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| Vladdy (to the left) had few if any doubts |
Until Friday night, the last World Series pitch thrown in Toronto had been the one Joe Carter hit over the left-field wall to end Game Six in 1993, as Dan Schulman helpfully pointed out just before Trey Yesavage struck out Shohei Ohtani to get things underway these thirty-two years later. Of course it was, right? But as is so often the case, Dan had a neat way of saying it. I really like that guy. I also really liked this game! Like right from the start! Yesavage breezed through the top of the first— which might not sound like that much of an accomplishment, but run expectancy is higher in the first than in any other inning, even when the top third of the order does not consist of obvious first-ballot Hall-of-Famers—and the Blue Jay put pressure on the excellent Blake Snell, a lanky and likeable lefty, pretty much at once: after Springer and Davis Schneider grounded and popped out (respectively), Vladdy drew a walk, Bo singled (in his first plate appearance in weeks and weeks!) on a 3-0 changeup (if you're not giving Bo the green light on 3-0 against a lefty, I suppose, why even play him?), and Kirk walked before Daulton Varsho got under a breaking ball to pop out and end the inning. Leaving the bases loaded is for sure no fun, but all of that took really a lot of pitches, and the only undeniable weakness of this Dodgers team is middle relief; the earlier we can chase the starting pitcher, the better (this is of course pretty well always true, but especially in this case). It was Yesavage, though, who got touched up first (a run in the second), and also second (a run in the third), as he pitched into, around, and largely out of a good deal of traffic. Things could have been way, way worse, though, as his splitter really wasn't doing what it normally does, and you don't want to face bases-loaded Shohei Ohtani without your best stuff too many times (even the once felt bad). But Yesavage kept things close enough that I remained hopeful we'd have a chance to even the score once we got into the bullpen.
Happily, we didn't have to even wait that long, with Varsho's home run thudding off the batter's eye to bring in Alejandro Kirk's single with Snell still on the mound in the fourth. In fact, Snell stayed until the sixth, and left with the bases loaded, in what turned out to be one of the biggest offensive innings in the history of the World Series. How about that! Thirteen batters came to the plate, three of them pinch-hitters (plus IKF running for Bo after his lead-off walk), and put up nine runs—nine!—highlighted, I think it's fair to say, by Addison Barger's pinch-hit grand slam (the first one in World Series history) the day after he slept on Davis Schneider's pull-out couch (sleepover! [Myles Straw apparently no longer had room]). That Varsho and Barger both homered off lefties is honestly maybe the most surprising thing about this whole wild happening; that our other home run came from Alejandro Kirk was less surprising, I would suggest, but no less delightful.
All of this romping meant no Varland or Hoffman out of the pen, and instead Fluharty (who figures to be super important throughout the series as the lefty whose assignment will be Ohtani and Freeman), Dominguez (who has been totally solid in a somewhat unsung way), Fisher (who allowed a homer to Ohtani [I'm not even mad]), Chris Bassitt (whose stuff is "playing up" in relief, and who is by far the most stoked I have ever seen him), and Eric Lauer for the ninth. Different looks! For their guys! Let's go!
There is of course no reason to think that any other game this series will go anything at all like this, and I am deeply alive to the fact that each Blue Jays win could easily be their last of this wonderful season. This might have been it! Who knows! It's Kevin Gausman on the mound for us tonight, and I can only ever feel good about that, but it's Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who worries me the most, going for the Dodgers. The recent FanGraphs headline "Does Toronto, or Indeed Humanity, Stand a Chance Against the Dodgers Rotation?" is no less true today because we managed to get to Blake Snell a little (and the bullpen a lot). But I guess we'll see. In closing, I would note real quick that we're just one win away from guaranteeing at least a Game Six at home, and also arguably just three wins away from winning the whole thing. Both seem good.
KS
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