After a marathon Game 3 on Monday night (and Tuesday morning), both the Blue Jays and Dodgers were hoping for length from their starters in Game 4. It looked like the Dodgers were likely to get it. Toronto starter Shane Bieber lasted just 3 2/3 innings in Game 4 of the ALCS, his most recent start. In fact, he has gone more than five innings just once in his past four starts, posting a 4.96 ERA over that stretch. Los Angeles starter Shohei OhtaniWell, he’s Shohei Ohtani. He had gone exactly six innings in each of his last three starts. He had allowed just three runs for a 1.01 ERA in his past five appearances. If Ohtani had played just six innings and no more on Tuesday night, Game 4 might have gone very differently. Instead, the Blue Jays offense exploded with four insurance runs in the seventh inning, and with a convincing 6-2 victory, they took the World Series to a 2-2 tie.
After the prolonged strangeness of Game 3, Game 4 looked much more familiar. The starters struggled a bit early, but then settled down. One team asked a little too much of the starter and then paid the price for bringing in the wrong reliever. You know, like at a baseball game. The momentum certainly seemed to belong to the Dodgers. They were home, they had won two in a row, and they had Ohtani lined up to pitch after some of the best performances of his incredible career. After a swing during Game 3 resulted in an injury that walks like an oblique strain and talks like an oblique strain and is currently referred to as right side discomfort, the Blue Jays were without George Springerboth their leadoff man and their best hitter during the regular season. They had taxed their bullpen more thoroughly on Monday, and they had had to endure the psychological toll of losing that 18-inning marathon. Fortunately for the Blue Jays, momentum is primarily a construct.
The Dodgers kicked off the scoring in the bottom of the second. After a one-time walk past Max Muncy, Tommy Edman tore a single one down the middle. Knowing that Daulton Varsho’s surgically repaired right arm is particularly weak, Muncy didn’t hesitate, charging around second (and nearly slipping and falling when he tried to stick the landing on a pop-up slide in third). It’s always a bit of fun being a baserunner on the base you have to defend. You are in your normal place, but the perspective is completely different. It’s kind of like when you were a kid and your parents had you bring your sleeping bag into the living room so you could go camping in your own house.
Excuse me, where were we? The Dodgers had runners on the corners with one out, and Enrique Hernández did what Enrique Hernández does in October. He lifted a sacrifice fly into right field to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. The first time he came through the lineup, Bieber had allowed one run, one hit and two walks. He didn’t knock anyone out. Three of the Dodgers’ seven batted balls were hit hard.
But Ohtani was about to get into trouble of his own. He had just one strikeout his first time in the lineup and his velocity was lower compared to his regular season average (although manager Dave Roberts would say during an in-game interview that Ohtani deliberately backed away). He had not allowed much hard contact, but that quickly changed. In the first half of the third, Nathan Lucas tomahawk hit a high fastball into right field for a one-out single. Ohtani then applied a sweeper high and right over the middle Vladimir Guerrero Jr.who, strictly speaking, is not the kind of person you want to hang a sweeper high and right over the middle. Guerrero unloaded at the cement mixer. The vicious swing rattled his helmet on top of his head and the baseball past the left field wall, giving the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead:
Both pitchers were starting to get it. Ohtani allowed just one baserunner from the fourth inning to the sixth and at one point struck out four straight Blue Jays. Bieber allowed only two baserunners from the third to the fourth, but ran into trouble in the sixth. Freddie Vrijman started with a laser down the first baseline that Guerrero couldn’t quite put together on the short hop. Will Smith followed by a sharp line-out to the middle. After a few hard balls, manager Johannes Schneider came to the mound, but Bieber convinced him that he could stay in the game with just 80 pitches. Teoscar Hernández immediately made him look like a liar, sending the 81st pitch to center for a line drive single. The Dodgers had runners on first and second base with one out, and Schneider came back for the ball.
Left-handed rookie Mason Fluharty appeared for the third time in the series and he slammed the door on the potential rally, triggering a flyout from Muncy and striking out Edman while swinging. That closed the book for Bieber, who finished the night with one earned run over 5 1/3 innings. Despite walking three, allowing eight hard-hit balls and striking out only three, he allowed just four hits and would ultimately earn the victory.
Ohtani’s night ended shortly after Bieber’s. Varsho led off the seventh with a single to right field, and then Ernie Clemens ripped a doppelgänger off the left-center wall. Varsho hesitated for a moment as he rounded second base to make sure the ball wouldn’t be caught, and ended up at third base. Roberts called Anthony Banda to get the Dodgers out of trouble. Although he had retired eleven of the past twelve batters before the seventh inning, Ohtani’s night was over (at least, as a pitcher).
With runners on second and third base and no outs, the Dodgers brought their infield in. The Blue Jays just had to get the ball into the outfield to score a run. Andres Gimenez did just that, reaching for a slider and dumping a single into left. The Blue Jays led 3-1 and still had runners on the corners. After Isiah Kiner Fear outplayed (temporarily in a double play, until the call was overturned on replay), Schneider sent Ty France to pinch-hit for the left-handed Lukes. France drove in a run with a weak inside-out grounder to second base. That closed the book for Ohtani, who was credited with four earned runs over six innings. He struck out six while allowing six hits and one walk. The Blue Jays had two big insurance runs to push their lead to 4-1.
With a pair of right-handed hitters in Guerrero and Bo Bichette With time running out and the game threatening to get away from the Dodgers, Roberts intentionally walked Guerrero and pulled Banda. To the dismay of Dodger fans everywhere, he called Blake Treinenwho entered this postseason with an ERA of 9.00. Bichette greeted him with a rocket off the left field wall to score Giménez, and Addison Barger followed by a single to left to score Guerrero. The haters said he couldn’t do it, and they were right. The Blue Jays led 6-1:
From there, Chris Bassitt held the Dodgers scoreless in the seventh and eighth. Louis Varland made things interesting, allowing Edman to cut the lead to 6-2 on an RBI groundout before retiring the last two Dodgers. Four Blue Jays – Guerrero, Lukes, Barger and Clement – finished the night with two hits, while the Dodgers combined for just six hits. They still have home field advantage in Game 5. With two-time Cy Young Blake Snell lined up to face rookie Trey Yesavagethey will also have the starting pitching advantage. But after four games, even this World Series is looking great, and it is now certain that it will end in Toronto again.
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