Blue Jays cruise past Dodgers in Game 5 for chance to win World Series at home Friday

Kershaw, a future Hall of Famer who won a World Series and three Cy Young awards, just said goodbye to the home crowd. He will retire after this year.

The Blue Jays now lead 3-2 and head back to Toronto for a chance to win the World Series in Game 6 on Friday and, if necessary, Game 7 on Saturday. 

At least probably not for more than maybe an inning in a potential Game 7.

Yesavage befuddled the Dodgers tonight, giving up just three hits and three hard-hit balls in his seven innings. He did it less with the splitter that’s supposed to be his calling card than with his slider. He used that pitch 28.5% of the time in his three regular-season starts for the Jays. Tonight, he threw it 43.2% of the time. He got 14 whiffs and six of his 12 strikeouts on the offering.

In all, Yesavage has allowed three runs in his two World Series starts. He’s fanned 17 in 11 innings. The Dodgers surely prefer their chances against Kevin Gausman and Max Scherzer, who combined to give up six runs over 11 innings in Games 2 and 3.

Will Smith, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman will be up hoping to keep Game 5 going with the Dodgers trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the ninth.

After a Max Muncy groundout followed by a Kike Hernandez strikeout, Shohei Ohtani lined out to Toronto first baseman Vladimir Guerrero. They'll have one more chance to overcome the deficit or the series goes 3-2 back to Toronto.

Trey Yesavage didn’t seem to have much left in the seventh. Fortunately for him, Tommy Edman had nothing to start with.

The switch-hitting Edman’s experiment of hitting right-handed against Yesavage was very much a flop. He grounded into a double play on a slider to end the seventh and Yesavage’s night. Edman actually did manage a soft infield single his first time facing Yesavage in Game 1, but he’s gone hitless since. In trying to take away Yesavage’s splitter, he left himself vulnerable to the slider, which Yesavage used for nine of the 14 pitches he threw Edman tonight.

Yesavage escaped the seventh without ever throwing a pitch harder than 93.1 mph. He began the game averaging 94.7 mph with his fastball in the first.

Fans are starting to boo here at Dodger Stadium as the Blue Jays just added their sixth run of the night. Ernie Clement, who singled to open the inning, scored on a single by Isiah Kiner-Falefa.

6-1 Blue Jays in the eighth.

After a weak single by Teoscar Hernández to third base with one out, Tommy Edman grounded into a double play to end the inning. The Dodgers will have only two more innings to put something together offensively.

The City of Stars came out in full force tonight at Dodger Stadium.

Chris Pine, Alex Cooper, Ellen Pompeo, Charlize Theron, Ladd McConkey, Pat Sajak, Anthony Anderson, Chelsea Frei, Jerry Lorenzo, Andy Garcia, Jason Bateman and Leonardo DiCaprio are all among the celebrities to behold the spectacle that is October baseball in Los Angeles.

And then perhaps a called strike three on a borderline 2-2 pitch to Andrés Giménez in the seventh. After giving up two homers to start Game 5, Blake Snell was mostly quite impressive against the Blue Jays, even if was overshadowed by Trey Yesavage’s performance.

Snell left down 3-1 with two on and two out in the seventh — and then was charged with two additional runs because Edgardo Henriquez struggled to get out of the inning — but he allowed just four hits after the homers. All four hits should have singles, but Teoscar Hernández played one of them into a triple, which led to the third run that Snell gave up.

Snell ended up throwing 116 pitches, the third-most of his career. He threw 122 against the Dodgers in August 2021 and 117 versus the Cardinals in September 2022.

Addison Barger, on third base, came home on a wild pitch by Edgardo Henriquez to make it 4-1 in the seventh. Bo Bichette then singled on a line drive to right field to drive in Andrés Giménez.

5-1 Blue Jays in the seventh.

Shohei Ohtani hit a hard liner that was caught in center field on a diving catch, followed by a strikeout by Will Smith and a groundout from Mookie Betts.

Blue Jays remain up 3-1.

Already the second youngest pitcher to strike out 10 batters in a postseason game, 22-year-old Yesavage is now also the youngest pitcher to do in a World Series game, having recorded that many through five innings tonight. He fanned 11 in the ALDS against the Yankees. The only younger pitcher with 10 strikeouts in a postseason game was the Pirates’ John Candelaria, who struck out 14 against the Big Red Machine as a 21-year-old in the 1975 NLCS.

Yesavage, whose velocity in the fifth was down about 1.5 mph from the beginning of the game, is now one strikeout away from matching Don Newcombe’s World Series record for rookies. Newcombe did it for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949.

After Max Muncy grounded out, Enrique Hernández and Alex Call struck out. We head to the sixth with Toronto up two runs.

Trey Yesavage has been terrific in striking out eight over four innings of one-run ball, but if the Dodgers had anything to be optimistic about, his velocity was down a bit in the fourth and he overthrew back-to-back pitches late in the inning, with the first of those hitting Freddie Freeman on a bounce.

Yesavage has typically pitched on five days’ rest as a pro, but this is his second straight start on four days’ rest, which is a first for him. The Jays will certainly want to get him through five innings, but they ought to be proactive in assessing what their 22-year-old rookie has left in the tank.

Freddie Freeman was hit by a pitch and Teoscar Hernández singled with two outs, but Tommy Edman popped out to end the inning.

Daulton Varsho tripled on a line drive to right with no outs. A sacrifice fly from Ernie Clement drove him in for a 3-1 lead in the top of the fourth.

The Dodgers have unequivocally bought into the idea that Kiké Hernández is a different player in the offseason. They stuck with the struggling Michael Conforto as their left fielder against right-handers through the very end of the regular season, but once the calendar turned to October, they banished him from the postseason roster entirely, committing to Hernández as their starting left fielder.

That had produced mixed results so far. Hernández went 11-for-29 with four RBI in his first eight postseason games, but he came into tonight 3-for-23 with two RBIs and a 10/0 K/BB in his last six games. Now he’s back on the board, hitting his first home run this October off Trey Yesavage in the third.

The homer was Hernández’s 16th in 318 career postseason plate appearances. He has a career postseason OPS of .850, compared with .707 in the regular season.

Blake Snell rebounded with a scoreless second against the Dodgers, ending the inning by striking out Addison Barger with the very first fastball he threw since opening the game with three straight. Two of those, of course, resulted in homers.

Snell’s average on those four fastballs has been 96.6 mph, up 1.5 mph from the regular season. His slider is up 1.9 mph, putting it at 90.1 mph on average. There’s no good way to argue that it’s helped so far, but he’s obviously amped up.

After the first inning from hell — two home runs allowed to open the game — Snell got Ernie Clement and Addison Barger to ground out before striking out Andrés Giménez.

2-0 Blue Jays heading to the bottom of the second.

Shohei Ohtani grounded out, Will Smith flew out and Mookie Betts struck out to end the inning.

Including the postseason, Snell had given up a total of four homers in 15 starts this season before giving up two on his first three pitches tonight. He last allowed two homers in a game on April 14, 2024, against the Rays.

It’s the second time ever a postseason game has started with back-to-back homers. It previously happened in the 2002 ALDS, with Ray Durham and Scott Hattegberg going back to back for the A’s.

Davis Schneider homered to left field on the very first pitch of the game, and on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s second pitch, he also went yard.

It was the first time in World Series history that two players have hit back-to-back home runs to open a game.

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Shane Bieber elbowed Shohei Ohtani right out of the spotlight.

Bieber, a former Cy Young Award winner who returned from Tommy John surgery just two months ago, outpitched the celebrated two-way star and struck him out twice in winning his World Series debut.

“Yeah, it was awesome,” Bieber said with a wide smile after pitching Toronto over the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 last night to tie the World Series at two games each.

Dan Patrick and the Danettes discuss how well-liked the Dodgers are across the country as they get set for Game 5 of the World Series against the Blue Jays.

Shohei Ohtani and Vlad Guerrero Jr. have been two of the most dominant hitters this postseason, and their combined slugging abilities have landed them in the history books. After Game 4, both hitters became the third pair to hit at least seven homers in a postseason.

Trey Yesavage rocks back to deliver a pitch and his arm whips down from behind his head as his body tilts to the left, the highest arm slot of any right-handed pitcher this postseason.

“I’m sure some people think that would hurt to go all the way up there,” Toronto’s 22-year-old rookie said. “Everyone thinks it’s unique, which it is.”

Yesavage starts Game 5 of the World Series for the Blue Jays tonight in his fifth postseason outing after just three career regular-season starts. He allowed two runs over four innings in the opener against the Dodgers, lacking the explosive fastball that dominated the New York Yankees for 5 1/3 hitless innings in the AL Division Series.

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