The Blue Jays and Dodgers players came to the World Series with completely different viewpoints. The Dodgers are the veteran defending champions with multiple former MVPs and Cy Young Award winners, dealing with the gravity of global expectations. The Blue Jays, while they have a few vets with World Series experience, are mostly a legion of talented newcomers who have reached unknown heights. They also carry the weight of a city (and perhaps an entire country) that has waited three decades to return to the World Series. In a raucous Rogers Center atmosphere in Toronto, the Jays harnessed the energy of that weight and used it to blow apart the Dodgers in a decisive 11-4 Game 1 victory.
Both teams created tension early on in attack, but struggled to make any serious breakthroughs. The Dodgers got LA traffic to base in the second inning and drew first blood. An opening walk to the catcher Will Smith and a Max Muncy single sets the table for one Enrique Hernández RBI is right. Tommy Edmana switch-hitter who hit surprisingly right-handed against right-handed Trey Yesavage (perhaps to force him to use something other than his splitter), also singled to load the bases with one out. After Andy Pages struck out on a well-placed Yesavage slider, MVP favorite Shohei Ohtani stood in with the bases loaded and two outs, and it felt like the dam might burst on Toronto’s rookie starter. Instead, Yesavage got Ohtani to roll over a slider and ground out to first base.
The Blue Jays approached an answer in the bottom of the second inning, but then found themselves in the final of the inning Ernie Clemens then made an overzealous attempt to sneak all the way to third base Freddie Vrijman And Blake Snell had difficulty connecting after a difficult 3-1 draw.
Snell’s boisterous play prevented a two-hole hitter Davis Schneider of seeing the saucer with multiple tokens on it and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on deck.
More chaos ensued in the third when Yesavage, who generated a whopping 14 whiffs in just four innings but often struggled with fastball command, walked. Mookie Betts and Freeman to start the inning. Smith drove in Betts with an opposite-field single, but on this play, Freeman was the one caught wandering too far past second base, resulting in a rally-impeding out. If Freeman had just stopped at second, Los Angeles might have had a bigger inning instead of a 2-0 lead after three.
It probably wouldn’t have mattered, at least not for much longer, as the Blue Jays deep lineup started to find its footing and take over the game. Alejandro Kirkwho reached base four times, singled to lead off the bottom of the fourth. One throw later Daulton Varsho tied the game by driving a 96 mph Snell fastball over the center field wall.
Blue Jays manager Johannes Schneider responded to the new game status by starting to play matchups in the middle innings. Left-handed Mason Fluharty was used to get Ohtani and Freeman out in the fifth, and beyond Seranthony Dominguez worked a clean inning and a third.
In the bottom of the sixth, Toronto not only took the lead, but also put it out of reach. Snell got the first three batters of the inning on base before being removed Emmet Sheehan on exactly 100 throws in a tie. Sheehan then allowed the first three batters he was confronted to also reach the Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled him after the Blue Jays sent a lefty Addison Barger to the plate to face Sheehan with the bases loaded in place of the starting left fielder Davis Schneider. Once Barger was announced as a pinch-hitter (Schneider’s third move of the inning), Roberts countered with a left-handed Anthony Banda. It didn’t work for the Dodgers.
It was the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history and came from a 25-year-old who, despite being a Top 100 Prospect at one point, had struggled to fully cement himself in the Toronto lineup until this year, his eighth in pro ball. Like someone opened a shaken soda, the Blue Jays scored four runs with one swing of Barger’s bat, then the bubbles continued to swirl as Kirk hit a two-run homer a few batters later in his second at-bat of the inning. Twelve batters came to bat in Toronto’s nine-run sixth. That was the most runs scored by one team in an inning of a World Series game since 1968, when the Tigers scored 10 in the third inning of Game 6. Only one other time had a team scored 10 runs in one inning of a World Series game; that was 96 years ago, when the Philadelphia Athletics, trailing the Cubs 8-0 entering the bottom of the seventh inning in Game 4 of the 1929 Fall Classic, posted a No. 10 ranking.
Then the Blue Jays turned on cruise control. There was a two-run Ohtani home run in the seventh, but it was met with collective indifference at best from a crowd that seemed to take seeing Ohtani go deep as a bonus. Both teams used their lower pitching to get through the final three innings of this one. Toronto collected 14 hits and four walks.
Nuggets to Consider for Game 2
Bo Bichette returned from a knee sprain suffered in early September and went 1-for-2 with a walk before being removed for a pinch-runner in the decisive sixth inning. Normally a shortstop, he played second base for the first time in the Majors to ease the burden on his knee. He made a nice defensive play with a backhand in the third inning, although he did look a bit stumbling. We might expect him to be prosecuted or something Isiah Kiner Fear will replace him in defense later in the games.
Despite the mid-game offense, none of the Dodgers relievers (Sheehan, Banda, Justin Wrobleski, Will Klein) had to throw more than 16 pitches in this game. Meanwhile, Domínguez needed just 13 pitches to get four outs and it seems likely he will be available in Game 2 if the Blue Jays need him.
As mentioned above, switch-hitter Tommy Edman batted right-handed against a right-handed pitcher in Game 1. He last did so against John Curtiss of the Diamondbacks in September, and before that against Emmanuel class in May. According to Synergy Sports, Edman has 73 right-to-right plate appearances since 2018 and is hitting .232/.260/.348 in those situations.
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