Dodgers walk-off home runs to win a 1-0 game

Scoring was at a premium in Friday night’s series opener, with both Roki Sasaki and Reid Detmers permitting nothing crossing home plate on their watch. It took until the ninth inning, when Freddie Freeman took old friend Kirby Yates deep for the only run of the game, and a walk-off winner.

It was Freeman’s fifth walk-off hit with the Dodgers in the regular season, and his first home run. But you might remember that the first baseman has also authored two of the most famous World Serieswalk-off home runs in history as well. All told, Freeman has 20 career walk-off hits in the regular season and postseason, putting him in very rare company.

Freeman hit the second Dodgers walk-off home run this season, joining Max Muncy, who capped off a three-homer night to beat the Texas Rangers on April 10, also a Friday night contest.

Baseball Reference has full play-by-play data dating back to 1910, and in the 117 seasons in the database the Dodgers have hit 224 walk-off home runs, a tad under two per year on average. Since moving to Los Angeles, they’ve averaged about 2.4 walk-off homers per regular season.

But of those 224 walk-off home runs, only nine have been solo shots to finish off a 1-0 win. All have been in Los Angeles.

Only once did the Brooklyn Dodgers hit a walk-off home run in a 0-0 game. On May 2, 1955 at Ebbets Field, Carl Furillo took Gene Conley of the Milwaukee Braves deep in the 12th inning, but that was a two-run shot that also scored Jackie Robinson. Conley started that game for Milwaukee and went the whole way, as did winning pitcher Carl Erskine with his 12 scoreless frames. Furillo pushed Brooklyn’s record to 16-2, on their way to a 22-2 start and a runaway pennant on their way to the franchise’s first World Series championship.

There were a few multi-run home runs in Los Angeles to decide a 0-0 game. On April 26, 1972, Willie Crawford beat the Montreal Expos with a two-run shot. Dave Hansen in 1993 set a franchise record with 18 pinch-hits, one of them a walk-off grand slam on June 28 to beat the San Francisco Giants 4-0.

The first Dodgers walk-off home run to win a 1-0 game came in the first year of Dodger Stadium, on June 19, 1962, when Tommy Davis took Bob Gibson deep en route to his first of two batting titles.

Freeman’s 1-0 walk-off winner was the first by the team since Yasmani Grandal did in the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 3, 2015 in the 13th inning, the latest in the game any of these home runs were hit. The Russell Martin home run on August 13, 2006 finished off a classic 10-inning tilt on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball featuring Greg Maddux needing only 68 pitches in his eight scoreless innings in a duel with future Dodger Jason Schmidt when he still had intact shoulder ligaments.

Five of these nine 1-0 home runs came in extra innings.

The Dodgers’ last two games have been decided on walk-off home runs, with a loss on Thursday before Friday’s win. Los Angeles still has not played an extra-inning game this season, the only MLB team in 2026 who has yet to play beyond nine innings.

Freeman, by the way, after Friday night now has 2,495 career hits and 973 extra-base hits. He’s only five hits shy of becoming the 102nd member of the 2,500-hit club, and 27 extra-base hits away from becoming just the 40th player with 1,000 extra-base hits.

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Angels
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium
• Time: 7:10 p.m.
• TV: SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of market), KCOP channel 13 (Angels broadcast)
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)