Game Six

As we get closer to baseball season, we still need to work on our coverage of the 2025 World Series -- the best World Series in the last fifty years.

After the Dodgers won Game Three in 18 innings to take a 2-1 lead in the Series, the Blue Jays bounced back with two dominating performances in Dodger Stadium.  In Game Four, Toronto rolled to an easy 6-2 win.  And in Game Five, a dominating pitching performance by Trey Yesavage led the Jays an even easier 6-1 victory.  And so, after five games, the Blue Jays led three games to two, and Toronto only needed to win one more game at home to take the title.

However, all was not lost for the Dodgers, because they had Yoshinobu Yamamoto ready to go.  Yamamoto had pitched a complete game in Game Two to give L.A. a 5-1 victory, and now he was rested for Game Six.  In the regular season, Yamamoto had gone 12-8 with an ERA of 2.49 in 30 starts, and he had been even better in the playoffs.  Toronto responded with Kevin Gausman, who went 10-11 in the regular season with an ERA of 3.59.  Furthermore, George Springer -- the Blue Jay leadoff hitter -- was again healthy and back in the lineup.  A booming, boisterous crowd of 44,710 showed up in Toronto to see if the World Title was returning to Canada for the first time since 1993.

No one reached base in the first two innings, and one realized that the Dodgers had scored only four runs in the last 29 innings of play.  But then, in the top of the third, the Dodger bats finally showed some life.  Tommy Edman whacked a one-out double to right, and the Blue Jays walked Ohtani with two outs to put Dodgers on second and third.  Mookie Betts normally bats behind Ohtani, but Manager Dave Roberts had scrambled the lineup in the hopes of generating more runs, so the next batter was Will Smith, who doubled to left, bringing home Edman and sending Ohtani to third.  Freddy Freeman was up next, and Gausman walked him, loading the bases with two outs for Betts.  Mookie is no longer the hitter he used to be, which is why the Dodgers now play him at shortstop.  In fact, he would go only 4-29 in the World Series, for an average of .138.  But now he came through, pulling a single into left and scoring two huge runs, giving the Dodgers a 3-0 lead after 2 1/2 innings.

Now it was up to Yamamoto to defend that lead.  He immediately gave back one run in the bottom of the third on a double by Addison Barger and a two-out single by Springer.  But that was it.  He retired the Jays in order in the 4th.  He stranded one runner in the 5th.  In the bottom of the 6th, he gave up a two-out double to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., walked Bo Bichette, and then struck out Daulton Varsho to end the inning.

It was all magnificent, but it was also clear that Yamamoto was finished.  He'd thrown 96 pitches in six innings, allowing only five hits and one run, but he couldn't go any further.  So now the troubled Dodger bullpen had to make that 3-1 lead stand up for three more innings.

First up was Justin Wrobleski, who went 5-5 with a 4.32 ERA in 2025.  He gave up a two out double to Ernie Clement, who was on fire, but struck out Andres Gimenez to end the inning.  Still 3-1 for the Dodgers.

But the Dodgers' offense is in a deep freeze, so the pressure remains on their pitchers.  It's now the bottom of the eighth, the Blue Jays have had runners in scoring position in each of the last two innings, and the Toronto fans are baying for runs.  The Dodgers now turn to Roki Sasaki, who has been their best relief pitcher in the playoffs, to face the top of Toronto's order.  Springer promptly greets him with a single to left.  Nathan Lukes, who is in a horrific slump, flies out to center, and Sasaki walks the dangerous Guerrero, putting Blue Jays on first and second with one out.  But Sasaki gets Bichette to foul out on a pop up, and he gets Varsho on a grounder to second.  Three outs to go.

Still leading 3-1, the Dodgers sent out Sasaki in the hopes that he could get the last three outs -- but he couldn't do it.  Plainly exhausted, he started the inning by hitting Alejandro Kirk.  And then Barger hit a tremendous drive to left.  At first, it looked like a home run, then it looked like it would surely score Myles Straw, who was running for Kirk.  But then the ball wedged itself between the padding on the left field wall and the ground, and just stuck there.  I've never seen that happen before in my life.  It was a ground rule double.  So, Straw was at third, and Barger was at second, with no one out.  The tying runs were on base, and the Series-winning run was coming to the plate.

That was all for Sasaki.  Pretty much out of good pitchers, Dave Roberts turned to Tyler Glasnow, who had been expected to be the Game Seven starter for L.A.  Obviously, without some excellent pitching, the Dodgers were never going to make it to Game Seven.  So Glasnow entered the game.  He quickly retired Clement on a pop up to Freeman.  One pitch.  One out.

The next batter was Andres Gimenez, the number-nine hitter.  But even if he was retired, Springer -- who had already gone 2-4 in this game, was on deck.  Here's what happened:

Glasnow v. Gimenez:

Pitch 1:  Ball high (1-0)

Pitch 2:  Gimenez hits a sinking line drive to left.  At first, the crowd thinks it's a game-tying single, and there's a huge roar from the crowd.  But the ball is hit just a shade too hard, and it's not sinking fast enough.  Kike Hernandez, the Dodger left fielder, is charging, and he makes the catch on the dead run.  Two outs.  But Hernandez isn't finished, because Barger -- who thought the ball would drop in -- has wandered toward third base.  Now Barger is trying desperately to get back to the bag, but Hernandez never stops -- while still running toward second from his position in left, he immediately pulls the ball from his glove and throws to Miguel Rojas, the Dodger second baseman.  Rojas has a foot on the bag, just like a first baseman, while Barger is now flying back toward second in a head first slide, trying to beat the ball.  Rojas fields the ball on a tricky hop, loses his balance, and falls over backward, holding the ball up in his glove to show the second base umpire that he held on.  Barger is kneeling on the bag, helmet off, watching the umpire -- who immediately signals OUT!  The replay shows that Barger's outstretched fingers were about six inches from the bag when the ball bounced into Rojas's glove.  By the tiniest of margins, the ball has beaten Barger, and the GAME IS OVER.  It's a game ending 7-4 double play, and the Series is TIED at three games apiece.

It had been an amazingly close game.  According to the stats gurus, the Dodgers had a 55 percent chance of winning after the ground rule double put runners on second and third with no out.  In other words, at that point both teams had almost equal chances of victory.  Even after the popup, with one out and men on second and third, Toronto still had a 29 percent chance to win.  Instead, they had lost on a spectacular defensive play.  Yamamoto got his second victory of the Series.

This game was one of the best Game Sixes ever played, and it set up the first Game Seven of the World Series in six years.  And that game would be even better.