A week of buildup gave way to an electrifying environment at a sold-out Dodger Stadium for Game 1 of the World Series, which opened with Freddie Freeman’s grand slam delivering a 6-3 walk-off win for the Los Angeles Dodgers

Jack Flaherty vowed to make corrections from his last start in order to help set the tone for the Dodgers, and certainly did his part in a duel with Gerrit Cole.

Flaherty navigated a high pitch count early and some traffic before settling in a bit. He was through five scoreless innings on 74 pitches with five strikeouts, and to that point benefitted from much more swing-and-miss than was seen in his last National League Championship Series start.

But Flaherty wound up being hurt by one big swing from Giancarlo Stanton on a two-run home run in the sixth inning that gave the Yankees a lead.

Cole relied on a heavy dose of fastballs, which also gave the Dodgers trouble in recent postseasons and was a point of emphasis for the team this October.

Cole retired 12 of 13 batters faced through the fourth inning, with the lone exception being Freddie Freeman hitting a two-out triple to left field in the first inning.

Freeman, playing through a significant right ankle sprain, was aided by Alex Verdugo taking a curious route and slipping on the warning track dirt.

Yankees’ defense let Cole down again in the fifth inning when Juan Soto failed to come up with a running catch on his ill-advised attempt. It resulted in a Kiké Hernández triple that led to Will Smith’s sacrifice fly breaking the scoreless tie.

Cole nearly paid the same penalty as Flaherty with facing the Dodgers lineup a third time through. Tommy Edman led off the bottom of the sixth with a double, only to be stranded by Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman.

Teoscar Hernández’s leadoff single in the seventh chased Cole from the game and sparked a small rally of sorts for the Dodgers as Clay Holmes hit Max Muncy with a pitch upon entering.

Any momentum stalled when Kiké Hernández was asked to drop down a sacrifice bunt despite Holmes’ struggles. He did so perfectly, but Smith popped out on the first pitch he saw and Tommy Kahnle entered to retire Gavin Lux.

Betts atoned for his missed opportunity in the bottom of the eighth after Ohtani hit a double off the wall in right field and took third base when the ball got away from Gleyber Torres.

The game remained knotted into the 10th, when the Yankees used small ball to generate a go-ahead run. It started with a Jazz Chisholm one-out single that led to stealing second base and third base.

That prompted the Dodgers to bring their infield in and Edman was unable to cleanly get the ball out of his glove in a diving stop for could have been an inning-ending double play.

Freeman rescued the Dodgers from disappointment by hitting a walk-off grand slam against Nestor Cortes with two outs in the 10th inning. Freeman was in position for that at-bat because Betts had been intentionally walked.

The appearance was Cortes’ first game since Sept. 18.

World Series extra innings

Friday marked the third year in a row that Game 1 of the World Series went to extra innings. Prior to the current stretch, it happened only happened eight times in the first 117 editions of the Fall Classic.

World Series history: Yankees and Dodgers

The Dodgers became the first team with two triples in a World Series game since 2000 when the Yankees did so in Game 4 against the New York Mets.

Furthermore, the Dodgers joined the 1953 Yankees as the only teams in MLB history whose first two hits in the World Series were triples.

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