LOS ANGELES – As Freddie Freeman turned Dodger Stadium into Blue Heaven on Friday night, Nestor Cortes made the long, awkward walk toward what’s often been hell for those on the wrong side of history.

Here’s the thing about walk-off home runs, such as Freeman’s first-of-his kind game-ending grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series: There’s just no avoiding the physical act of trudging morosely through someone else’s party into your own dungeon of demons.

So after Freeman destroyed the first pitch Cortes threw him in the top of the 10^th inning, sending it 409 feet into a delirious right field pavilion at Dodger Stadium, turning a one-run New York Yankees lead into a 6-3 Dodgers victory, Cortes was angry.

And then he turned pragmatic, sitting down immediately and watching a replay of the fateful pitch – a fastball in that should have been two or three inches up, too.

And then he embraced perspective, choosing not to ponder that his name was enshrined forever in baseball lore, a permanent link to Ralph Branca and Dennis Eckersley and Mariano Rivera and Mitch Williams, pitchers who may have excelled but gave it up at the worst possible times.

No, for Cortes, failure isn’t hell.

Hell was sitting and watching, helplessly, as the Yankees marched to their first World Series since 2009 as he loitered on the shelf, mending his elbow, throwing meaningless pitches in bullpen sessions, hoping his elbow might stop barking long enough to join the cause.

And even when the worst possible thing happened when Cortes took the mound for the first time in 37 days, the 29-year-old lefty scarcely paused to wallow.

“Walking in here, I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I felt more like, letting my team down,” says Cortes, who was making just his second relief appearance since 2021. “The guys scratched and clawed for three runs. The bullpen held it. Obviously, (Gerrit) Cole pitched a tremendous game.

“It just sucks I couldn’t come through for the guys. Everybody’s focused on, ‘Ohtani, Ohtani, Ohtani.’ And we get him out, but Freeman is also a really good hitter.

“I just couldn’t get the job done today.”

Indeed, the great Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ 50-homer, 50-steal man, was inside the Yankees’ heads all night, lurking at the top of the order. As Cole spun a lovely four-hit gem into the seventh inning, the fellows in the Yankee bullpen were acutely aware how soon Ohtani might bat as the Dodgers’ lineup turned over.

Cortes, for his part, said he was ready as early as the fourth inning, stretching his body and preparing his mind. And as Game 1 lurched toward conclusion, the Dodgers scratching out a game-tying eighth-inning run thanks to an Ohtani double, a Gleyber Torres error and a Mookie Betts sacrifice fly, it got real for the lefties down there.

The Yankees’ highest-leverage relievers are all right-handed, and they all were expended by the ninth inning, when Luke Weaver finished his 1 ⅔ inning outing.

Righty Jake Cousins would be tabbed to get the save. A clean inning, against the Dodgers’ 7-8-9 hitters, and there’d be no Ohtani, no Betts, no Freeman to hurt the Yankees, and they’d go to sleep Friday night with a 1-0 Series lead.

But these games aren’t scripted. And when Cousins issued a one-out walk to Gavin Lux, and Tommy Edman scratched out a single that ducked under second baseman Oswaldo Cabrera’s glove, there was no avoiding Ohtani.

Down in the bullpen, Cortes warmed alongside Tim Cousins, whose job description is, quite literally, “late-inning lefty reliever.” And he’d done it splendidly this postseason, retiring 17 of 22 batters faced, giving up just one run.

Boone came to the mound and motioned with his left arm toward the bullpen. An overhand motion, and Boone wanted Cortes. An underhand motion, and Boone wanted Hill.

Boone went high, and Cortes jogged into what seemed like an impossible situation.

He’d pitched once out of the bullpen this season, and wasn’t too happy about it, taking on a bulk role in a September game. Three weeks later, his elbow flared up and he’d throw his last pitch of the regular season on Sept. 18 at Seattle.

The Yankees would win the AL East, and dispatch Kansas City and Cleveland and win seven of their first nine postseason games. And Cortes felt helpless, if not entirely hopeless.

“From the dugout, it’s tough to watch,” he says. “It’s a little bit more nerve-wracking when you know you can’t do anything to provide for the team, to help out. Just to see them play through the (Division Series) and (ALCS), I knew how hard they grinded and battled and I wanted to be there for them, too.”

So Cortes lobbied for inclusion on both the ALDS and ALCS rosters, but was rebuffed. He finally convinced the Yankees he was healthy enough to pitch in the World Series after a pair of simulated outings following the ALCS.

Healthy enough. Not healthy.

There is something wrong with Cortes’s elbow, which makes him not unlike hundreds of pitchers in organized baseball. But there are degrees to suboptimal health, and Cortes’s gauge is blinking more in the red zone.

No matter. He put his desires on the table in a media video call after a pre-Series throwing session.

“If I have a ring, then a year off from baseball,” he said, “so be it.’’

The Yankees were thrilled to have him. While not a huge sample, he’d held Ohtani to two singles in 12 at-bats in their previous meetings.

And when Boone waved him into the game, Yankees leading 3-2, Cortes responded, retiring Ohtani on one pitch – a soft fly into foul ground in left field, where Alex Verdugo made an excellent catch tumbling over a short wall into a seating area.

“The reality is he's been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he's gotten ready for this,” says Boone in explaining Cortes over Hill. “I knew with one out there, it would be tough to double up Shohei if Tim Hill gets him (to hit a ground ball) and then Mookie behind him is a tough matchup there. So felt convicted with Nestor in that spot.”

Problem solved?

Hardly. Boone opted to load the bases by intentionally walking Betts, putting the winning run in scoring position but keeping the left-on-left matchup with Freeman.

They conferred on the mound to discuss Freeman. Ohtani had swung at the first pitch, and earlier in the game, Will Smith had killed a rally with a first-pitch swing. The Dodgers, always patient, certainly seemed intent on trying to make the Yankees pay by getting in the zone early in the count.

And so Freeman, too, swung at the first pitch. One that was a little harder than Cortes expected – 92.5 miph – but a couple inches lower than Cortes preferred. And sailed a lot farther than he’d imagined.

It was a jarring welcome back, a 0-to-100 moment for the heart, but the grimmest of World Series debuts.

“The adrenaline rush was amazing,” says Cortes. “I was 88, 89 in my lives, I think I was 92, 93 there. I got more left. I know I’m going to get another opportunity and I’m going to take the ball when I’m called upon.”

The Yankees are counting on it. Cole is their workhorse, and with the patient Dodgers lineup, there is little guarantee subsequent starters Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil get as deep as Cole did in Game 1.

Cortes will be called upon again.

“Nestor, look, he’s coming back from injury. He came out and gave 100%,” says Cole.

“That’s all we’re asking for.”

All Cortes wanted was to get back in the arena, risks be damned. And his first taste of World Series failure – the worst kind of World Series history – won’t dim that vigor.

“There’s always outside noise that are going to give an opinion about your career,” he says. “But nobody’s gone through the struggle of 162 games and what it takes to be here and the fact the guys battled to be in this position, this situation.

“Like I said before, this is what the dream is made of. You grew up playing baseball, watching baseball and living for October. And we’re here now.”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Yankees' Nestor Cortes surrenders walk-off in World Series vs. Dodgers