The Dodgers and Blue Jays find themselves tied at two games apiece in the World Series, but it feels like a bigger hill for the Dodgers to climb right now than the Blue Jays.
That 18-inning game seemed
to have rendered the whole team lethargic. It should have made the Blue Jays lethargic too, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Toronto ended up scoring six runs, while Dodgers barely mustered two.
Granted, other than Vladimir Guererro Jr’s homer in the third inning, the Blue Jays didn’t pop off until the seventh inning, when Shohei Ohtani was exhausted, and Dave Roberts had no choice but to use Anthony Banda and Blake Treinen who allowed Toronto to score four more runs.
But here’s the thing. Toronto also had to use a lot of their relief pitchers in that marathon game. Also, Shane Bieber had been prone to shorter outings. The Dodgers offense couldn’t get to any of them.
So, here’s where it feels like the Dodgers aren’t going to win this World Series. The offense, aside from bursts from Ohtani and some random solo homers, the offense has been lackluster at best. This offense should be chasing the Biebers of the world from the game, and also should be able to hit a bullpen who’s arms they’ve seen multiple times.
But they’re not. And that in turn puts the pressure back on the pitching staff. The Dodger starters have been fantastic this post season, but it’s kind of unfair to ask them to continue allowing few to no runs, purely because the offense can’t get its head out of its ass.
For Game 5, we’re back to the Game 1 starters – Blake Snell for the Dodgers, and Trey Yesavage for the Blue Jays. Snell took his first loss of the postseason in that game, allowing five earned runs in five innings of work. Yesavage went only four innings, allowing two earned runs.
Snell has stated previously that he thrives under pressure, and while there are conceivably three games left to win two games, tonight is a must win. Toronto will ride the momentum from a win tonight back to Canada, and I fear that would be it for the Dodgers season.
Best case scenario is for the Dodgers to win tonight, taxing more of the Blue Jays pitching, and pray that Yoshinobu Yamamoto can once again dominate.
The silver lining is that if the Dodgers offense can get going, they will be fine. Toronto has scored most of their runs off the bad parts of the bullpen. They just need to avoid that. They CAN do that, the question is if they WILL.
World Series Game 5 info
- Teams: Dodgers vs. Blue Jays
- Best-of-seven series tied, 2-2
- Ballpark: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
- Start time: 5 p.m. PT
- TV: Fox (Joe Davis, John Smotz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Verducci)
- National radio: ESPN Radio (Jon Sciambi, Eduardo Pérez, Jessica Mendoza, Buster Olney)
- Local English radio: AM 570 (Stephen Nelson, Rick Monday)
- Local Spanish radio: KTNQ 1020 AM (Pepe Yñiguez, José Mota, Luis Cruz)
