Freddie Freeman's first World Series AB should give all Dodgers fans shot of hope

Freddie Freeman is a lot of things — he's a good baseball player, a good dad — but more than anything else, the guy is a trouper.

In one of the last games of the regular season, he rolled his ankle stumbling over first base, trying to beat out a ground ball for an infield hit. The usual timeline to return for that injury is 4-to-6 weeks, but Freeman, who's played complete 162-game seasons twice in era marked by more player injuries than ever, was on the roster for Game 1 of the NLDS.

It's forced him to sit out twice this postseason -- once in Game 4 of the LDS and then for Games 4 and 6 of the LCS -- but for the most part, he's returned to his spot batting third in the Dodgers lineup.

In Game 1 of the World Series, he stepped up to the plate for the 26th Fall Classic plate appearance of his career with two outs. Fellow former MVPs Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts had already flown out deep into the outfield. Freeman, on a hanging knuckle curve from Gerrit Cole, kept things closer to the ground, with a rope to shallow left field that former No. 1 Dodgers prospect Alex Verdugo chased after and then lost as the ball caromed off the left field wall.

Freeman kept his eye on the outfield but chugged, cruising into third base as the throw from left reached Jazz Chisholm a good 10 feet away from the bag.

Freddie Freeman was all hustle and grit with two-out triple in Game 1 of Dodgers-Yankees World Series

Freeman was in at third with his first extra-base hit of the postseason, hustling on a still-recovering ankle to give his team some life in a nothing-nothing game. Dave Roberts said to Ken Rosenthal later, "I would've been happy with a stand-up double," but Freeman clearly wasn't going to be satisfied with that.

Teoscar Hernández lined out to end the inning, with a nice snag by Anthony Volpe at short, but Freeman showing signs of life immediately gave fans hope. It's been a difficult October for him — he's batting .242 with a .568 OPS after that triple — which can at least partially be attributed to the current state of his ankle. But through the bottom of the third, he gave the Dodgers their only hit against Cole and some optimism through the rest of what's sure to be a tense Game 1.