In a World Series for the ages that went back and forth again and again, Will Smith yesterday morning delivered the biggest swing of all for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Smith connected in the 11th for the first extra-inning homer in a winner-take-all title game, while Miguel Rojas became the first player to hit a tying home run in the ninth inning of a Game 7. On a roller-coaster night of see-sawing emotions, the Dodgers outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 to become the first repeat champion in a quarter century.
“You dream of those moments,” Smith said after the 4-hour, 7-minute thriller. “I’ll remember that for forever.”
Photo: AP
In the type of dramatic Game 7 that kids conjure in backyards, the Blue Jays led 3-0 on Bo Bichette’s third-inning homer off Shohei Ohtani and 4-2 before Max Muncy’s eighth-inning solo homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage.
Toronto was two outs from its first championship since 1993 when Rojas, inserted into the slumping Dodgers lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman and stunned the Rogers Centre crowd of 44,713.
“I’ve cost everybody in here a World Series ring,” Hoffman said.
Photo: AP
Rojas had not homered since Sept. 19.
“I had a conversation with my wife,” he said. “She told me something big was waiting for me.”
World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half, and Toronto reliever Seranthony Dominguez stranded three Dodgers runners in the 10th.
Photo: AP
Smith, who hit a go-ahead homer in Game 2, sent a 2-0 pitch from Shane Bieber into Toronto’s bullpen in left field, where it bounced into the seats and gave the Dodgers their first lead of the night. Running between first and second, Smith raised his arms in triumph.
“He hung a slider,” Smith said. “I banged it.”
Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner, was making his first relief appearance since 2019.
Photo: Reuters
“He was looking for it and I didn’t execute,” he said.
Of course, there had to be even more drama in just the sixth winner-take-all World Series game to go extra innings. It matched the Seattle Marlins’ 3-2 win over the then-Cleveland Indians in 1997 as the second-longest Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3, 12-inning victory against the New York Giants in 1924.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr doubled leading off the bottom of the 11th and was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk hit a broken-bat grounder to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-6-3 double play. It was only the second double play to end a World Series, after the Yankees turned one in 1947 against the Dodgers.
“I thought we had chances to sweep them,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “Going back to the beginning of the series when people were calling it David vs Goliath, it’s not even close.”
Smith set a Series record by catching 73 innings. Betts earned his fourth title in the finale of baseball’s 150th major league season, the first that began and ended outside the US.
In the Dodgers bullpen for the last game of his decorated 18-year career, Clayton Kershaw lost track of the outs.
“When he hit the double play, I thought the run scored and it was tied,” he said. “I thought I had the next batter.”
Yamamoto’s arms were so tired, he needed help lifting the World Series MVP trophy.
He capped one of the best pitching performances in World Series history with 2-2/3 scoreless innings to end the clincher, a day after throwing 96 pitches in their Game 6 win. He also pitched a four-hitter in Game 2.
“It’s pretty crazy,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Yamamoto’s heavy workload. “I’m kind of crazy for sending him back out there, but I just felt he was the best option.”
“Yamamoto is the GOAT,” Roberts shouted moments before the Dodgers hoisted the World Series trophy.
Yamamoto is the fourth pitcher to win Games 6 and 7 of the same World Series, matching Randy Johnson in 2001, Harry Brecheen in 1946 and Ray Kremer in 1925. He and Johnson are the only pitchers since 1969 to win three games in one World Series.
Yamamoto’s Game 7 cap is being sent to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
“He’s one of the best arms in the game,” Barger said. “He did a great job. Kind of freaky that he came in and pitched today after yesterday. I don’t know what they’re doing over there, how he did that without his arm falling off.”
Blue Jays slugger George Springer said Yamamoto’s deep arsenal of pitches is a key part of what makes him so tough.
“He’s elite,” Springer said. “There’s no other way to describe it. He’s elite. He can control six or seven different types of spin and obviously that split is hard to hit.”
Wilyer Abreu watched the ball leave the park and tossed his bat high in the air. His Venezuela teammates streamed out of the dugout in celebration. The comeback was on and the win over the reigning World Baseball Classic (WBC) champion Japan was within reach. Japan, their 11-game WBC winning streak on the line, held a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning of Saturday’s thrilling quarter-final matchup when Abreu put his team ahead with the biggest swing of the game: a three-run shot off Hiromi Itoh that sent the loanDepot Park crowd into a passionate roar and helped seize Venezuela’s 8-5
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