Dodgers And Blue Jays Are Even As They Try To Win The World Series

Anyone who believed that the Los Angeles Dodgers repeating as World Series champions was a fait accompli was simply not paying attention. Yes, the Dodgers entered the Fall Classic with a 9-1 post-season record, coming off a dominant four-game sweep of the team with the most win in MLB this season. But, the Toronto Blue Jays are not the Milwaukee Brewers. And what the former does better than nearly anyone runs counter to what the Dodgers do best. This was destined to be a competitive World Series. And after two games in Canada, with each team winning one, we are now left with a best-of-five starting in Los Angeles on Monday night.

Over the course of 162 games, Dodgers pitchers struck out more batters than any other staff. Over the course of that same 162 schedule, only the Kansas City Royals struck out less often than Blue Jays batters. To make matters even more difficult, the Blue Jays led all of baseball in base hits and batting average. And when they didn’t get a hit, they were fifth in the league in productive outs. All of this is a statistical way of saying that the Blue Jays bats were a tough match-up for the Dodgers arms.

Game 1

In Game 1 of the World Series, the Blue Jays’ strengths were made abundantly clear. Their goal heading into the series was to get to the Dodgers shaky bullpen as quickly as possible. The fastest way to do that is to run up pitch counts. Well, in the bottom of the first inning of Game 1, Toronto forced Los Angeles ace Blake Snell to throw 29 pitches. They did not score (they actually left the bases loaded), but they still won the inning. After just a single frame, it was clear that Snell wouldn’t/couldn’t go too deep into the game, and that the Blue Jays would have a crack at that soft underbelly of a relief core (which is even softer with the absence of lefty Alex Vesia, who is away from the team dealing with a “deeply personal family matter”).

With the score tied at two going into the bottom of the sixth inning, Snell had thrown 84 pitches. Bo Bichette started the inning working a six-pitch walk. The next pitch was a poorly thrown slider that Alejandro Kirk lined to right. Daulton Varsho worked the count full before getting hit by a 96-mph fastball. That was it for Snell. He threw 100 pitches and left with no outs (and the bases loaded) in the sixth inning. This is exactly how Toronto drew it up.

Emmet Sheehan came into the game for Los Angeles and promptly gave up a game-tying single to Ernie Clement, followed by a six-pitch walk to Nathan Lukes (who came in as a pinch-hitter), followed by an Andrés Giménez single to right. After George Springer grounded out, Blue Jays manager John Schneider called upon lefty Addison Barger to face the righty, Sheehan. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts countered with lefty Anthony Banda. No matter, Barger hit a weak 2-1 slider into the seats in right field for the first pinch-hit grand slam in MLB history. With the score now 9-2, the game was all but decided. But Toronto was not done. After a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. single, Kirk came to the plate for the second time in the frame and added a two-run homer to his ledger.

Shohei Ohtani did hit a two-run dinger of his own in the top of the seventh inning, but it was much too little, way too late, and Game 1 went to the home team. In all, the Dodgers threw 156 pitches to 40 batters, only four of whom struck out.

Game 2

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That had to be Toronto’s mantra heading into Game 2. In Game 1, they forced starter Blake Snell to throw 29 pitches in the first inning, all but insuring that he could not go deep into the game. So, for Game 2, even behind 1-0 after a Will Smith two-out single to score Freddie Freeman (after his own two-out double) in the top of the first, they went back into grind mode, trying to run up the pitch count of starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw a complete game against Milwaukee in his last outing.

Leadoff hitter George Springer quickly got behind 0-2. He then fouled off two tough pitches before doubling to left. One batter, five pitches, no outs, a runner in scoring position. Rogers Centre was rocking. Nathan Lukes then fought off a cutter up and in for a soft single to left, putting runners on the corners with no outs for the hottest hitter on the planet. With the count 2-2, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. fouled off two pitches before finally striking out on a nasty curveball. But, it took Yamamoto 13 pitches to record his first out of the game. Kirk lined out to first for the second out, and then Varsho worked the count full before succumbing to a 3-2 curveball to end the inning. When Yamamoto headed to the dugout, he had thrown 23 pitches.

But then he took over. Ten pitches in the second inning (which should have been eight, as Freeman dropped a popup on the first pitch, which was somehow ruled a single). George Springer got plunked with the first pitch of the third, and he ultimately came around to score after a Guerrero single and a sacrifice fly. But all of that took only 13 pitches. The Japanese sensation, who in 2023, signed the largest contract ever given to a pitcher, used only six pitches to get through the fourth. Then eight in the fifth, and eleven in the sixth.

In the top of the seventh, a home run by Will Smith gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead. Two batters later, Max Muncy homered to chase Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman after just 82 pitches.

With a 3-1 lead, Yamamoto went back to work. It took him eight pitches to finish off the Jays in the seventh inning. He struck out the side in the eighth on fourteen pitches, and went to the mound in the ninth with just 94 pitches thrown. Eleven later, the Dodgers had evened the series at one game a piece.

Yamamoto threw his second consecutive post-season complete game, the first pitcher to do so since Curt Schilling did it for the Diamondbacks in 2001, and the first Dodger since Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Los Angeles, who led the National League with 244 home runs, hammered two more in Game 2 to give them the lead that they would not relinquish. And their starting pitching, which has carried them since September, did it again. But the Jays did not make life easy. Of the 105 pitches Yamamoto threw, 25 were with two strikes, resulting in only eight strike outs.

As we head into Game 3, the unstoppable force is once again running into the immovable object. Whichever team can alter that paradigm will take a lead in the series and regain control. At this point, it is a heavyweight fight, with no clear favorite.