The Dodgers, it turns out, chose the perfect costume in which to parade on this scariest of Halloween nights.
They came dressed as the Dodgers.
The Yoshinobu-Yamamoto-firing Dodgers. The Mookie-Betts-blasting Dodgers. The energetic-and-inspired Dodgers.
The listless team of the previous two games was gone. The passionate team of the previous month was back.
Earlier this week fans were asking, who are those guys? On Friday they emphatically answered that question by finally, forcefully, being themselves.
Faced with elimination in Game 6 of the World Series, the Dodgers rose from the presumed dead to haunt the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre with a 3-1 victory to knot the duel at three games apiece.
And they did with the most unlikely of saves, a game-ending double play on a lineout that Kiké Hernández caught in left field and, while sprinting toward the infield, threw to Miguel Rojas at second base, where he made a scooped catch to double up Addison Barger.
The Blue Jays began the inning with runners on second and third and none out. They ended it watching the Dodgers celebrate around Rojas on second base, their golden opportunity to clinch their first title in more than three decades having disappeared under a welcome wave of Dodger savvy.
How on earth does Toronto come back from something like that?
“Wild way to finish it, for sure… baseball happens sometimes,” said Toronto Manager John Schneider.
How on earth can the Dodgers not gain insurmountable momentum from something like that?
“I feel great,” said Dodger Manager Dave Roberts. “I feel great.”
The Dodgers’ quest to become the first team in 25 years to win consecutive World Series championships lives.
Game 7, Saturday night in Toronto, awaits.
And Shohei Ohtani Pitching Somewhere is up.
“We’re going to leave it out there,” said Roberts. “I don’t think that the pressure, the moment’s going to be too big for us. We got to go out there and win one baseball game. We’ve done that all year. Everyone’s bought in.”
The stage is indeed set for all sorts of dramatics after a night when the Dodgers took an early three-run lead on the back of slump-busting Betts and then cruised to victory on the back of another brilliant pitching performance by Yamamoto and a surprising three-inning shutdown from the Dodger bullpen.
It didn’t end smoothly, but it ended splendidly, after reliever Roki Sasaki began the ninth by hitting Alejandro Kirk in the hand with a two-strike pitch, then Barger hit a ball to center field that lodged under the outfield padding for a ground-rule double.
With runners on second and third and no out, Tyler Glasnow made an emergency appearance and recorded that memorable save, retiring Ernie Clement on a first pitch popout and ending the game by inducing Andrés Giménez into a lineout that Hernandez perfectly threw to Rojas.
“He’s one of the headiest baseball players I’ve ever been around,” said Roberts of Hernández. “And even just getting off on the ball, the awareness to get to his arm, get the ball into second base. He’s just a heck of a baseball player.”
The Dodgers have been here before. It was just last year, in fact, when they needed consecutive wins against the San Diego Padres in the division series to save their season.
They calmly won both and rolled to a championship. A similar path could end in a similar destination this weekend after the Dodgers rebounded from two lifeless losses at Dodger Stadium to weather the loud Game 6 storm with calm and cohesion.
“Yeah, I mean, we all know that everything has to go perfect for us to be able to pull this off,” said Teoscar Hernández before the game.
So far, so good, beginning Friday with the much-maligned Betts, who was the biggest villain of the Dodgers hitting drought with a .130 World Series average while stranding 25 consecutive baserunners. He had been dropped to third in the batting order in Game 5, and then dropped again to fourth for Game 6, and it finally worked, as he knocked a two-strike fastball into left field to drive in two runs and give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead.
“He’s one of our guys,” said Roberts of Betts. “I’m going to, as they say, ride or die with him.”
Next up, Yamamoto, who followed consecutive complete games by giving up one run on five hits in six innings.
“We can’t afford to lose,” said Yamamoto through an interpreter.
Enter the bullpen, which had given up nine runs in the Dodgers three losses in this series. But Glasnow, Sasaki and Justin Wrobleski combined to pitch three scoreless innings, and when that happens, anything can happen.
“I’m excited, it’s going to be fun,” said Will Smith, who doubled in the Dodgers’ first run. “We work all year long to be in this situation to win a ball game and win a World Series. So it should be a fun one tomorrow.”
That fun actually began a day earlier when Roberts did his best Tommy Lasorda imitation by literally leaving it all on the field during Thursday’s day off. He challenged speedster Hyeseong Kim to a race around the bases, and gave himself a generous head start, but as Kim was passing him up around second base, Roberts tripped and fell flat on his face.
The moment was caught on a video that quickly spread over social media and actually led the FOX broadcast before Friday’s game.
Roberts looked silly. But Roberts also looked brilliant, as his pratfall injected some necessary lightness into the darkening team mood.
He lost, but he won.
“Of course it makes you smile and it makes you have a good time,” said Rojas. “When the head of the group is…loose like that, and he’s willing to do anything, that’s what it tells everybody, that he will do anything for the team.”
Now it’s down to one game, and one team that will once again do anything for each other.
The Dodgers are back. Advantage Dodgers.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: latimes.com
