How will MLB ever top 18-inning World Series Game 3 between Dodgers and Blue Jays?
Los Angeles Dodgers' Freddie Freeman celebrates his walk-off home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the 18th inning in Game 3 of the World Series. Credit: AP
LOS ANGELES -- What can this World Series possibly do for an encore now?
Oh, right. Shohei Ohtani will be on the mound for Tuesday night’s Game 4.
At this point, we’re ready for anything. What else is left?
The Blue Jays and Dodgers played for 18 innings Monday night, swapping leads, outdoing each other with sparkling defensive gems, hammering dramatic home runs, escaping numerous jams, using a combined 19 pitchers overall (who threw a total of 609 pitches).
Until Freddie Freeman — 10 minutes before midnight on the West Coast, at 2:50 a.m. in New York and more than 6 1/2 hours after Tyler Glasnow delivered the opening pitch — finally belted a full-count sinker from Brandon Little 406 feet over the centerfield wall to give the Dodgers a 6-5 walk-off victory.
As Randy Newman’s “I love L.A.” blared over the loudspeakers, the Dodgers flooded the field, the exhaustion replaced by jubilation.
“It's one of the greatest World Series games of all time,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Emotional. I'm spent emotionally. We got a ballgame later tonight, which is crazy.''
“My swings were getting better as the game was going on,” said Freeman, who hit a walk-off grand slam to beat the Yankees in Game 1 of last year’s World Series. “I thought I had a couple hits in, I don't know, 21 innings ago. It just felt like my swing was getting better and better and thankfully, I was able to get one over.
“But I don't think we're physically tired. I think you're just mentally tired because you're in it every pitch, and every pitch means something in the World Series and in the playoffs. So I think we're all emotionally and mentally drained.”
“Probably I’ll be tired tomorrow,” Mookie Betts said. “But it’s the World Series. If you can’t get up for that, then you’ve got to find another job.”
“The bat starts feeling pretty heavy,” said Max Muncy, whose walk-off homer ended the Dodgers’ 18-inning victory over the Red Sox in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series. “I think you saw that on both sides. I can’t even imagine, as pitchers get late in the game, how their arms feel. It’s really tough.”
And then there was Ohtani, who went 4-for-4 with two homers and two doubles, with the second blast tying the score at 5 in the seventh inning.
The Jays waved the white flag after that. They intentionally walked Ohtani his next four times up and then didn’t throw him a strike for a fifth walk in the 17th inning, which probably was the only reason Toronto was able to extend the game as long as it did. There was a sense that the next strike Ohtani saw would end up somewhere in Pasadena.
Ohtani figured to he the headliner of Game 3. This was his first time back at Chavez Ravine since the historic three-homer, 10-strikeout Game 4 clincher against the Brewers in the NLCS, and stunningly, Ohtani picked up right where he left off.
Maybe we should’ve known when Ohtani led off the night with a rocket double down the rightfield line off Max Scherzer, though that ultimately was wasted. The next time up, however, Ohtani didn’t leave anything to chance, launching a 389-foot homer that put the Dodgers ahead 2-0.
The Blue Jays jumped ahead with a four-run fourth inning, including a three-run blast by Alejandro Kirk. That had to shock Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow, who hadn’t given up a homer in the postseason in 26 2/3 innings dating to Muncy’s shot off him (when Glasnow was a Tampa Bay Ray) in the 2020 World Series.
Ohtani doubled off lefty reliever Mason Fluharty — Scherzer didn’t fight to stay in for that matchup — to knock in a run and scored on Freeman’s single to tie it at 4-4. Then in the seventh, with one out and nobody on base, the Jays decided to pitch to him — and learned a hard lesson. Right after pitching coach Pete Walker huddled at the mound with Seranthony Dominguez, the reliever teed up a center-cut fastball that Ohtani deposited 400 feet into the left-centerfield bleachers to tie the score at 5.
The only buzzkill moment of the entire night came with one out in the ninth, score tied, and Ohtani striding to the plate. All he had done to that point was become the first player in World Series history with two homers and two doubles, but the four extra-base hits actually tied Frank Isbell, who did it in 1906 for the White Sox.
Everyone at Dodger Stadium, along with a global TV audience, couldn’t wait to see what Ohtani would do next. Instead, what followed was the biggest no-brainer decision John Schneider will ever make, as he flashed four fingers to give Ohtani first base (it later became the rule, not the exception).
No matter. The Jays took the bat out of his hands, so Ohtani immediately tried to impact the outcome with his feet. Baseball’s first 50-50 player a year ago attempted to steal second, and nearly made it, too, if not for slipping off the base (the call held up after review).
Alas, that storyline was not to be. But this Game 3 was overflowing with brilliant plays at every turn, including some of the most eye-popping defensive wizardry you’ll ever see.
Remember Derek Jeter’s backhand flip for the ages that saved the Yankees in the 2001 ALDS? Well, what Tommy Edman did to cut down the potential go-ahead run at third base in the ninth was right up there as far as degree of difficulty — with even higher stakes.
When Daulton Varsho smoked a hard liner that deflected off the top of a leaping Freeman’s glove, Edman chased the ball down in shallow rightfield, slid to corral it, then popped up to fire a perfect one-hop bullet that cut down Isiah Kiner-Falefa hustling for third. All of it was astonishing — the distance, the accuracy, the agility.
“Pretty unbelievable all-around,” said Clayton Kershaw, who was called on with the bases loaded in the 12th inning and got Nathan Lukes on a grounder for the third out. “Full team effort. Will Smith catching all 18 innings. Just go down the list. But we realize the job’s not done.”
One inning later, Edman helped save the game again, this time with a relay throw that nabbed Davis Schneider trying to score from first on Lukes' double to the wall in rightfield. Not only did Teoscar Hernandez snag the carom perfectly, but Edman’s dime to the plate actually had Smith waiting for Schneider to arrive. He put down the tag, but Schneider hadn't gotten there yet, so he had to do it again.
In any context, these were magnificent baseball plays. But in the late innings, with the game hinging on the result, they provided the pinnacle of October drama. And there were plenty more earlier, too.
Midway through, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was a one-man highlight reel, a superstar in full on the sports’ biggest stage.
The first gem involved his glove in the sixth, when Guerrero alertly leaped off first base to backhand a one-hop throw and delivered a laser across the diamond that cut down Hernandez at third. The next inning, Guerrero sprinted around from first base to give the Jays a 5-4 lead on Bo Bichette’s single that bounced wildly off the retaining wall in rightfield (narrowly avoiding a cameraman and the ball boy).
The cherry on top, however, was the slide. As Guerrero went in feet-first, he nimbly reached around with his right hand, slapping the plate as Smith reached for nothing but air.
Incredibly, that was only a taste of what was to come.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
