Dodgers Top 24 Moments of the 2024 Season Part 4 (6-1)

12/31/2024 03:43 PM

This is the fourth and final part of Dodgers Nation’s top 24 moments of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 2024 season.

For Part 1 (moments 24-19), click here. For Part 2 (moments 18-13), click here. For Part 3 (moments 12-7), click here.

Now, here are the top six moments of the Dodgers’ 2024 season.

6. Shohei Ohtani Hits First Career Postseason Home Run

The beginning of Game 1 of the NLDS looked all too familiar. The Dodgers’ offense was struggling, while the Padres got out to an early 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning. It was looking like another year of postseason failure for the Dodgers — but then Shohei Ohtani showed up.

Ohtani crushed a three-run home run to deep right field against Padres starter Dylan Cease, getting L.A. right back into the game. It also took a weight off the shoulders of the Dodgers, knowing this year was going to be different from the last two. Why? Because the last two years, they didn’t have Shohei Ohtani.

5. Blake Treinen Sends Dodgers to the NLCS

The Dodgers needed their best to take down the Padres in the NLDS. After a bullpen game in Game 4, the Dodgers utilized five pitchers — Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia, Michael Kopech, and Blake Trienen — to shut down the Padres and clinch a spot in the NLCS.

After Treinen got the final three outs in the ninth, he pointed to the sky in a now iconic moment. Then, the celebration began.

4. Shohei Ohtani Hits Walk-Off Grand Slam to Reach 40/40 Club

A regular season moment has to be really special to top anything in the postseason. But Shohei Ohtani did just that. Twice.

Ohtani was on the verge of joining the 40 home run, 40 stolen base club. On Aug. 23, he was just one home run away. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Ohtani came up to bat with the bases loaded and two outs. In a moment you could only dream about, Ohtani hit a walk-off grand slam, giving the Dodgers the win as he became just the sixth player in MLB history to record a 40/40 season. But he didn’t stop there…

3. Shohei Ohtani Has One of the Greatest Games Ever to Establish 50/50 Club

Less than a month later, Shohei Ohtani established the 50/50 club with one of the greatest offensive performances in MLB history.

Overall, Ohtani went 6-for-6 with three home runs, two doubles, one single, 10 runs batted in, four runs scored, and two stolen bases. He invented the 50 home run, 50 stolen base club, and even made it to 51/51 by the end of the game.

2. Freddie Freeman Hits First Ever Walk-Off Grand Slam in World Series History

The only thing that could top a walk-off grand slam to join the 40/40 club and a 6-for-6, three-home-run performance to invent the 50/50 club? The first ever walk-off grand slam in World Series history.

Freddie Freeman, who battled an ankle injury throughout the entirety of the playoffs, came up in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 1 of the World Series with the bases loaded and two outs. The Yankees elected to intentionally walk Mookie Betts to face Freeman, and on the first pitch of the at-bat, he crushed a high fly ball to deep right field and “she was gone!”

Freeman did his best Kirk Gibson impression, and the Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the World Series.

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It was one of the greatest moments in Dodgers franchise history, one of the greatest moments in World Series history, and will likely go down as the most memorable moment of Freeman’s eventual Hall of Fame career.

1. Walker Buehler Wins the Dodgers the 2024 World Series

Four games after Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam, the Dodgers needed another postseason hero. Freeman had already done everything he could, hitting four home runs en route to a World Series MVP award. But in Game 5, as the Dodgers’ bullpen was beyond taxed, L.A. needed someone to step up.

That man was Walker Buehler.

After enduring the worst regular season of his career, Buehler had thrown 12 consecutive scoreless innings in the postseason. Just two days prior, Buehler pitched five scoreless innings against the Yankees in Game 3.

In Game 5, though, he volunteered himself to win the World Series for L.A. — and that’s exactly what he did.

Buehler entered the ninth inning of a 7-6 game, with L.A. three outs away from victory. He got Anthony Volpe to ground out before striking out Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo to clinch the Dodgers’ eighth World Series in franchise history. Buehler cemented himself as a Dodgers legend, and will go down in history as one of the biggest heroes in Dodgers postseason history thanks to this gutsy performance.

Photo Credit: Wendell Cruz-MLB