Yoshinobu Yamamoto stuns Blue Jays as Dodgers win Game 2 of World Series

TORONTO — Will Smith had no choice but to ease his way into the postseason.

After missing the final three weeks of the regular season with a hairline fracture in his right hand, the Dodgers’ All-Star catcher sat out the National League wild-card series, then came off the bench late in the first two games against the Phillies in the division series.

He’s been making up for that lost time ever since.

Despite spotting his teammates those four starts, Smith’s .314 postseason average is best among Dodgers with at least 10 at-bats. He has 11 hits, the biggest of which came in the seventh inning Saturday when his tiebreaking solo homer sparked the Dodgers to a 5-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays, evening the best-of-seven World Series at a win apiece.

Will Smith stared into left field, then turned to ignite the Dodgers’ dugout with a scream.

Max Muncy stared into left field, then turned to quiet the stands with a finger on his lips.

Two blasts, two reactions, one saved World Series.

Sputtering after making 17 consecutive outs, threatening to ruin more brilliance by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers suddenly erupted with two long balls in about two minutes Saturday, seventh-inning home runs by Smith and Muncy rescuing their game and quite possibly their season in fueling a 5-1 victory over the host Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre to tie the Series at one game apiece.

⚾ Dodgers 5, Blue Jays 1 — FINAL

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw a complete game against Milwaukee in the NLCS, pulls off the same feat in the Dodgers’ win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of the World Series.

Yamamoto gave up four hits, one run, struck out eight and walked no one to pull off back-to-back complete games in the postseason. He is the first Dodgers pitcher to throw consecutive complete games in the postseason since Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Will Smith and Max Muncy hit solo home runs in the seventh to help pull the Dodgers into a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

The next three games of the series will be played at Dodger Stadium, starting Monday, with the series tied 1-1.

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Ninth-inning recap

Top of the ninth: Max Muncy drew a leadoff walk from Toronto reliever Braydon Fisher. Kiké Hernández then popped out to shallow right field, with first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. making an impressive, over-the-shoulder catch.

Tommy Edman flied out to deep right field and Shohei Ohtani flied out to left-center field for the third out.

Bottom of the ninth: Yoshinobu Yamamoto got Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to ground out softly to first base. Alejandro Kirk then lined out sharply to center field. Daulton Varsho popped out to third base to end the game.

⚾ Dodgers 5, Blue Jays 1 — Through eighth inning

Top of the eighth: Andy Pages hit a leadoff single to center off Toronto reliever Louis Varland. Shohei Ohtani followed with a single to right field before Varland walked Mookie Betts to load the bases with no outs.

Reliever Jeff Hoffman replaced Varland and his first pitch to Freddie Freeman was a wild one in the dirt, allowing Pages to score from third base to make it 4-1 Dodgers.

Hoffman then intentionally walked Freeman to reload the bases. Will Smith then hit a grounder to short that forced out Freeman at second, but allowed Ohtani to score, making it 5-1 Dodgers.

Teoscar Hernández then struck out for the fourth time tonight to end the inning with runners on the corners.

Bottom of the eighth: Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out Andrés Giménez, George Springer and Nathan Lukes to send the game into the ninth inning.

⚾ Dodgers 3, Blue Jays 1 — Through seventh inning

Top of the seventh: After Freddie Freeman flied out to center field, Will Smith hit a 404-foot solo home run to left field to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.

It was the Dodgers’ first hit since the first inning.

Kevin Gausman struck out Teoscar Hernández for the third time tonight.

Max Muncy then followed with a solo home run to left field to give the Dodgers a 3-1 lead.

Muncy’s second home run of the postseason ended Gausman’s night on the mound. He had retired 17 Dodgers batters in a row before the Smith home run. He gave up four hits, three runs, struck out six and issued no walks over 6⅔ innings and 82 pitches.

On the first pitch he saw from reliever Louis Varland, Kiké Hernández flied out to shallow right field.

Bottom of the seventh: Ernie Clement grounded out to third and Addison Barger grounded out to first. Pinch-hitter Bo Bichette grounded out to short to make it another 1-2-3 inning for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who has thrown only 79 pitches.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 1 — Through sixth inning

Top of the sixth: Andy Pages lined out to right before Shohei Ohtani popped out in foul territory behind third base for the second straight at-bat.

Mookie Betts then flied out to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in foul territory off first base to make it 16 straight retired batters for Kevin Gausman.

Bottom of the sixth: It was another 1-2-3 inning for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is at 71 pitches. Guerrero grounded out, Alejandro Kirk struck out and Daulton Varsho popped out.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 1 — Fifth inning

Top of the fifth: Kevin Gausman struck out Max Muncy and Kike Hernandez before Tommy Edman flied out to deep right field.

Bottom of the fifth: Andrés Giménez lined out to left field before George Springer and Nathan Lukes each grounded out.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto has given four up hits and one run while striking out four, with no walks. Gausman has given up just two hits and one run, with five strikeouts and no walks.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 1 — Through fourth inning

Top of the fourth: Freddie Freeman and Will Smith each flied out and Kevin Gausman struck out Teoscar Hernández for the second time tonight. Gausman has retired 10 straight Dodgers batters.

Bottom of the fourth: Ernie Clement grounded out, Addison Barger flied out and Isiah Kiner-Falefa grounded out.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 1 — Third inning

Top of the third: Andy Pages grounded out to second and Shohei Ohtani popped out in foul territory behind third base. Mookie Betts grounded out to short for a 1-2-3 inning.

Bottom of the third: Yoshinobu Yamamoto hit leadoff batter George Springer with a pitch. He then struck out Nathan Lukes. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed with a liner off the left-field wall to put runners on the corners.

Alejandro Kirk then hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Springer to tie the score 1-1.

Daulton Varsho grounded out to first to end the inning.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 0 — Through second inning

Top of the second: Max Muncy flied out to left and Kiké Hernández popped out to second base. Kevin Gausman struck out Tommy Edman to cap the frame.

Bottom of the second: Ernie Clement singled on a pop fly just in front of home plate that Freddie Freeman failed to catch after misjudging where it would fall.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman reaches back but can’t make the catch on a pop-up single by Toronto’s Ernie Clement in the second inning.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The mistake wouldn’t cost the Dodgers. Yoshinobu Yamamoto responded by striking out Addison Barger before getting Isiah Kiner-Falefa to fly out to center. Andrés Giménez grounded out to short to end the inning.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 0 — Through first inning

Top of the first: Facing Toronto pitcher Kevin Gausman, Shohei Ohtani flied out to the warning track in the left-field corner to start the game.

Mookie Betts then popped out to the right-field corner. Freddie Freeman followed with a hook into the right-field corner for a standup double.

Will Smith singled to center field to drive in Freeman from second base and give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Gausman struck out Teoscar Hernández for the third out.

Bottom of the first: George Springer hit a leadoff double to left field off Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Nathan Lukes then followed with a flare to shallow left, putting runners on the corners.

Yamamoto struck out Vladimir Guerrero Jr. before Alejandro Kirk lined out to Freeman at first. Yamamoto then caught Daulton Varsho looking with a perfectly placed curveball to get out of the jam.

Andy Pages is entering Game 2 with an .077 batting average in these playoffs, and coming off a 0-for-four performance in Game 1 in which he struck out twice — including once with the bases loaded and only one out.

However, manager Dave Roberts is keeping Pages in the lineup for now, slotting him in ninth once again for Game 2 of the Fall Classic.

While Roberts said he has “contemplated” taking Pages out of the lineup — the Dodgers could replace him with a more contact-minded hitter like Alex Call — he hasn’t made such a move yet, in part because of the defense Pages provides in center.

“He’s playing very sound defense,” Roberts said, “which is a big part of why he’s in there.”

One other limitation that has kept Pages in the lineup: The Dodgers’ inability to play second baseman Tommy Edman in the outfield as they did last postseason, as he continues to nurse a lingering ankle problem.

“To not have the ability to kick him out to the outfield has certainly minimized some of that versatility, absolutely,” Roberts said.

Still, Roberts conceded that the Dodgers “need to see some kind of uptick in consistency of performance” from the second-year outfielder, who hit 27 home runs in the regular season but has just one extra-base hit this October.

And more generally, Roberts wants to see improved at-bat quality in situational opportunities from his entire offense, with the team batting just .227 with runners in scoring position so far in the playoffs — and having failed to score more than five runs in a game since the wild-card round.

“My hope is that once we create stress, then we can sort of finish off innings,” Roberts said. “I think we’re doing a good job of getting there, but we got to do a better job of finishing, which I think that we’re certainly capable of doing.”

TORONTO — One game, and everything changed.

One game in which he struck out 10 batters and smashed three homers, and the atmosphere was entirely different.

There was nothing unusual about the scene at World Series media day Thursday from the wall of people in front of Shohei Ohtani to the microphones dangled over his head by television reporters stuck in the back of the herd.

Here’s what had changed in the last week: Ohtani wasn’t fielding any more inquiries about how pitching could negatively affect his hitting.

There was probably no Dodgers fan more grateful to see the Blue Crew lose badly in the opening game of the World Series than Conrado Contreras. See, the 75-year-old was happy to enjoy any Fall Classic at all.

A year ago tomorrow, the Zacatecas native suffered a heart attack and mild stroke in the moments after seeing his Dodgers win Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Yankees. He spent three days in a medically induced coma at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and regained consciousness to news from jubilant nurses that the Dodgers had won the championship.

The lifelong baseball fan had no idea what they were talking about. His passion for the sport was lost along with his memory.

TORONTO — Yes, blame the bullpen. Not gonna even try to persuade you otherwise.

But, for the Dodgers, the blame for the disaster that was Game 1 of the World Series should not all fall upon the bullpen.

A star-studded lineup that sputtered through the previous two rounds of the playoffs sputtered again here Friday, this time without the cover of outstanding starting pitching.

TORONTO — The Dodgers played 162 games in 193 days during the regular season. Then they played 10 more times in 18 days in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

It was a grind that gave way to a routine as comfortable as an old shoe.

That routine was upended when the Dodgers swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, giving them a week off before the start of the World Series, the team’s longest break since February. And the Dodgers looked anything but rested and refreshed in Friday’s 11-4 shellacking by the Toronto Blue Jays, which left them trailing a postseason series for the first time since last fall’s NLDS.

Game 1 of the World Series didn’t go as planned for the Dodgers, but plenty of Dodgers fans got to experience the game in an immersive setting at Cosm Los Angeles.

Here’s what it’s like to experience a sporting event at Cosm:

VIDEO | 01:26

What it’s like to experience a World Series game at Cosm Los Angeles

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Here’s an inside look at what it’s like to experience a World Series game at Cosm Los Angeles.

TORONTO — Dominant.

Historic.

Possibly the greatest ever.

The words used to characterize the Dodgers’ starting rotation this postseason obscured what could be the most important adjective to describe the group: indispensable.

Elite starting pitching isn’t a luxury for these Dodgers. Elite starting pitching is an absolute necessity.

If this World Series is going to turn into a food fight about the economics of baseball, Dave Roberts tossed the first meatball.

The Dodgers had just been presented with the National League Championship trophy. Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager, had something to say to a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium, and to an audience watching on national television.

“They said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,” Roberts hollered. “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball.”

Will Smith homered in the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas connected for a tying drive in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in Game 7 to become the first team in a quarter century to win consecutive World Series titles.

Los Angeles overcame 3-0 and 4-2 deficits and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.

Smith hit a 2-0 slider off Shane Bieber into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Dodgers Freddie Freeman, right, congratulates Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith after Smith’s solo home run in the 11th inning during Game 7 of the World Series.

From the hot tub in the Dodger Stadium clubhouse, Yoshinobu Yamamoto saw his interpreter on his way to take a shower.

Yamamoto called out to him.

“What are those colors?” Yamamoto asked him.

Yoshihiro Sonoda, 48, wore only a pair of boxers that depicted a rabbit with rainbow-colored lasers shooting out of its eyes.

Ouch, Canada.

The World Series wasn’t supposed to start like this. The Dodgers weren’t supposed to begin their inevitable championship march like this.

Even playing in their raucous Rogers Centre north of the border in the opener Friday, the cute little Toronto Blue Jays were supposed to be a far inferior team, eh?

Uhhhh…

For baseball’s burgeoning dynasty, there suddenly looms disaster. For the dominating Dodgers, this is now a World Serious.

TORONTO — The Dodgers might be baseball’s version of an all-powerful Death Star.

But as the raucous World Series opener in Toronto showed, they too were built with a fatally exploitable weakness.

Behind a nine-run sixth inning that left Rogers Centre rocking and the previously invincible Dodgers rattled, the Blue Jays smashed open what had been a tied score in Game 1 of the World Series and rolled to an eventual 11-4 win on Friday.

They attacked the Dodgers’ one glaring weakness in the bullpen. They executed the kind of game script to which the defending champions have long seemed susceptible. And they watched in delight as their visitors were blown to bits, suffering an implosion of galactic proportions in what was the third-highest scoring inning in Fall Classic history.

Here are the lineups for the Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays for Game 2 of the 2025 World Series at Rogers Centre at 5 p.m. PDT:

The Dodgers face the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of the 2025 World Series at Rogers Centre in Toronto on Saturday at 5 p.m. PDT. The Dodgers trail 1-0 in the best-of-seven series.

The game will be televised on Fox, Fox One and Fox Deportes. Radio broadcasts in the Los Angeles area will be on 570 AM and 1020 AM (Español).

Here are the latest betting odds for Game 2 of the World Series:

Here’s the TV schedule for the rest of the series (all times Pacific):

Game 3: Monday, 5 p.m. at Dodger Stadium | Fox, Fox One, Fox Deportes

Game 4: Tuesday, 5 p.m. at Dodger Stadium | Fox, Fox One, Fox Deportes

*Game 5: Wednesday, 5 p.m. at Dodger Stadium | Fox, Fox One, Fox Deportes

*Game 6: Oct. 31, 5 p.m. at Toronto | Fox, Fox One, Fox Deportes

*Game 7: Nov. 1, 5 p.m. at Toronto | Fox, Fox One, Fox Deportes

* if necessary