TORONTO — The baseball industry assembled north of the border for the first time since Joe Carter gave a generation of fans their signature moment and the Toronto Blue Jays showed themselves ready to once again be the sun at the centre of the World Series’ orbit.
The American League champions repositioned their roster in an attempt to not only erode the many strengths of the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers, but also to expose their weaknesses. They sent a 22-year-old in his first year of professional baseball to stare down a glitzy array of stars and he held his own, even without his best pitch, to give his team a chance. They wore down a power-armed lefty who has long tormented them and then feasted on those who followed in stunning and relentless fashion. And they did so much to bury the tired David-versus-Goliath narrative lazily foisted upon them that by the end of an 11-4 rout that opened the 121st Fall Classic, it was reasonable enough to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they were really the Goliath.
One game in a best-of-seven is, of course, only one game, and the Blue Jays were the first to caution against everyone getting ahead of themselves. But after a nine-run sixth turned what had been a 2-2 affair into an utter blowout, highlighted by Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam, a first in the World Series, what’s very clear is that the Dodgers are in for their sternest test of the season just as much as the Blue Jays are.
“Our team is kind of a different animal right now. We’re firing on all cylinders,” said Ernie Clement, whose RBI single in the fateful sixth put the Blue Jays up for good. “We know who we’re playing, they’re the best in the world. We think we’re right there with them. You know you’re not going to back down at all, but we know they’re going to be coming tomorrow.”
Kevin Gausman, debuting in the World Series in his 13th season, starts against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Saturday night’s Game 2 (8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+), with the Blue Jays suddenly in position to put the Dodgers in a hole before the series shifts to Los Angeles for Games 3, 4 and, if necessary, 5.
And the way the Blue Jays seized control of the opener revealed many of the key fault lines they want to exploit in this matchup.
Bo Bichette, returning from the PCL sprain in his left knee suffered Sept. 6, started at second base for the first time at the big-league level. But more important to the Blue Jays than where he played was getting his bat back in the lineup to put further pressure on Dodgers pitchers.
Ty France was also added to the roster for an extra righty bat off the bench if needed, moving the Blue Jays to a 14-12 roster split after going 13-13 in the series wins over the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners. Scoring hadn’t been a problem, but they wanted more weapons with which to attack a Dodgers rotation that handled 64.1 of their 92 innings during one-sided series wins over the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers.
That kept their relievers, their main vulnerability, from being overly exposed, which is why Blue Jays manager John Schneider said “you’ve got to really try to wear these guys out and in a seven-game series, try to get into their bullpen. Their starters are really tough. Not that we have to score more than we did, but attacking each series a little bit differently… the overall theme was we’re going to have to scratch across some runs.”
The Dodgers did that initially as Trey Yesavage, struggling to find his splitter, allowed an RBI single to Kiké Hernández in a second inning in which he had to strike out Andy Pages with the bases loaded before getting Shohei Ohtani on a grounder to first, and then an RBI single to Will Smith during a third in which Bichette saved a run by scooping Teoscar Hernandez’s grounder to his right, before relaying to first for the out.
“That’s a huge play because if that ball gets through, it’s 3-0 at the time,” said George Springer of Bichette. “Just shows you who he is as a player. He was asked to do something he had never done before and he did it to the best of his ability, which is why he’s beloved in this locker room.”
Yesavage followed with a clean fourth to run through the lineup twice and then in the fifth, a second key fault line showed up when the Blue Jays used Mason Fluharty, he of the near-impossible Aug. 10 save with the bases loaded and Ohtani and Betts due up, was again assigned the top of the order.
Fluharty neutralized Ohtani on a strikeout and Freddie Freeman on a fly out around a Betts base hit and how well the Blue Jays’ lefties can handle the Dodgers’ lefties is a pivotal matchup to watch. Seranthony Dominguez came on to get Will Smith and then followed with a clean sixth, setting the stage for the offence to break through.
“That’s our pocket,” said Fluharty. “Obviously (Max) Muncy’s down in the lineup there, too, lefties are going to go against the lefties. But that was the game plan. … It’s going to be whole-team contributions to come out on top in this World Series and tonight was a good start.”
The nine-run outburst began in the Blue Jays’ prototypical, death-by-a-thousand-cuts way, as Bichette worked a leadoff walk — getting immediately pinch-run for by Isiah Kiner-Falefa — before Alejandro Kirk singled and Daulton Varsho, whose two-run homer in the fourth tied the game 2-2, was hit to load the bases.
That was it for Blake Snell, who threw eight shutout innings with 10 strikeouts against Milwaukee in his last start, and reliever Emmet Sheehan promptly allowed the game to unravel. Clement’s single up the middle broke the 2-2 tie. Nathan Lukes rallied back from 0-2 count to work a bases-loaded walk. Andres Gimenez ripped a run-scoring single to make it 5-2. After George Springer’s fielder’s choice, Barger came in for Davis Schneider, the Dodgers turned to Anthony Banda and a slider flew 413 feet out to right centre as a crowd of 44,353 nearly blew the Rogers Centre’s lid off.
“I was just trying to put the ball in play, get a run home, hopefully,” said Barger. “It ended up working out better than that.”
The Blue Jays didn’t stop there, either, as Kirk added a two-run homer that made it 11-2 before the inning was over, turning the remaining three innings into mop-up duty.
“That’s kind of the epitome of our offence,” said Clement. “We work some counts, get a couple singles and then Barger comes through with a big hit. So it’s just hammering away until they make a mistake and we can capitalize.”
Added Varsho: “They have a good pitching and starting staff, so I think for us just to be able to grind out at-bats, knowing we needed to pass the baton to the next guy, that’s been our MO all year, and we trusted it.”
In low leverage the rest of the way, the Blue Jays went Braydon Fisher, who allowed a two-run homer to Ohtani in the seventh, Chris Bassitt and Eric Lauer to close out their first World Series win since Carter hit that home run to left field against the Phillies on Oct. 23, 1993, securing the second of back-to-back championships.
A fanbase that waited three decades for a sequel was so exuberant at the end that they chanted “We don’t need you,” before Ohtani, who spurned the Blue Jays’ high-profile courtship of him two winters ago, walked in the ninth. He was left on base when Lauer struck out Betts, dropping the Dodgers to 9-2 in these playoffs with an effort that showcased the best of the Blue Jays in so many different facets.
“I’m not just saying this because of the Dodgers versus us kind of thing, but we really have tried to not even think about what people think about us,” said Bassitt. “It’s just what we think about each other in this room, that’s really it.”
Fair enough, but for a baseball industry that had been so locked into its narratives that it may not have really known about the Blue Jays before arriving on their turf, well, now they know that they’re going to make this a series, and maybe even more, too.
from Sportsnet.ca
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