LOS ANGELES – After a fifteen-year wait, the Yankees returned to the World Series with a classic.

And with the kind of emotional rollercoaster and dizzying devastation that can only happen in October.

Playing in the Fall Classic for the first time since 2009, the Yankees squandered a one-run lead in the eighth and 10th and let Game 1 slip through their fingers with one Freddie Freeman swing.

The Yankees were stunned by a walk-off grand slam that Freeman hit off Nestor Cortes in a 6-3, Game 1 loss that started a World Series of heavyweights.

The Yankees took the lead in the 10th on a single by Jazz Chisholm Jr., two steals and an RBI groundout by Anthony Volpe, but every exhale was followed by a punch to the face.

In the bottom half of the inning, Jake Cousins ​​walked Gavin Lux with one out before Tommy Edman’s ground ball was batted down by a diving Oswaldo Cabrera, putting up two. Cortes came in, fresh off a flexion injury, doing his job against Shohei Ohtani with the help of Alex Verdugo, with the left fielder crashing into the foul wall and tumbling over it for a remarkable grab.

But that only set the stage for the end: Freeman sent Cortes’ first pitch into the night in Los Angeles.

This all-timer included: an old-fashioned Gerrit Cole-Jack Flaherty pitchers’ duel; Juan Soto’s defensive deficiencies that led to the first Dodgers run; a two-run moonshot from Giancarlo Stanton that seemed to be the only goal the Yankees needed until it wasn’t; an Ohtani obliterated a double, leading to the tying point; a deep drive from Gleyber Torres that turned a fan into Jeffrey Maier, reached out and got his hands on a ball that was ruled a double; Aaron Judge gets his chance and lets it go before the uppercut in the 10th.

Yes, the most hyped fall classic in recent memory, delivered in drama and competitiveness: the two star teams that seemed about evenly matched certainly seemed about evenly matched.

In such tight games, small mistakes are magnified, and the Yankees made those small mistakes that led to a few runs.

Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver combined for the tying goal in the eighth with some help from some sloppy defense. Against Kahnle, Ohtani crushed a double off the right field wall that Soto handled and swung to second base. The ball bounced off Torres’ glove and bounced into no man’s land in the infield, putting Ohtani on third.

The extra 30 yards mattered when Weaver came in and allowed a sacrifice fly to Mookie Betts.

The Yankees may have fallen a foot short of regaining the lead in the top of the ninth when Torres hit a deep ball to left center. It had a chance and ended up in the glove of a fan, who had clearly grabbed the souvenir in the field of play. Torres was assigned only second base and Soto was walked intentionally to bring up Judge. But Judge, who finished 1-for-5 with three strikeouts, emerged in what was a bad October.

The Yankees failed to break through for five innings against Flaherty, who was given a one-run lead in part due to poor play by the Yankees defense. But like so many times this month, a Stanton swing offered hope.

The DH, down 0-2 against Flaherty, saw a knuckle curve dip but not dive – a pitch that was below the strike zone, but at least in the same area code. If Flaherty had intended to bury the sacrifice, Stanton buried it in an entirely different manner.

Stanton bent his left front leg to jump in front of the pitch and golfed it, turning his bat into a 9-iron that sent a 400-foot rocket to the moon. As is so often the case with this hitter, there was no doubt: Stanton admired his work from the batter’s box for several seconds before beginning his slow trot around the bases for his sixth homer of the postseason and the fourth straight game with a dinger.

For a long time it seemed like that would be the only swing necessary.

Cole was more brilliant than dominant over six one-run innings, allowing four hits, walking none and striking out four. He survived the early hard contact and had surprises for the Dodgers, including a sinker that Ohtani fouled — a pitch Cole threw only 12 times all season.

The Dodgers’ run came against a rolling Cole, who had allowed just one hit in the first four innings. With one out in the fifth, Kiké Hernandez sent an 0-2 quad from the outside corner down the rightfield line. Soto went for the catch instead of the carom, the ball just out of reach and Soto ran past it. The overshoot allowed Hernandez to finish in third place with a one-out triple.

Will Smith then lifted a fly ball down the right field line that wasn’t hit particularly far. Soto ran hard and caught it on the run before throwing home a two-hop throw that arrived too late to catch Hernandez for the game’s first point.