabbed 13 rebounds and had the fourth-most points ever by a Knick against the Heat in the 173rd game between the clubs. New York has won 88, Miami 85.

The 44 points also were the most in a game by a Knicks center since Patrick Ewing in 1995. And Towns became the first Knicks player with 40 points, 10 rebounds and 65% shooting in a game since Carmelo Anthony in 2014.

According to Second Spectrum, Towns made 11 catch-and-shoot shots, his most in a game since 2018 vs. the Hawks. It also tied for the second-most made catch-and-shoot shots by a Knicks player in a game since player tracking began in 2013-14.

"I love his approach because he's not forcing anything," Thibodeau said. "He's letting the game come to him. I want him to be assertive and everything, but I want him to let the game come to him. He's a very gifted scorer, as you saw tonight. ... He can hurt you a lot of different ways."

There's 78 games to go, but Towns already has an appreciation for the Knicks and what's possible this season.

"They're gritty. They find a way to win. They never quit," Towns said. "Bringing that New York mentality every single night, it's something that you recognize when you get to live in that kind of culture."

Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.

TOKYO -- The World Series trophy is headed to Los Angeles, but the party is extending all the way to Japan.

People milled around local train stations in Tokyo on Thursday morning as newspaper extras were ready to roll off the presses, proclaiming Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as world champions along with their Dodgers teammates after a stirring Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees.

"I want to thank my Japanese fans for coming all the way to cheer me this season," Ohtani said on Japanese television. "That cheering gave me some energy, so I'm glad I could return the gratitude by winning."

The newspaper handouts are a Tokyo tradition when Japan celebrates a big event. And this is a huge one for a country whose players were once considered too small, or only good pitchers. Now, there is strong pride in the fact that their players are among the best in the game.

Japan defeated the United States in the World Baseball Classic final last year in Miami, another sign of the country's prowess in the American pastime.

It was also a victory for Ohtani's hometown in northern Japan -- Oshu City -- where fans have been gathering all week and anticipating their superstar hero would help deliver the title.

Oddsmakers believe the World Series champs are the team to beat next year too.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have been installed as the betting favorites to win the 2025 World Series. The Dodgers are +400 at ESPN BET, ahead of the New York Yankees at +700 and Atlanta Braves at +750.

The Philadelphia Phillies (+1000), Baltimore Orioles (+1200), Houston Astros (+1200), New York Mets (+1200) and San Diego Padres (+1400) make up the second tier of contenders in ESPN BET's 2025 World Series odds.

The Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies are the biggest long shots, each listed at 400-1.

The Dodgers rallied from a five-run deficit to beat the Yankees in Wednesday's Game 5 and clinch their second World Series in the past five seasons. Trailing 5-0 in the fifth inning, the Dodgers' in-game odds to win got as long as 15-1 at ESPN BET. But they capitalized on critical defensive mistakes by the Yankees and held on for a 7-6 win.

The Dodgers began and ended the regular season as World Series favorites at sportsbooks. They became the first preseason betting favorite to win the World Series since the 2016 Chicago Cubs. The Dodgers have entered the season as World Series favorites in three of the past four years.

Yankees slugger Juan Soto, Orioles ace Corbin Burnes and Astros third baseman Alex Bregman are among the high-profile free agents who could impact the World Series odds this offseason. But for now, the Dodgers remain the team to beat in oddsmakers' eyes.

Top odds to win 2025 World Series (as of Oct. 30, at ESPN BET)

• Dodgers +400

• Yankees +700

• Braves +750

• Phillies +1000

• Orioles +1200

• Astros +1200

• Mets +1200

• Padres +1500

• Cubs +2500

• Guardians +2500

• Mariners +2500

• Rangers +2500

NEW YORK -- Freddie Freeman set the course in the Los Angeles Dodgers' run to the championship with a historic homer -- and kept right on swatting his way to World Series MVP.

Freeman homered in each of the first four games of the Series, then drove in two runs with a clutch two-out single during the Dodgers' 7-6 clinching win in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

While Freeman had a record-setting streak of six straight World Series games with a homer snapped, he just missed extending the mark to seven -- Aaron Judge snagged a Freeman drive early in the game at the fence that might have cleared it.

The numbers for Freeman in the series were certainly MVP-worthy -- .300, four homers and 12 RBIs -- but it was Freeman's dramatic Game 1 homer that set the tone for L.A.'s victory.

"I wish I could explain the zone -- you just get into one of those zones where everything seems to slow down just enough ... sometimes it's just to get another pitch," Freeman said during a postgame interview with Fox when asked by David Ortiz to explain what it feels like to be in the zone he's been in during this postseason run.

With two outs in the 10th inning and the Dodgers trailing 3-2, Freeman pulled a Nestor Cortes fastball into the right-field seats at Dodger Stadium for the first game-ending grand slam in World Series history.

That was dramatic enough, but the blast almost precisely echoed the game-ending homer by the Dodgers' Kirk Gibson in Game 1 of the 1988 Fall Classic. The similarities were eerie: Not only was the homer a come-from-behind game winner, but like Gibson, Freeman was hobbled when he hit it. Freeman has battled an ankle sprain during the Dodgers' postseason run, a malady that required almost constant treatment.

Whereas Gibson's legendary dinger was his only at-bat of the Series, Freeman kept on mashing. He hammered a solo homer in Game 2 and two-run homer in the first inning of Game 3. He homered again in the first inning of Game 4, another two-run shot, breaking a record for homers in consecutive World Series games set by Houston's George Springer.

The homer streak began when Freeman won his first World Series ring in 2021 with the Atlanta Braves. For his World Series career, Freeman has hit .310 in 11 games with six homers and 17 RBIs, the most RBIs by any player through his first two career World Series appearances all time.

Freeman, who signed with the Dodgers before the 2022 season after 12 seasons with Atlanta, has managed to continue to stand out, even in the star-laden L.A. clubhouse. That's especially so for his manager, Dave Roberts.

"If I had one player," Roberts said, considering his next words. "I've said it before, if you -- all encompassing, he's my favorite player to be around, as far as what he does for the culture, the organization, the team."

Freeman has an active streak of seven consecutive World Series games with an RBI, tied for the third-longest stretch in history. He's also collected at least one hit in each of his 11 World Series games.

Freeman, the NL MVP in 2020, becomes the 12th player to win a regular-season and a World Series MVP. Ten of the previous 11 are in the Hall of Fame.

NEW YORK -- The 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers were lined with stars but ravaged by injury. They had spent an entire season overcoming adversity.

And in the end, when it was time to clinch a championship, they did it once more, erasing a five-run deficit and using seven relievers -- including starting pitcher Walker Buehler -- to cover 23 outs in a 7-6, come-from-behind victory over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night.

With that, the Dodgers clinched their eighth title in franchise history, their first since the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season and their first in a full season since 1988. They became the first team to use more than seven pitchers to clinch a championship.

"We're obviously resilient, but there's so much love in the clubhouse that won this game today," Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts said. "That's what it was. It was love, it was grit. I mean, it was just a beautiful thing. I'm just proud of us and I'm happy for us."

Their comeback was a product of the multitude of opportunities presented to them in the fifth inning. Aaron Judge had a liner hit directly at him ricochet off his glove. Anthony Volpe threw wide of third base on an attempted force out. Anthony Rizzo fielded a slow roller but had nobody to flip it to at first base. With two outs and the bases loaded, Freddie Freeman followed with a two-run single and Teoscar Hernandez added a two-run double to tie the score at 5-5.

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole had been cruising through the first four innings, keeping the Dodgers hitless while throwing only 49 pitches. He then threw 38 pitches in a fifth inning that essentially required six outs because of the team's misplays.

The five-run comeback was tied for the fourth-largest in World Series history, surpassed only by the 1929 Athletics' eight-run comeback against the Cubs in Game 4, the 1996 Yankees' six-run comeback against the Braves in Game 4 and the 1956 Dodgers' six-run comeback against the Yankees in Game 2, according to ESPN Research.

"We just take advantage of every mistake they made in that inning," Teoscar Hernández said. "We put some good at-bats together. We put the ball in play."

The Yankees took back the lead on Giancarlo Stanton's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth and preserved it when Clay Holmes came in relief of Cole to strike out Max Muncy with two on and two out in the top of the seventh. But the Dodgers broke through again in the eighth.

Enrique Hernández and Tommy Edman began with back-to-back singles, and Will Smith walked on four straight pitches, prompting Yankees manager Aaron Boone to replace Tommy Kahnle with Luke Weaver, who recorded four outs in Game 4. Gavin Lux and Betts followed with sacrifice flies, giving the Dodgers their first lead -- one they would not give up.

The Yankees threatened in the bottom half, with two on and none out against a tiring Blake Treinen. Daniel Hudson and Buehler, the Game 3 starter who has struggled throughout his career out of the bullpen, were warming up. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts came out for a brief chat with Treinen, who then got Stanton to fly out and struck out Rizzo to end the threat.

Buehler checked in for the ninth and retired the bottom of the Yankees' lineup in order. He spread his arms out wide and looked over at his dugout, then was promptly mobbed.

"There's just a lot of ways we can win baseball games," Buehler said. "Obviously the superstars we have on our team and the discipline, it just kind of all adds up."

It was a fitting capstone for a dominant run. The 2020 to '24 Dodgers became the first team since the 1953 to '57 Yankees with multiple World Series titles and a winning percentage of .640 or better over a five-season span, according to ESPN Research.

This era's Dodgers broke through to the World Series in 2017 and suffered a disheartening seven-game loss to the Houston Astros, a team that was later revealed to have been illegally stealing signs. The Dodgers returned to the World Series in 2018, only to be overwhelmed by the Boston Red Sox, and suffered a heartbreaking late loss in the decisive game of the 2019 National League Division Series to the underdog Washington Nationals.

The 2020 season, shortened by COVID-19, finally saw the Dodgers break through, coming back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Atlanta Braves in the NL Championship Series and then defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in six games in the World Series, claiming their first title in 32 years. The next three years featured more heartbreak -- outlasted by the Braves in the 2021 NLCS, then demoralized by the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2022 and 2023 NLDS, respectively.

The ensuing offseason saw the Dodgers splurge more than $1 billion on two generational players, two-way star Shohei Ohtani and young starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Tyler Glasnow was acquired via trade and signed to a lucrative extension. Teoscar Hernández came over as a free agent on a large one-year contract.

But injuries ravaged the team in the 2024 regular season. Yamamoto, Betts, Muncy, Treinen and Brusdar Graterol all sat out extended time; several key members of the rotation -- Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Gavin Stone and Emmet Sheehan -- were lost to season-ending injuries. On the night they clinched their 11th NL West title in 12 years, Freeman sprained his right ankle. On the night they took a 2-1 lead in this World Series, Ohtani suffered a subluxation of his left shoulder.

But the Dodgers kept going. They used a bullpen game to blow out the Padres with their season on the line while on the road in Game 4 of the NLDS, then came back to Dodger Stadium and shut them out to advance into the next round. They then used an overwhelming offensive attack to dispatch the surging New York Mets, accumulating an NLCS-record 46 runs. The first three games of the World Series showcased their end-to-end dominance.

Trailing by one with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth in Game 1, Freeman provided a Kirk Gibson-style walk-off grand slam for a thrilling victory. But it was starting pitching that powered the Dodgers through the first three games, with Jack Flaherty, Buehler and Yamamoto, the only three members of a maligned rotation, giving up only three runs in 16 innings.

The Dodgers absorbed an eventual rout while utilizing mostly low-leverage relievers in Game 4. The thought, despite trailing by only one run after five innings and two runs heading into the eighth, was to save their best relievers for Game 5. Those relievers began to factor in as early as the second inning, by which point Flaherty had given up four runs on back-to-back homers from Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr., and an RBI single from Alex Verdugo.

Anthony Banda, Ryan Brasier, Michael Kopech, Alex Vesia, Graterol and Treinen -- representing the group of arms that has so often stepped up throughout this postseason -- combined to hold the Yankees to only two runs and four hits in 6 innings, solidifying a title.

NEW YORK -- The 2024 World Series is over: Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are champions in five games, the first title for him and, for the team, the eighth in franchise history.

There were heroes and goats, as there are in every Fall Classic, but no storybook showdown of Shohei Ohtani versus Aaron Judge. There were dramatic grand slams, stunning comebacks and horrible defensive miscues. The New York Yankees' title drought reached 15 years, and their captain, Aaron Judge, faced struggles that sometimes reached nightmarish levels.

In the end, what we got was a pure baseball matchup decided by baseball factors, and mostly by the fact that the Dodgers had more good players than their opponent. They earned it -- as a group.

This championship, and the way Los Angeles achieved it, is less about the names on the marquee and more because of the ensemble. It belongs to them all, as much to the supporting cast of Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux and Max Muncy as to Ohtani and fellow stars Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. To anonymous relievers as much as more heralded starters such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty. None of this is by accident. The Dodgers won this way because they were built to win this way.

Every season, the Dodgers rank near the top of the majors in categories such as rookie WAR and in total appearances on the transaction wire. Think about that: With all of the resources poured into the L.A. payroll -- the Dodgers spent more than $1 billion this past offseason -- the Andrew Friedman-led front office never stops tweaking the roster mix, addressing needs both immediate and imagined. The Dodgers excel at turning other teams' excesses into gold, with journeymen such as Ryan Brasier, Brent Honeywell and Anthony Banda becoming crucial contributors to the bullpen. Every bit as much attention is paid to the bottom 10 slots on the 40-man roster as it is the top three.

"It's about getting the right players, the right people," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Talent is a lot, but it's not everything. You still have to be cohesive. I just think we do a great job of getting the right players in our clubhouse."

The Dodgers have as much star power as any team we've seen in recent years, but they could never be accused of taking a stars-and-scrubs approach, or constructing a top-heavy roster. Depth or stars? We'll have both, thank you.

"We have a culture here at the big league level," Roberts said. "But the scouting and player development is second to none."

After a second title in five years, the Dodgers, from top to bottom, are what Roberts says -- second to none.

THIS WAS SUPPOSED to be the Ohtani-Judge World Series.

Just look at the cover of the official program. On the left is Ohtani, his face exuding focus and exertion, his arms pointing behind him in the act of the backswing that completes the arc of one of his mighty hacks.

Judge is on the right, his mouth open in the midst of a shout, his head turned as he presumably looks at the bedlam in the dugout in the aftermath of one of his missile-like blasts into the farthest expanses of Yankee Stadium.

It would be Ohtani vs. Judge, in the ultimate version of a baseball hero's journey, one with no antagonists but two protagonists on a parallel odyssey in pursuit to slay the same dragon: a career-first championship.

Thus was the hook for the resumption of baseball's most prolific Fall Classic matchup, Yankees-Dodgers, the dream showdown between two of baseball's most storied franchises.

The hype wasn't without justification. This truly was an unprecedented clash between perhaps the best-right-now players in the sport, starring for marquee franchises in the glitziest of markets and biggest of stages. Together during the regular season, Judge and Ohtani hit .315/.423/.672 with 112 homers, 274 RBIs, 256 runs and 69 stolen bases. That's from two players.

This pairing of the game's two best players just hasn't happened very often in World Series history. It's easy to lose yourself in a debate about just who was considered the best in the game at any point, but the clear precedents are few: Ty Cobb vs. Honus Wagner in 1909. Ted Williams vs. Stan Musial in 1946. George Brett vs. Mike Schmidt in 1980.

Let's imagine the Platonic ideal as the climactic scene of "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs -- "the best there ever was" -- homers into the stratosphere, turning another Knights disappointment into an instant pennant. We've never had that payoff -- a championship-winning, come-from-behind home run blasted by the game's best player.

None of the superstar matchups we highlighted had the type of payoff we might dream of, and most of them disappointed altogether. In the just-completed 2024 showdown, while Ohtani played well as a stalwart at the top of the lineup, his series was most newsworthy because he popped his shoulder on a slide, bringing the term "subluxation" into the mainstream. And Judge, homerless until the clinching game, was astonishing to watch for much of the series, after a season in which he recorded one of the best offensive campaigns in history.

"He's a great player," a sympathetic Roberts said after Game 4. "I have so much respect for Aaron. There's probably a little bit of maybe trying too hard right now."

That's baseball, though, isn't it? When we zero in on a star matchup like Ohtani against Judge, that's the possibility we're teasing, even as we know the nature of the sport itself makes the realization of the dream scenario so unlikely.

In fact, the most cinematic moment of the series was not produced by Ohtani, Judge -- or even each team's next best player, Betts or Juan Soto. That belonged to yet another star, Freeman, in a postseason when his injuries threatened to keep him out of the lineup. His two-out, game-ending Game 1 grand slam evoked immediate images of 1988 Kirk Gibson and inspired Joe Davis' epic, instantaneous Vin Scully homage.

There's a lesson in there, both about baseball and about the Dodgers. No matter who we zero in on, it's never about just one person. Anybody might be the one to realize a boyhood dream.

"Those are the kind of things, when you're 5 years old with your two older brothers and you're playing whiffle ball in the backyard," Freeman said, "those are the scenarios you dream about. Two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game."

CONSIDER THAT 29 different Dodgers saw action this October. Nearly everyone played meaningful roles along the way, including a bright-eyed rookie named Ben Casparius, who began October with all of three big league appearances under his belt. He ended up making a start in Game 4 as an opener.

This is every bit as much a characteristic of this era of Dodgers baseball as the presence of household names Ohtani, Betts, Freeman and Clayton Kershaw.

Since the start of the 2021 season, the Dodgers have had 68 instances of a player recording at least one bWAR. Only the Brewers and Rays (69 each) have more. But the Dodgers have also had 17 instances of a player reaching an All-Star level of four BWAR, second only to the Astros (18). L.A.'s success is built on stars plus depth.

During the 12 full seasons since the Guggenheim Baseball Management group assumed control of the Dodgers, they've won 99.2 of every 162 regular-season games they've played. During the wild-card era, no team has done better over such a span, one that has included 11 first-place finishes, a 12-for-12 attendance in the postseason bracket, four pennants and, now, two World Series titles. And there is no question that the Dodgers' economics might plays a role in their staying power. According to Cot's Contracts, the Dodgers have sported a top-five payroll in all of those seasons. Yet other teams make huge payroll splurges -- including the past two teams they beat, the Yankees in the World Series and the Mets in the National League Championship Series -- and the Dodgers are sometimes outspent by one or two competitors.

A level of investment measuring in the billions sets a clear expectation for everyone who dons Dodger blue: To do what they did Wednesday -- win it all. That expectation isn't just carried by Ohtani, Betts and Freeman, but everyone who steps into the clubhouse. They would have it no other way.

"You've got a lot of good people that care about winning and that want to win," second baseman Gavin Lux said. "None of them have egos."

The Dodgers' stars, including Ohtani, outperformed their New York counterparts, especially Judge, in the Series, but that was mainly because of Freeman's massive output as World Series MVP. That certainly played a part in L.A.'s triumph.

But in terms of the headliner matchup, at no point did this feel like an Ohtani-versus-Judge World Series. If anything, it was the Freeman series, but of course he isn't going to claim that title.

"We've dealt with a lot since [the season opener in] Korea," Freeman said. "We've battled and faced adversity and pushed back. It's just a credit to our guys, our staff and everyone in this organization."

NO TEAM LOST more player games to injury in 2024 than the Dodgers. Even as they sprayed champagne and whooped it up in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, the Dodgers had more than an entire upper-tier starting rotation on the injured list.

That's why Roberts -- whose postseason decisions have been maligned by Dodgers fans and detractors alike over the years -- deserves so much credit for this run. It's not just that Roberts, along with pitching coach Mark Prior, was able to navigate around the losses in the pitching staff. It's also that the skipper, as usual, folded in rookies such as outfielder Andy Pages, Landon Knack, Casparius and even Yamamoto, not a traditional rookie but a rookie nonetheless. It's also that when the Dodgers splurged at the trade deadline, adding Flaherty, Tommy Edman and Michael Kopech, they all fit so seamlessly on and off the field that it's easy to forget they didn't join the team until the end of July.

No game showed it more acutely than the Dodgers' Game 5 win against San Diego in the NL Division Series, when the big three went a combined 1-for-10 but four relievers backed Yamamoto on a two-hit shutout and Teoscar Hernandez and Enrique Hernandez hit solo homers for the game's only runs.

"He lets you be the player that you'll always be," Teoscar said of Roberts. "He lets you have fun. His communication with his players is one of the best that I've had in my career. I think that's why he's so special for this team and the players."

Through it all, Roberts spreads the credit steadily away from himself.

"You never foresee a season like we've gone through, but you've still got guys that are upright and are talented," Roberts said. "We've taken a hit, so it's an organizational kind of thing. The front office, Andrew [Friedman] is brilliant."

If Roberts required validation that perhaps the team's shortened-season 2020 title did not supply -- he has it. He might just be another high-profile cog in the Dodgers' immense apparatus, but he's a vital one. He's also the manager of a dynasty.

This championship -- after a grueling, marathon of 162 games plus a month of playoffs, cannot be diminished. It took all of the Dodgers to make it happen, right to the end.

When the Dodgers spilled out of the third-base dugout after the final out, Ohtani, Betts and Freeman were in the middle of the pile. So too were Casparius and Knack. Baseball's latest championship doesn't belong to any one of them, but all of them, under a banner dyed a rich Dodger blue, just how it was drawn up all along.