Intentional walks usually end with a batter jogging quietly to first base. At Dodger Stadium, one ended with Freddie Freeman holding his bat above his head while 52,394 fans roared.
The Yankees were one out from winning Game 1 of the 2024 World Series. New York led 3-2 in the bottom of the 10th, and Aaron Boone had a choice. Let Nestor Cortes pitch to Mookie Betts or intentionally walk him to face Freeman.
Boone wanted the lefty-on-lefty matchup.
Freeman had spent October playing through a severely sprained right ankle. He missed the Dodgers’ National League Championship Series clincher and needed treatment before the World Series. Cortes, another left-hander, looked like the better matchup on paper.
One pitch destroyed that calculation.
Freeman crushed a 92.5 mph fastball into the right-field pavilion for the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history. Los Angeles won 6-3, and Boone’s decision became part of the highlight.
The mistake wasn’t simply choosing Freeman over Betts. It was assuming the matchup advantage justified putting another runner aboard.
October has punished that assumption before, sometimes in ways that make the original decision look almost impossible to defend.
Boone gave away more than first base
Before Freeman’s swing, the Yankees had already survived a remarkable play.
Shohei Ohtani lifted Cortes’ first pitch toward foul territory in left field. Alex Verdugo chased it to the short wall and made a spectacular catch before tumbling into the stands.
The catch gave New York its second out. Because Verdugo carried the ball out of play, both Dodgers runners advanced. Los Angeles now had runners on second and third, with Betts approaching.
Boone ordered the intentional walk.
His reasoning followed baseball’s familiar platoon logic. Left-handed pitchers generally perform better against left-handed hitters, and Cortes offered that advantage against Freeman.
The problem was what happened to the scoring situation.
According to FanGraphs’ 2024 run expectancy matrix, teams averaged 0.60 runs with runners on second and third and two outs. Loading the bases pushed that average to 0.82 runs. By putting Betts aboard, Boone increased the Dodgers’ remaining run expectancy by 0.22 runs, or roughly 37%.
Those averages measure how many runs teams scored from those situations through the end of an inning. They don’t account for Betts, Freeman or Cortes individually, and they aren’t the same as the probability of winning a specific game.
Still, the cost of the walk was real.
New York already needed only one out. Loading the bases didn’t improve its ability to turn a double play because another out would end the game anyway.
Instead, Cortes faced a former National League MVP with three runners aboard. He also lost the luxury of pitching around the strike zone. Another walk would force home the tying run.
Cortes hadn’t appeared in a game since September 18 because of an elbow injury. His first postseason appearance came with the World Series hanging on every pitch.
Freeman knew what to expect. As he later explained to MLB, he anticipated Cortes’ riding fastball and prepared to attack it.
The pitch caught too much of the inner half. Freeman drove it 409 feet, and the Yankees never threw another pitch.
The Dodgers made the same gamble earlier that night
The most revealing part of Game 1 came an inning before Freeman’s grand slam.
With the score tied 2-2 in the ninth, Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres drove a deep fly toward left-center field. A fan reached over the wall and caught it, turning what initially appeared to be a home run into a ground-rule double.
Los Angeles suddenly faced Juan Soto with a runner in scoring position.
The Dodgers intentionally walked him.
Rather than challenge Soto, manager Dave Roberts brought in Blake Treinen to face Aaron Judge. The Yankees captain popped out, ending the threat.
The strategy worked.
That contrast matters because intentional walks aren’t automatically bad decisions. The Dodgers avoided one dangerous hitter, trusted the next matchup and got the out they needed.
An inning later, Boone attempted something similar. Freeman punished him.
The difference between the outcomes doesn’t establish which manager made the better decision. Judge could have driven in the go-ahead run, while Freeman might have grounded out harmlessly.
Baseball’s frustration comes from that uncertainty.
A manager can make a sensible choice and watch it fail. He can also survive a questionable decision because the next hitter misses his pitch.
The challenge is knowing whether the matchup improvement justifies the additional baserunner before the next swing settles the argument.
Barry Bonds made the Cardinals regret the free pass in 2002
Tony La Russa faced a similar dilemma during Game 4 of the 2002 National League Championship Series.
The Cardinals and Giants were tied 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth at Pacific Bell Park. Two outs had already cleared the bases, and Barry Bonds stepped into the box. Everybody understood the problem.
Bonds had hit 73 home runs the previous season and followed with another 46 in 2002. He finished that year batting .370 and collected 68 intentional walks.
La Russa wasn’t interested in testing him. He instructed Rick White to walk Bonds with two outs and nobody on base, preferring to face 37-year-old catcher Benito Santiago.
The logic was understandable. Bonds had spent the previous two seasons destroying nearly every pitching plan opponents designed for him.
Santiago, meanwhile, hit .278 during the 2002 regular season. He was a respected veteran and an established run producer, but nobody confused him with Bonds.
The Cardinals chose the lesser threat. Santiago took the count full before driving White’s fastball into the left-field seats. Bonds scored ahead of him, giving San Francisco a 4-2 lead.
The Giants won 4-3 and moved ahead 3-1 in the series.
Writing for The Washington Post after the game, Thomas Boswell focused on the uncomfortable logic behind the decision. La Russa had followed conventional thinking, only to watch Santiago deliver the decisive swing.
The damage wasn’t limited to Santiago’s home run.
By walking Bonds with the bases empty, St. Louis had put the go-ahead run aboard without forcing San Francisco to earn it. White still needed one out, and Santiago now had a runner to drive home.
The Giants catcher made the Cardinals pay and later earned 2002 NLCS MVP honors.
Bonds never had to swing.
For La Russa, the lasting frustration came from choosing the hitter he believed offered the better chance of escaping. Santiago proved that the difference between a superstar and the next batter wasn’t always large enough to justify the gamble.
Seattle walked Yordan Alvarez with first base occupied
Twenty years later, Scott Servais confronted another hitter who had become nearly impossible to pitch to.
Yordan Alvarez was tearing through Seattle’s pitching staff during the 2022 American League Division Series.
In Game 1, Alvarez launched a three-run walk-off homer against Robbie Ray to give Houston an 8-7 victory.
Two days later, he struck again. The Mariners led Game 2 by a run in the sixth inning when Alvarez drove a Luis Castillo sinker into the Crawford Boxes for a go-ahead two-run homer.
Houston moved ahead 3-2. By the eighth, Servais had seen enough.
Jeremy Peña drew a two-out walk against Andrés Muñoz, bringing Alvarez to the plate. First base was occupied, but the Mariners intentionally walked him anyway, voluntarily moving Peña into scoring position.
Dusty Baker, who had managed Bonds in San Francisco, recognized the approach. Speaking afterward, the Astros manager compared the treatment Alvarez received to the respect opponents once showed Bonds.
The move left Muñoz facing Alex Bregman with runners on first and second.
Bregman attacked the first pitch and lined an RBI single into right field. Peña scored, and Houston extended its lead to 4-2.
Seattle couldn’t recover. The intentional walk had accomplished one thing: Alvarez never got another opportunity to hurt the Mariners that afternoon. But Bregman did.
FanGraphs’ 2022 run expectancy figures show just how much Seattle risked. With a runner on first and two outs, teams averaged 0.21 runs before the inning ended. Putting another runner on base increased that figure to 0.44 runs.
Servais had more than doubled the inning’s average remaining scoring expectation by issuing the walk. That didn’t guarantee Houston would score, but it gave the Astros another runner who could come home on a base hit.
Of course, Alvarez wasn’t an average hitter. He had already produced two of the most damaging swings of the series, and Seattle had good reason to fear another.
That made the decision understandable without making the consequences any less costly. Houston won Game 2 and eventually swept Seattle in three games.
San Diego nearly escaped the same trap against Los Angeles
Just three weeks before Freeman’s World Series grand slam, the Padres had tried an unusual intentional walk against Betts.
Game 1 of the 2024 National League Division Series was slipping away from San Diego in the fourth inning.
The Padres led 5-3 when reliever Adrian Morejon entered with one out and two runners aboard.
Shohei Ohtani managed a broken-bat single that loaded the bases. Morejon then threw a wild pitch during Betts’ at-bat, bringing Tommy Edman home.
Los Angeles had cut the deficit to 5-4.
With runners on second and third, Padres manager Mike Shildt made his decision.
He intentionally walked Betts despite having a 2-2 count.
Unlike Boone’s World Series gamble, Shildt’s move had a specific defensive purpose. The Padres wanted Freeman to hit a ground ball against the left-handed Morejon, whose pitching profile favored that outcome.
A double play could end the inning.
Freeman delivered the grounder Shildt wanted, although it wasn’t routine.
First baseman Donovan Solano moved to his right, fielded the ball and threw home. Catcher Kyle Higashioka completed a difficult force play to retire Miguel Rojas.
San Diego had gained the out.
Then Shildt changed pitchers.
Right-hander Jeremiah Estrada replaced Morejon to face Teoscar Hernández. The new matchup appeared favorable for the Padres, but Estrada left a fastball over the plate.
Hernández lined it into center field for a two-run single.
Betts scored the go-ahead run, and the Dodgers eventually won 7-5.
Shildt’s plan had produced the ground ball he sought. His defense even recorded an out at home.
The inning still ended badly because the Padres couldn’t retire Hernández.
That sequence shows how intentional walks can backfire without the next hitter delivering a dramatic home run.
San Diego had built a strategy around Freeman, handled his at-bat successfully and still allowed the batter behind him to change the game.
The Dodgers possessed enough offensive depth to punish both decisions.
When an intentional walk actually helps
None of these failures means managers should abandon the intentional walk.
Some situations offer a genuine defensive advantage in exchange for the free base.
Consider a tie game in the bottom of the ninth with runners on second and third and one out.
The winning run already stands on third. Walking the batter doesn’t advance that runner, but it creates force plays at every base.
The defense can now force a runner at home on a ground ball. A double play could end the inning entirely.
In that situation, issuing an intentional walk may improve the pitcher’s options, especially when the next hitter struggles against the pitcher on the mound.
Tom Tango and his co-authors examined these decisions in The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Their analysis highlights why managers must consider the score, inning, baserunners and individual matchups together.
The math isn’t universally against intentional walks. Certain late-game situations make them defensible.
But managers still face a dangerous trade.
A bases-loaded walk forces home a run. So does a hit-by-pitch. With nowhere to put another batter, the pitcher has to attack the zone, and the hitter knows it.
That pressure can become particularly uncomfortable when a reliever struggles with command.
The quality of the next hitter matters just as much.
Walking Bonds to face Santiago looked reasonable based on their regular-season numbers. Choosing Freeman instead of Betts offered a lefty-on-lefty matchup, but it hardly eliminated the danger.
Both decisions ended with home runs.
A manager must also consider what happens if the preferred matchup succeeds but the inning continues. Shildt got his ground ball against Freeman, yet Hernández still came to the plate with the bases loaded.
The intentional walk didn’t fail immediately. The next confrontation exposed its cost.
The next October decision will demand more than a matchup advantage
Every postseason eventually puts another manager in the same uncomfortable position.
A dangerous hitter steps toward home plate. Runners occupy the bases, the crowd gets louder, and the pitcher looks toward the dugout for instructions.
The easy response is to avoid the superstar.
Sometimes that works. Roberts walked Soto and watched Judge pop out during the 2024 World Series opener.
Other managers haven’t been so fortunate.
La Russa walked Bonds and watched Santiago homer. Servais refused to pitch to Alvarez, only for Bregman to drive home an insurance run. Shildt avoided Betts, got the ground ball he wanted from Freeman and still lost the lead.
Then Boone gave Freeman the opportunity to produce one of the most famous swings in World Series history.
Those results don’t mean every intentional walk was a strategic failure. They do show why the decision requires more than comparing two hitters’ batting averages.
Managers must account for the extra runner, the outs remaining and the way another walk changes the inning. They also need to know whether their pitcher can exploit the preferred matchup.
The 2024 World Series provided a particularly sharp reminder.
Boone chose Cortes against Freeman because he preferred the handedness advantage. That was a recognizable baseball calculation, but Freeman was still one of the best hitters of his generation.
The Yankees had one out left to get. They gave away a base to improve the matchup and watched the ball disappear into the right-field seats.
Freeman held his bat high before beginning his slow trip around the bases. His injured ankle barely seemed to matter as the Dodgers poured out of the dugout.
For New York, the lasting image came with a question that no matchup chart could answer.
When the next hitter is Freddie Freeman, how much safer have you really made the situation?
READ MORE: The October Strike Zone: Tracking Called Pitches Across the Division Series
FAQs
Why did the Yankees intentionally walk Mookie Betts in the 2024 World Series?
Aaron Boone preferred the lefty-on-lefty matchup between Nestor Cortes and Freddie Freeman. Freeman answered with the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history.
How much does an intentional walk increase run expectancy?
It depends on the situation. In 2024, loading the bases with two outs instead of leaving runners on second and third raised average run expectancy from 0.60 to 0.82.
What happened when the Cardinals intentionally walked Barry Bonds in 2002?
Tony La Russa walked Bonds with two outs and nobody aboard. Benito Santiago followed with a two-run homer that helped San Francisco win Game 4.
Why did the Mariners intentionally walk Yordan Alvarez in 2022?
Alvarez had already hit two devastating homers in the ALDS. Seattle walked him with first base occupied, but Alex Bregman followed with an RBI single.
When does an intentional walk make sense in baseball?
It can help when loading the bases creates a force play at home or an inning-ending double-play opportunity. The next hitter still matters.
