The Dodgers had their biggest inning of the World Series but otherwise couldn’t add on. But thanks to another strong start by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and three starting pitchers out of the bullpen it held up,
barely, in a 3-1 win over the Blue Jays in Game 6 on Saturday in Toronto, knotting the Fall Classic at three games a piece.
“This is what you live for,” manager Dave Roberts said earlier Friday. “You want to be a part of this, you want to be in this moment, this game.”
The toughest test came in the ninth, with Roki Sasaki in his second inning and leaving with the tying runs in scoring position and nobody out. In came Tyler Glasnow, who started Game 3 and would have been in line to start Game 7, to a precarious situation. Glasnow needed only three pitches, first inducing an infield popout then a line drive caught in left field by Kiké Hernández, who fired to Miguel Rojas at second base to double off Addison Barger for the game’s final out.
Only a few stress points hampered Yamamoto on Friday. One of them came in the third inning with a leadoff double by Barger, singled home by George Springer with two outs. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled into the left field corner with two outs in the sixth inning, and Bo Bichette walked, the first free pass issued by Yamamoto in the World Series. Yamamoto followed by striking out Daulton Varsho, his sixth strikeout of the game on his 96th and final pitch.
Those were the Blue Jays’ only chances with runners in scoring position through the first six innings against Yamamoto, who allowed just the one run.
Yamamoto in his last 10 starts has allowed 11 total runs, with a 1.18 ERA and 29.3-percent strikeout rate in 68 2/3 innings, a hell of a finish to a fantastic season. That includes two runs allowed in 15 innings in the World Series, and two wins.
Yamamoto’s 34 2/3 innings innings this postseason are the fourth-most in a single postseason by a Dodgers pitcher, trailing only Orel Hershiser (42 2/3 innings in 1988), Fernando Valenzuela (40 2/3 in 1981), and Jerry Reuss (36 2/3 in 1981).
Kevin Gausman’s first seven batters faced had no chance against him, with 13 swinging strikes (12 on the splitter alone), six strikeouts and a groundout. But Tommy Edman broke through with a third-inning double to right field for the Dodgers’ first hit, then with two outs Shohei Ohtani was intentionally walked for the fifth time in the series.
Will Smith, batting directly behind Ohtani for a second straight game, cashed in Edman with a double down the left field line, his third run-scoring hit off Gausman in the series. Ohtani didn’t score from first on the double, but after Freddie Freeman walked, Mookie Betts lined a single into left field for two more runs.
After scoring only four runs over their previous 29 innings, the Dodgers scoring three runs in the second marked their best inning of the World Series, and just their second inning scoring more than two runs in their last 12 games.
The 3-1 lead for the Dodgers in the third inning was the same in the seventh inning, where the Dodgers were on the other side of basically the same spot as Games 4 and 5, with a very close game and a pitcher with a very good six innings. Only this time the Dodgers were leading, and Yamamoto spent a lot of energy to get through the sixth so, unlike the previous two games, the call to the bullpen was made to begin the seventh inning instead of later in the frame.
First up was Justin Wrobleski, who did not pitch in the five games for which he was active in the NLCS, but put up a scoreless inning while trailing big in Game 1, then got five outs in the sixth and seventh innings of the marathon Game 3. The left-hander got the seventh inning and allowed a two-out double to Ernie Clement but escaped with a strikeout of Andrés Giménez, Wrobleski’s second of the inning.
Sasaki got the top of the lineup in the eighth inning, allowed a squirted single just inside first base by Springer, then walked Guerrero in a one-out battle that featured several close pitches. But Sasaki induced a popout and groundout to escape any damage.
World Series Game 6 particulars
Home runs: none
WP — Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4-1): 6 IP, 5 hits, 1 run, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts
LP — Kevin Gausman (2-3): 6 IP, 3 hits, 3 runs, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts
Sv — Tyler Glasnow (1): 2 up, 3 down
Up next
The 2025 World Series is down to one game for a championship on Saturday night (5:10-ish p.m. PT, Fox) at Rogers Centre in Toronto. Shohei Ohtani will pitch at some point, though Roberts did not want to reveal exactly when on the postgame interview with Ken Rosenthal on Fox.
