Will Smith and Max Muncy each hit home runs in the seventh inning, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto went deep as well in the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Blue Jays in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night at Rogers
Centre in Toronto.
The Fall Classic is now tied at one game apiece, making Game 5 necessary and ensuring there will be three games at Dodger Stadium beginning Monday night.
Because the Dodgers swept the NLCS and the long built-in layoff before the World Series, Yamamoto was pitching Saturday on 10 days rest after his complete game in Game 2 of the NLCS in Milwaukee. He followed it up with another in Toronto, the first major league pitcher with consecutive postseason complete games since Curt Schilling had three straight for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2021 NLDS and NLCS.
It didn’t look like Yamamoto would get a chance to go deep again on Saturday, as he needed 23 pitches to get through the first inning. He allowed a booming double and bloop single to open the game, putting runners on the corners with one out.
Toronto’s leadoff hitter reached base in each of the first three innings, which was cashed in once, when George Springer was hit by a pitch in the third inning, advanced to third on a long single off the left field wall — and nearly through it, given how hard it was hit — by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and scored on a sacrifice fly.
That run-scoring fly ball started a string of 20 straight retired by Yamamoto to end the game, including striking out the side in the eighth inning.
Yamamoto struck out eight, walked none, and allowed only four hits. He’s the first Dodgers pitcher with consecutive complete games in the postseason since Orel Hershiser’s final three starts in 1988. Hershiser also had the previous Dodgers complete game in the World Series, closing out the A’s in Oakland in Game 5 that year.
Kevin Gausman had the Dodgers off balance nearly all night, as the focus on his splitter left them “in between” — as Dave Roberts put it during his in-game interview on Fox with Tom Verducci — on the fastball. Freddie Freeman got a few fastballs down the pipe and hit them hard, but to the deepest part of the park in center for two outs in particular.
With two outs in the first inning, Freddie Freeman doubled and Smith singled him home for the game’s first run, but Gausman then retired his next 17 in a row. Smith broke that streak by crushing an up-and-in fastball into the second deck in left field to break a 1-1 tie, and two batters later Muncy went the other way with a fastball, hitting it into the left field bullpen to chase Gausman with two outs in the seventh inning.
Insurance came with two runs in the eighth inning off the Blue Jays bullpen, with singles by Andy Pages (snapping an 0-for-11 skid) and Shohei Ohtani, a walk, a wild pitch that was really a hit by pitch, and a gift by shortstop Andrés Giménez, who tried for a no-chance double play with the bases loaded instead of throwing home.
World Series Game 2 particulars
Home runs: Will Smith (1), Max Muncy (2)
WP — Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-1): 9 IP, 4 hits, 1 run, 8 strikeouts
LP — Kevin Gausman (2-2): 6 2/3 IP, 4 hits, 3 runs, 6 strikeouts
Up next
The Fall Classic heads back to Los Angeles, with off-day workouts set for Sunday evening at Dodger Stadium. Once play resumes in Game 3 on Monday (5 p.m., Fox), Tyler Glasnow will be on the mound for the Dodgers against Max Scherzer for the Blue Jays.
