The Los Angeles Dodgers surpassed the New York Mets’ resurgence to win their NLCS series 4-2 and reach the 2024 World Series. They will face the New York Yankees, who have made the World Series for the first time since 2009.
The Dodgers are back in the World Series for the first time since they won in 2020 after beating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-2 in the Covid-affected season, still under Dave Roberts, who has coached the franchise since 2016.
The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS, winning the series 4-1, to reach their first World Series in fifteen years. The potential of a Subway Series between the Mets and the Yankees, which has not happened since the millennium, was destroyed by the superior Dodgers. But it still sets up an enticing encounter between two of the sport’s biggest franchises: one from the East Coast and one from the West Coast.
The matchup also brings two of the sport’s batting stars together to face off on baseball’s biggest stage in the Dodgers’s Shohei Otani and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge. Judge won the American League MVP in 2022 and set the AL record for most home runs in a season with 62. He was drafted by the Yankees in 2013 but did not make his MLB debut until 2016, when he hit a homer in his first at-bat. He is now the Yankees designated captain and is one of the game’s biggest names.
Shohei Otani will go up against Judge batting for the Dodgers in what will be a fascinating matchup in the World Series. Japanese-born Otani became the first player in the modern era to qualify for both the hitting and pitching leaderboards in one season in 2022. He was the first MLB player to win multiple unanimous MVPs and the first Japanese-born player to win a league home run title. Judge and Otani are ostensibly the sport’s two most renowned hitters in this modern era, and it will be intriguing to see their performances against one another when the series gets underway on Friday.
The Yankees are perhaps the most infamous MLB franchise. They have appeared in 40 World Series, winning 27 of them. They won three consecutive World Series titles between 1998 and 2000, but their last win came against the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009.
The World Series begins on Friday night in the best-of-seven series at Dodger Stadium. Which superpower side will come out on top?
