Game 7 of the World Series: How the Dodgers should attack Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

For the first time since 2019, there will be a Game 7 in the World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 6 Friday night (LA 3, TOR 1) thanks in part to Addison Barger game ending baserun error. Bets on Mookie provided the long-awaited great success and Yoshinobu Yamamoto was great once again.

“We’re just going to let it go,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Game 7. “I don’t think the pressure, the moment will be too much for us. We’ve got to go out there and win a baseball game. We’ve done it all year. Everybody has bought in. So I don’t know how the game is going to go, but as far as the moment, winning a game, I couldn’t be more excited to go to sleep and wake up to play a baseball game tomorrow.”

To clinch their second straight World Series title, the Dodgers will need to contain Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in Game 7. Guerrero is having a great all-time postseason, slashing .412/.506/.824 with eight home runs. Relatively speaking, the Dodgers kept him under control. Guerrero “only” hit .360/.500/.640 in the World Series. He’s a man on a mission right now.

How can the Dodgers hold off Guerrero in Game 7? Here are three ways to limit its potential impact in the final game of the 2025 baseball season.

Keep the bases empty

Lineup protection comes from hitters in front of you, not behind you. The best protection is hitting with men on base, when the pitcher has less margin for error and often throws from the stretch rather than the full windup. League-wide, hitters had a .740 OPS with men on base during the regular season, compared to a .703 OPS with the bases empty. That’s a big difference.

In the relatively small playoff sample, Guerrero has been a bit better with empty bases (1.361 OPS) than with men on base (1.285 OPS), although he has been ridiculous in every situation. Keeping runners in front of him off base is more about limiting the damage Guerrero can do than putting him in a situation where his performance is slightly worse.

The Dodgers did a very good job in the World Series. Guerrero has 21 plate appearances with the bases empty and 11 with men on base. This should continue in Game 4. Keep No. 9 hitter Andrés Giménez, No. 1 hitter George Springer and No. 2 hitter Nathan Lukes off base, and that will limit the damage Vlad Jr. can do in any given at-bat.

Hard stuff, go

Guerrero is a no-hole hitter. He has his father’s uncanny ability to put the big part of the bat on the ball with power, and he’s very disciplined to boot. After 17 games in the postseason, Guerrero still has more home runs (eight) than strikeouts (six), and it sometimes feels impossible to get by. The best the pitcher could hope for was a walk.

When Guerrero expanded the zone and chased those playoffs, it was all about breaking balls and getting them off the plate (the most common chasing pitch in the game). He was also unable to do much with elevated fastballs. So that’s the Dodgers’ plan in Game 7: try hard and spin. Here are two Vlad Jr. playoff heat maps:

Raising fastballs is easier said than done. Miss and it’s an easy catch, miss and you might as well put it on a tee. The Dodgers do, however, have pitchers who thrive with elevated heaters, namely Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell. We know we’ll see Ohtani and Glasnow in Game 7. We can’t rule out Snell either. After all, it’s all hands on deck.

There is no “right” way to present Guerrero. He’s so good and he’s so quick to make adjustments that if you give him two high fastballs in one at-bat, he’ll hammer the third. This is exactly what has worked so far in the playoffs. Guerrero hasn’t made good contact against fastballs in the zone and on the rare occasions he chases out of the zone, he’s taken issue with breaking balls.

When in doubt, put it

This has been a very intentional and joyful World Series. Both teams have issued 11 intentional walks in the six games (five against Ohtani plus six batters with one each, including Guerrero), which matches the number of intentional walks in the 2021 World Series at 24 combined, and is the most in a single World Series since 2011 (12, including five to Albert Pujols). That’s a lot of free passes.

The math doesn’t support intentional walks — analytically, offering a free baserunner is almost always a bad idea — but it can certainly seem like the right decision in the moment. With the way Guerrero is swinging the bat right now (lock and all), if the Dodgers have an open base, yes, putting him on intentionally isn’t the worst outcome, especially in a close game.

To be clear, I’m not saying to hold up four fingers every time Guerrero is at the plate. Just that, if the Blue Jays have runners on and threaten to put a crooked number on the board, taking the bat out of the hands of the best hitter on the planet is a defensible decision, even with Bo Bichette having been so good at cleaning up behind him. It’s a classic “don’t let him beat you” situation.