As the marathon third game of the World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays stretched into the sixth hour, the pitching options for both clubs dwindled. So much so that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told Fox and Sports IllustratedTom Verducci said that if the game went beyond 17 innings, he would have opted to let a position player pitch.
If Roberts was serious, Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto wasn’t about to let that happen. Yamamoto, just two days removed from throwing 105 pitches in a complete-game gem in the Game 2 win, “volunteered” to pitch in Monday night’s marathon game, according to Verducci.
As Verducci tells it, Yamamoto approached Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior and offered his services in relief, even though he had just won back-to-back complete games in his last two outings.
And so Yamamoto, to the shock of baseball fans, was warming up in the bullpen in the top half of the 18th inning, just minutes before first baseman Freddie Freeman hit a home run to lift Los Angeles to victory.
Although he ultimately didn’t need to turn to Yamamoto, Roberts praised the pitcher for his willingness to get into the game after expending so much energy on the mound two days ago.
“…And Yamamoto, with a day off, could potentially take the baseball — he was in the next inning,” Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 6-5 victory. “And so it speaks, guys will do anything to win a championship. And they lay it out.”
But this raises questions.
“He would be gone for as long as we needed him to be,” Roberts said. “He would have been the last guy.”
Yamamoto’s legend continues to grow.
More MLB on Sports Illustrated
