TORONTO— The Dodgers could be baseball’s version of the Death Star.
But in a raucous World Series opener Friday night in Toronto, the Blue Jays found their exhaust and unleashed an implosion of galactic proportions.
In a nine-run sixth inning that rocked the Rogers Center and rattled the previously invincible Dodgers, the Blue Jays broke what had been a tied score and ultimately cruised to an 11-4 victory in Game 1 of the World Series.
They attacked the Dodgers’ one glaring weakness in the bullpen. They executed the kind of game script that the defending champions have long seemed susceptible to.
Now Toronto has a 1-0 lead in this best-of-seven series and has changed the dynamic of this supposed David vs. Goliath clash. Game 2 returns here Saturday night. And suddenly it’s the Dodgers who face an urgent search for answers.
Even though the Dodgers took the lead in Game 1, scoring twice in the first three innings against Blue Jays rookie sensation Trey Yesavage, Toronto was methodically executing the necessary game plan.
They kept Dodgers ace Blake Snell under constant stress, starting with a 29-pitch first inning in which they left the bases loaded but increased his pitch count. They finally broke through in the fourth, when Snell – lacking his usual command of the fastball – left a heater up the middle to Daulton Varsho that the Blue Jays outfielder hit to center for a tying two-run homer.
At the start of the sixth, Snell looked gassed.
He walked his first batter. He followed that by allowing a single. Then he pitched Varsho with a full fastball, loading the bases without recording an out.
This put Dodgers manager Dave Roberts in a position he had never faced before in the postseason. For much of the month, the Dodgers’ dominant rotation had managed to find its way out of similar late-inning situations. And the times they couldn’t, Roberts turned to left-hander Alex Vesia to be his primary firefighter.
That night, however, Snell had nothing left — failing to record a single 1-2-3 inning in what became his shortest start of the postseason, more than five innings that required 100 labored pitches.
Worse, the Dodgers were playing without Vesia — having left him off the roster while he and his wife dealt with what the team described as a “deeply personal family matter,” one that will almost certainly keep him from pitching this series.
So, Roberts had to look elsewhere among a relief corps that had been the team’s weak link all season.
Dodgers reliever Anthony Banda reacts after giving up a grand slam to Toronto’s Addison Barger in the sixth inning of Game 1 of the World Series.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
His first decision went to Emmet Sheehan, the converted starting pitcher who didn’t appear at all during the team’s NL Championship Series sweep. But he was ineffective, giving up an RBI single to Ernie Clement, a walk to Nathan Lukes in what started as an 0-2 count, then another RBI single to Andrés Giménez.
This put the Dodgers in a 5-2 hole. And, after George Springer found himself on a fielder’s choice, Roberts plodded back to the mound.
The skipper’s next move, with the Blue Jays inserting left-handed slugger Addison Barger as a pinch hitter, was to turn to their next best southpaw, Anthony Banda.
Four pitches later, Barger blew up the Dodgers’ reactor core.
Banda threw him an elevated slider to the inside edge of the plate. Barger blasted it to right for the first grand slam in World Series history.
Toronto center Addison Barger celebrates with teammates after hitting a grand slam in the sixth inning of Game 1 of the World Series Friday night.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
A Dodgers team that had allowed a total of five runs in its last five games had suddenly given up seven in a nightmarish inning.
And the torture would only continue from there, with Banda giving up another two-run home run to Alejandro Kirk later in the inning.
By the time the dust had settled, the Blue Jays had sent 12 batters to the plate and had nine come in to score. The steady trust the Dodgers had previously built with their bullpen has been shattered in a way that won’t be easy to repair.
It didn’t even matter that Shohei Ohtani — who, among a series of early Dodgers missed opportunities, squandered perhaps the biggest by leaving the bases loaded in the second inning — finally had a big swing with a two-run homer in the seventh. Or that their offense had entered the Blue Jays bullpen early, pursuing Yesavage after just four innings.
Instead, their fatal flaw had already been revealed. Their most vulnerable weak point, exploited in disastrous ways.
