After Dodgers’ disastrous World Series Game 1 loss, doubt has crept in
Ouch, Canada.
The World Series wasn’t supposed to start like this. The Dodgers weren’t supposed to begin their inevitable championship march like this.
Even playing in their raucous Rogers Centre north of the border in the opener Friday, the cute little Toronto Blue Jays were supposed to be a far inferior team, eh?
Uhhhh…
For baseball’s burgeoning dynasty, there suddenly looms disaster. For the dominating Dodgers, this is now a World Serious.
The Blue Jays didn’t just win Game 1, they hammered the Dodgers into a maple-leafy pulp, 11-4, battering their ace and bruising their ego and sending a message.
It was delivered in the ninth inning, when the fans rained a chant down on Shohei Ohtani, who spurned the Blue Jays in his free agent sweepstakes two years ago and whose two-run homer meant nothing Friday night.
“We don’t need you… we don’t need you.”
When the game ended shortly and mercifully thereafter, another unspoken message had been sent.
You know where you can stick your broom…
Truly, the only thing getting swept in this series is the Dodgers’ aura of invincibility, as the Blue Jays did exactly what they needed to do by hitting them precisely where it hurts.
Welcome to the postseason, Dodger bullpen.
Now get lost.
Wearing down ace Blake Snell for 29 pitches in the first inning and 100 pitches by the sixth, the pesky Blue Jays hitter loaded the bases with none out when Snell left the game for the maligned and recently ignored Dodger relievers.
Rather predictably, all Hortons broke loose.
Emmet Sheehan lasted four hitters and allowed three baserunners. Ernie Clement singled in a run, Nathan Lukes walked to force in a run and Andrés Giménez singled in a run, and have you ever heard of any of those guys?
Enter Anthony Banda, and exit an Addison Barger fly ball into the right-field stands for the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history. Add an ensuing single by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a home run from Alejandro Kirk and you pretty much get the picture.
The Dodgers gave up nine runs in the sixth inning, more than twice as many runs as they gave up in the entire four-game National League Championship Series win against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Worse yet, they allowed, for the first time this postseason, some doubt.
Did the seven days off since the NLCS sweep ruin their timing as brief October vacations have done to Dodger teams in the past? After all, this is the fifth time in World Series history a team coming off a sweep played a team that was stretched to seven games, and in the previous four times, the team that was stretched won the series.
The Dodgers will roll out another ace, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in Game 2 Saturday. He pitched a complete game in his last start, so maybe there’s no cause to worry.
Or maybe the Blue Jays just gave them 11 good reasons to worry.
After all, Toronto began the game as a heavy underdog, and for three good reasons, but none of their fears were realized.
They were starting Trey Yesavage, a rookie pitcher who began the season in the Class-A Florida State League pitching for the Dunedin Blue Jays in front of 328 fans against the Jupiter Hammerheads. The 22-year-old was the second-youngest starting pitcher in World Series opener history. He had made just six total major-league starts, and just last week was shelled for five runs in four innings by the Seattle Mariners in the ALCS.
”I don’t want to be out there on the mound thinking too much because for me, I’m at best when I’m just black dead out there and not thinking at all,” he said before the game.
He indeed seemed clueless, but he survived three walks and four hits in four innings by yielding just two runs.
Second, the Jays were starting Bo Bichette at second base even though he had not played the position in six years and never in the major league. The team’s standout shortstop, had also not played anywhere in 47 days since he was sidelined with a sprained knee.
“Yeah, it’s crazy,” said Bichette.
You know what’s crazier? He singled, walked, turned a double play, and made a great stop-and-throw on a grounder before being removed for a pinch-runner in the sixth
Third, the Blue Jays were also starting an outfield trio known only to family and close friends. Kudos to all those who had Myles Straw, Daulton Varsho and Davis Schneider on your bingo card.
Varsho homered. Enough said.
“I think that there’s a lot of firsts for a lot of these guys… I think that players are going to feel certain things that they haven’t felt before,” said Jays manager John Schneider beforehand.
Afterward, that applied to the suddenly shaken Dodgers.
When Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts was asked Friday afternoon about the pressure his team felt, he said, “None. None whatsoever.”
Check that.
