MLB playoffs: How Dodgers' Freddie Freeman fought to the NLCS

LOS ANGELES -- They wore black T-shirts commemorating their return to the National League Championship Series and congregated in front of the Dodger Stadium pitcher's mound Friday night, in prime position for a team photograph. But it quickly became clear that someone was missing. And so roughly 70 members of the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers -- players, coaches, trainers, doctors, clubbies -- chanted for him in unison.

Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!

Freddie Freeman emerged from an interview and hobbled over, lifting both arms to the sky before plopping down in front of them.

Fifteen days earlier, Freeman had suffered an ankle sprain that should have kept him out for as many as six weeks. He returned in a little more than one, somehow taking 12 at-bats and playing 29 defensive innings to help the Dodgers vanquish their hated rivals, the San Diego Padres, in the division series. Every prep step was the result of a laborious pregame routine that often ran the emotional gamut. Every swing qualified as a near-miracle.

"It's hard to put into words, exactly, what it meant to see Freddie doing that," Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. "Almost gives you chills a little bit."

Freeman turned himself into a modern-day iron man, playing in 99% of his games over the last five years, by mastering the aspects within his control. If he could hone in on a sound routine and never waver from it, Freeman thought, he'd minimize the unpredictability around him. The 2024 season -- beset by fluky injuries and family trauma ---broke down all of that. And yet Freeman continually found a way, most notably in October, while hobbling toward a .353 batting average through the first six games of these playoffs.

The Dodgers, who had spent an entire season navigating a litany of starting-pitcher injuries, knew they needed Freeman's presence in their lineup. They later learned they needed to channel his mindset. Their past two seasons had followed the same disheartening script -- win the NL West, secure a first-round bye, get trounced in the division series by an inferior division rival -- and left them searching for an edge in these playoffs.

In many ways, Freeman's indomitable will provided it.

"When you see him, you know he's got broken bones all over the place and he can barely f---ing walk, and he's out there making plays, stealing bases -- they just don't make them like him anymore," Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux said. "He's different, man. He's a different breed. We all see him out there competing his ass off, even though he can barely walk, and it just makes us compete even harder."

IT'S NOT IN Freeman's nature to take time off. In an era when athletes' exertion levels are closely monitored, often dictating rest days amid arduous baseball seasons, Freeman adheres to the mantra of playing every day -- no matter how hurt he might be, how long his slump might endure. It was ingrained in him by his father, who watched his wife lose her life to melanoma and still summoned the strength to, in Freeman's words, "show up to work every single day."

"My job is to play baseball," Freeman, 35, said earlier this season. "That's how I was raised. That's what my job is. You do it every single day, no matter the circumstances."

This year, that philosophy was tested like never before.

It started on July 22, when Freeman's 3-year-old son, Max, suddenly could not walk. Four days later, Freeman flew out of Houston and rushed to the emergency room at Children's Hospital of Orange County, where he found Max on a ventilator. Max had been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition in which the body's immune system attacks its nerves, causing weakness, numbness and paralysis.

Freeman spent the ensuing nine days away from the team, during which his young son made a miraculous recovery after two rounds of immunotherapy. Max was discharged on Aug. 3 and began physical therapy the following day. Freeman returned to the team on Aug. 5 and was still noticeably emotional. He didn't know how he'd handle coming back, but he had comfort.

"Knowing your son is OK," Freeman said then, "that helps."

Twelve days later, while fielding a grounder at first base in St. Louis, Freeman suffered a nondisplaced fracture of his right middle finger. He missed the next game, then went on a 3-for-23 stretch from Aug. 19 to 25, looking bad enough that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts convinced him to sit out a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles. He returned on Aug. 30 and posted an .842 OPS over his next 25 games.

Then, on the night of Sept. 26 -- in the same game that saw the Dodgers secure the NL West -- he landed awkwardly on his right foot while attempting to avoid a tag by Padres first baseman Luis Arráez. Suddenly his season was in jeopardy at its most critical juncture.

"The last couple of months have been a lot," Freeman said. "I think that would be kind of an understatement."

AT FIRST, FREEMAN was optimistic. His right ankle had initially swelled "like a grapefruit" and necessitated a walking boot, but Freeman left the Dodgers' regular-season home finale confident he'd be a full participant in the playoffs. His hope progressively increased over the ensuing week. And when he met with the media the afternoon before Game 1 of the NLDS, he deemed his ankle "good enough."

Then something changed. Freeman, he said, "woke up feeling sore." When he left his house the following morning, he looked at his 8-year-old son, Charlie, and told him, "I don't know if Daddy's going to be able to play today."

When he arrived at the ballpark an hour later, his mood was noticeably somber.

"He was very negative," Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández said. "He felt really bad."

Dodgers players were told there was a 1% chance Freeman would play in their postseason opener. But then he went through hours of treatment and started to feel better. He went into the batting cage to hit off a tee and take some flips, then went onto the field for light baserunning and defensive drills and became more hopeful. He still needed to see how his body would handle velocity, so he faced the Dodgers' Trajekt Arc, a popular pitching simulator, and started to spray line drives. "I can do this," he told himself.

At that point, barely two hours before the first pitch, he inserted himself into the lineup. Miguel Rojas, the veteran shortstop who was playing through a tear in his adductor muscle, called it "a borderline miracle." When Freeman scorched a 109 mph single in his first at-bat, then a 101 mph single and a stolen base in his second, it became something more: inspiration, the type some of his teammates had been trying to harness since their championship-winning season from four years ago.

"We had a saying in 2020 when we won," Muncy said after Game 1. "Guys were going out there saying, 'I'm prepared to die out there today.' Obviously it's metaphorical, but that's kind of that mentality we're trying to take into this year. Nothing should hold us back out there. Freddie proved that tonight. And when you see him do stuff like that -- he gets the hits, he makes plays, steals a bag -- you're kinda like, 'OK, he's ready for it.' It definitely sends a message to the dugout that, 'Hey, it doesn't matter what your name is; it doesn't matter who you are. You better be willing to do whatever it takes to play this game.' It's a big message."

FREEMAN'S RECOVERY HASN'T followed a linear path. The more he plays, Freeman said, the more sore his right ankle becomes. For every game this month, he has arrived seven hours before the first pitch, gone through four to five hours of treatment, stepped onto the field for a series of high-knees and near-sprints, put on a glove for an assortment of defensive drills -- fielding grounders, covering first base, pivoting and throwing to second -- then disappeared into the tunnel to hit. Only then, after all those proverbial boxes have been checked, can he declare himself ready.

Then he does it all over again.

"Every day it seems to start at right where I was the previous day," Freeman said. "It's kind of hard to play through it because it never goes away. It kind of keeps getting worse."

In addition to the sprain, Freeman said, he has developed a bone bruise on the inside part of his ankle "from the bones smacking each other" when he initially rolled it. In recent days, Roberts has also alluded to soreness manifesting in Freeman's right side.Given the presence of Shohei Ohtani, taking a partial break by serving as the designated hitter isn't an option. If Freeman wants to be in the lineup, he must play the field.

"It's a battle," he said. "It is what it is."

Roberts' pregame interview sessions have captured the volatility. "We'll see" was Roberts' response when asked about Freeman's availability in Game 1. For Game 2, he said placing Freeman in the lineup was a "much easier" decision -- only to remove him after five innings. Asked before Game 3 if Freeman was "still a go," Roberts looked at his watch and said, "It's a go for now." A question about Freeman's ankle before Game 4 prompted a chuckle from Roberts. "It's just OK," he said, before scratching him an hour later.

The uncertainty will follow for as long the Dodgers' postseason run lasts. It might take an entire offseason before Freeman truly feels right again. Until then, every day will be a struggle. Every day will be a fight.

The atmosphere, the stakes, are fueling him.

"When I get here," he said, "the energy level drives me to do everything I can."

IT WAS DURING a team breakfast the morning before Game 4 that Freeman and the Dodgers' training staff decided he would not be available with their season on the brink (placing him in the lineup and later scratching him was merely an act of "gamesmanship," Freeman acknowledged). "We got you," many of his teammates told him then.

Two days later, before the winner-take-all Game 5, Freeman returned the message.

"Don't worry, guys," Muncy recalled him saying. "I got you tonight."

But the ankle was not cooperating, even after two days off. Freeman mimicked covering first base during pregame workouts, felt a twinge in his right ankle and nearly slammed a baseball onto the ground in frustration. A long conversation with Roberts, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and a couple of the team's trainers prompted Freeman to go into Dodger Stadium's left-field bullpen for more movement exercises. He ultimately found a placement with his foot that would allow him to cover first base without pain. Roughly 90 minutes before first pitch, Freeman walked into Roberts' office. "I can go," he said.

"I had a little smile on my face," Roberts said, "because certainly with where he's been, it's been dicey."

The sixth inning provided the biggest test. The Dodgers led by only a run with none on, one out and the red-hot Fernando Tatís Jr. on deck when Arráez hit a ball relatively far to Freeman's right. Freeman whispered self-motivation. You gotta get there, he told himself. You gotta get there. Freeman did, stopping the grounder and throwing to Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips to secure an out. Seconds later, four of the Dodgers' infielders gathered around Phillips near the mound. Freeman was the only one who stayed back.

"All of us were right there and we said, 'Hey, this is for Freddie,'" Muncy recalled. "We had to give Freddie a breather."

STOPPING OFF A dead sprint remains Freeman's most difficult task. It showed in Sunday's first inning, when he lumbered around third base to score the second run off Muncy's base hit and collapsed into the arms of Mookie Betts, who hoped for merely a high-five.

"I'm only 170 pounds," Betts said. "He's a big dude. Luckily I lift weights."

Freeman, with his right shoe wrapped in athletic tape like a defensive lineman's, reached base three times in the Dodgers' 9-0 win over the New York Mets in Game 1 of the NLCS. He drew a walk in the first inning, lined a base hit to right field in the third and added a run-scoring single to left field in the fourth, his sixth hit in 16 at-bats.

The Dodgers now face their first quick turnaround of these playoffs, a Sunday night Game 1 spilling into a Monday afternoon Game 2 against lefty Sean Manaea. After an off day Tuesday, the series shifts to New York for three straight games. Monday, then, would be the perfect time for the left-handed-hitting Freeman to sit. But that seemed to be the furthest thing from Roberts' mind when he addressed the media after the game.

"My expectation," Roberts said, "is that he's going to be in there until I hear otherwise."

Before the decisive game of the NLDS, Freeman personally thanked each member of the Dodgers' training staff for getting him ready to play. After Game 1 on Sunday, he joked that he and Bernard Li, the physical therapist who has overseen his treatment, might just have to sleep in the Dodgers' clubhouse to get him ready for a 1:08 p.m. PT start the following day.

All that time in the trainer's room has made Freeman take up crossword puzzles, a common hobby for the Atlanta Braves' veteran players when he first arrived in the big leagues. For as much as his body might hurt these days, his mind is at ease. Max is walking again, continually progressing. Watching him go through his illness, Freeman said, "put everything in perspective for me." In the grand scheme, he believes, whatever ails his ankle is nothing.

But the Dodgers are gaining strength from it.

"He's sacrificing health to find a way to be on the field," Roberts said. "And then when you sacrifice anything, it makes what you're sacrificing for more important."