When that 18-inning Dodgers victory in Game 3 happened, it sure looked like it would be the defining game of this World Series. How could the Blue Jays possibly come back from that?
Well, it turns out they came back just fine. The Blue Jays have outscored the Dodgers 12-3 in two games since then and have looked like the better team in every possible way. But these are the Dodgers. And the Jays still have one more win to go. The crowd at Rogers Centre is going to be out of its mind tonight — this is the good stuff.
Throughout this postseason, Iâ€ll be previewing the next dayâ€s action, game by game. Here are three storylines for Fridayâ€s Game 6.
Can Yamamoto save the Dodgers?
Right now, if you were looking for one starting pitcher to pitch one game that would save your season, that pitcher would have to be Yamamoto. (The problem might be that the Dodgers need two games to save their season, but thatâ€s an issue for Saturday night.) Yamamoto has gone full old-school Age of the Starting Pitcher over the last fortnight, throwing two complete games in a row, a three-hitter against the Brewers in NLCS Game 2 and a four-hitter against the Jays in World Series Game 2.
Considering how the Dodgers†bullpen has gotten knocked around the last couple of games, this team has no real choice but to ask him to do it for them again. Itâ€s a reasonable strategy: The only game the Dodgers have won this World Series that wasnâ€t an 18-inning marathon was the one in which Yamamoto vexed the Blue Jays.
According to Game Score, Yamamotoâ€s past two games are two of the three best MLB games of his entire career. There are two ways to look at that. One: He is absolutely peaking right now; the other: He canâ€t keep this up forever, heâ€s not quite this dominant. The Dodgers†only real hope right now is to beg the Baseball Gods that itâ€s the first one.
Is this Gausmanâ€s moment to become a legend?
Gausman has been an outstanding pitcher — for quite a few years now — even if heâ€s not always thought of in that way. My theory is that it took him so long to launch after being a top prospect in Baltimore that people still donâ€t quite appreciate how good he became in San Francisco, and now since coming to Toronto in 2022. He has finished in the top 10 of AL Cy Young voting twice in Toronto, he has made 31 starts or more each of his four seasons and he has been a stabilizing force for a rotation that has often had some real questions.
More than that: He has become a part of Blue Jays history. After just those four seasons, heâ€s seventh on the franchiseâ€s all-time strikeouts list — and of pitchers with more than 700 innings for the franchise, heâ€s third in ERA, and first in WHIP. He also, for all the Yamamoto hype, matched him for six innings in Game 2 before allowing two solo homers in the seventh.
But do you consider Gausman an all-time Blue Jays star? A top-shelf starting pitcher? If you donâ€t, well, I have good news for him: He has an opportunity tonight, in front of what is sure to be a raucous Rogers Centre crowd, to become a franchise legend. The Jays can win their first World Series in 32 years tonight. Gausman is the guy who can get them there. Itâ€s history. Itâ€s history that could happen, for Gausman, for the Jays, for a starved fanbase, for an entire country, tonight.
What happened to this hyped Dodgers lineup?
The Dodgers†regular season featured many fewer wins than just about everyone had predicted, but this October, it had started to look like they had discovered their best selves. Yet now, at the worst possible time, it sure looks like a lot of the flaws we saw from April through September have begun popping up again. The bullpen is the most obvious one, but letâ€s not forget a lineup that looked quite top heavy at times.
Shohei Ohtani is mashing everything, of course, and Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández have been solid this Series. But everything else has been a mess. Will Smith is hitting .238 with one extra-base hit. Max Muncy is 3-for-20; Kiké Hernández homered in Game 5 but has a .200 OBP overall, with 10 strikeouts in 19 at-bats; Tommy Edman is 3-for-21; Alex Call and Andy Pages (who was benched for Game 5) are a combined 2-for-22; and, perhaps worst of all, Mookie Betts is 3-for-23 with no extra-base hits and a .361 OPS. (“Iâ€ve just been terrible,†he said after Game 5.)
Blue Jays manager John Schneider turned out to be joking when he said he might walk Ohtani every time he came to the plate after Game 3. But considering the way the rest of this lineup is hitting, it might not be the worst idea to challenge any non-Ohtani hitter to beat you. Can someone else step up for the Dodgers in Game 6? One name to watch out for: Max Muncy, who in Game 2 launched his fourth home run in 21 career at-bats against Gausman, to go with a .481 OBP and 1.000 SLG. Los Angeles desperately needs that trend to continue.
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