Pitching implosion dooms Dodgers in World Series Game 1 loss to Blue Jays

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.

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.

⚾ Blue Jays 11, Dodgers 4 — FINAL

Toronto capitalized on a nine-run sixth inning that included a grand slam home run by Addison Barger and a two-run blast by Alejandro Kirk to blow out the Dodgers in Game 1 of the World Series at Rogers Centre on Friday night.

Daulton Varsho hit a tying two-run home run in the fourth inning for the Blue Jays. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani had a two-run homer in the seventh inning, but it was much too little, too late.

Game 2 of the best-of-seven series will be Saturday at 5 p.m. PDT in Toronto. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will get the start for the Dodgers opposite Kevin Gausman for the Blue Jays.

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Highlights from the Dodgers’ 11-4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 1 of the World Series.

Ninth inning recap

Top of the ninth: Facing Toronto reliever Eric Lauer, Tommy Edman popped out behind home plate and Andy Pages lined out to right field. Shohei Ohtani drew a walk.

Mookie Betts struck out to end the game.

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⚾ Blue Jays 11, Dodgers 4 — Through eighth inning

Top of the eighth: Will Smith grounded out to first base before Chris Bassitt walked Teoscar Hernández. Max Muncy and Kiké Hernández struck out to end the inning.

Bottom of the eighth: Facing Dodgers reliever Will Klein, George Springer flied out to left field. Addison Barger singled into left field. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then flied out to center field. Isiah Kiner-Falefa flied out to left to end the inning.

⚾ Blue Jays 11, Dodgers 4 — Through seventh inning

Top of the seventh: Tommy Edman drew a walk before Braydon Fisher struck out Andy Pages.

Shohei Ohtani then hit a two-run home run to right field to make it 11-4 Toronto.

Fisher struck out Mookie Betts before Freddie Freeman flied out to right field.

Bottom of the seventh: Facing Dodgers reliever Justin Wrobleski, Ernie Clement flied out to center field. Nathan Lukes grounded out to third and Andrés Giménez grounded out to second.

⚾ Blue Jays 11, Dodgers 2 — Through sixth inning

Top of the sixth: Seranthony Domínguez retired the Dodgers in order: Teoscar Hernández struck out, Max Muncy popped out and Kiké Hernández struck out.

Bottom of the sixth: Blake Snell walked Bo Bichette before Alejandro Kirk singled to right field. Snell then hit Daulton Varsho with his 100th pitch of the game, ending his night on the mound.

Snell gave up eight hits, two earned runs, struck out four and walked three.

Dodgers reliever Emmet Sheehan took over and promptly gave up a single to Ernie Clement that scored pinch-runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa to give Toronto a 3-2 lead.

Pinch-hitter Nathan Lukes then battled through a nine-pitch at-bat to draw a bases-loaded walk from Sheehan to score Kirk and give the Blue Jays a 4-2 lead.

Andrés Giménez followed with an RBI single to right to give Toronto a 5-2 lead.

George Springer then hit a grounder to shortstop Mookie Betts, who threw home to force out Clement on the fielder’s choice. That ended the night for Sheehan, with Anthony Banda taking over.

Banda then gave up a grand slam to pinch-hitter Addison Barger to right-center field to make it 9-2 Toronto. It was the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed with a single to center field, Toronto’s 12th hit tonight. Kiner-Falefa flied out to left field for the second out.

Kirk, in his second at-bat of the inning, hit a two-run home run off Banda to center field to make it 11-2 Blue Jays.

The horrendous inning for the Dodgers finally ended when Varsho flied out to left.

⚾ Dodgers 2, Blue Jays 2 — Through fifth inning

Top of the fifth: Facing Blue Jays reliever Mason Fluharty, Shohei Ohtani took a called third strike. Mookie Betts then singled on a grounder to center field.

Freddie Freeman flied out to the warning track in center, ending Fluharty’s stint on the mound in favor of Seranthony Domínguez. Will Smith flied out to right, leaving Betts stranded.

Bottom of the fifth: George Springer led with a single to left field before Davis Schneider grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounded out to second for the third out.

⚾ Dodgers 2, Blue Jays 2 — Through fourth inning

Top of the fourth: Trey Yesavage struck out Kiké Hernández and Tommy Edman before Andy Pages flied out to deep right-center field.

Bottom of the fourth: Alejandro Kirk led with a single off the wall in the right-field corner. Daulton Varsho followed with a two-run home run to straightaway center field to tie the score 2-2. It was the first home run Blake Snell had given up to a left-handed hitter this season.

Ernie Clement flied out to center field and Myles Straw flied out to left-center. Snell struck out Andrés Giménez to end the inning.

⚾ Dodgers 2, Blue Jays 0 — Through third inning

Top of the third: Toronto pitcher Trey Yesavage walked Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman to start the inning.

Will Smith then hit a grounder to right field to score Betts, but Freeman got caught in a rundown between second and third and was tagged out by Ernie Clement. Smith advanced to second on the play.

Teoscar Hernández grounded out to second and Smith advanced to third. Yesavage struck out Max Muncy for the third out.

Bottom of the third: Blake Snell struck out Davis Schneider. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then singled on a grounder to left field. Bo Bichette then grounded into a 3-6-3 double play to end the inning.

⚾ Dodgers 1, Blue Jays 0 — Through second inning

Top of the second: Will Smith led with a walk off Trey Yesavage. Teoscar Hernández grounded to short for a forceout at second base. Max Muncy followed with the Dodgers’ first hit off a liner to left field.

Kiké Hernández then hit a sharp liner to center field, allowing Teoscar Hernández to score and give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Tommy Edman singled on a soft chopper toward third that was impossible for Ernie Clement to quickly field and throw to first, loading the bases with one out.

Yesavage struck out Andy Pages before Shohei Ohtani grounded out to first base to cap the frame.

Bottom of the second: Clement singled on a liner to left. Myles Straw and Andrés Giménez each struck out.

The inning ended when George Springer hit an infield grounder up the middle that Freddie Freeman fielded and threw to Snell, who was covering first. However, Snell wasn’t completely covering the bag, and Springer was able to reach safely. Snell then quickly threw the ball to Max Muncy, who tagged out Clement as he slid into third.

⚾ Dodgers 0, Blue Jays 0 — Through first inning

Top of the first: Facing rookie Toronto pitcher Trey Yesavage, leadoff batter Shohei Ohtani struck out on five pitches. Mookie Betts grounded out to short and Freddie Freeman grounded out to second for a 1-2-3 inning.

Bottom of the first: Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell got George Springer to ground out to short before Davis Schneider popped out to Betts.

Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell, left, speaks with catcher Will Smith on the mound during the first inning of Game 1.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then drew a walk before Bo Bichette singled on a soft grounder to right field, advancing Guerrero to third base. Alejandro Kirk walked on a nine-pitch at-bat to load the bases.

Daulton Varsho flied out to center field to end the 29-pitch inning for Snell.

So far this postseason, whenever Dodgers fans heard “Báilalo Rocky” ring through the loudspeakers, that meant two things were coming — pitcher Roki Sasaki was about to throw some vicious splitters in relief, and a Dodgers win was likely just a few outs away.

Sasaki’s walkout music has taken on a life of its own, in part because of the only-in-L.A. culture clash that has a sensational Japanese pitcher embracing a Latin club hit as he dominates the postseason. It’s helped cement Sasaki’s appeal among the Latino Dodgers faithful, and given the song a huge global boost as the Dodgers prepare for the start of World Series today.

Turns out Shohei Ohtani isn’t the only Dodger who has been making history this postseason. Justin Dean has been breaking records too, only his accomplishments have been decidedly more humble.

Like Ohtani, Dean has played in all 10 of the Dodgers’ playoff games. But unlike Ohtani, he has yet to swing a bat in anger, entering each game as a pinch-runner or defensive replacement.

And that’s the record. Before Dean, no one had ever played 10 games in a single postseason without making a plate appearance. That’s a mark he’ll be able to pad if he’s named to the Dodgers 26-man World Series roster.

Just 90 miles of open ocean separate Andy Pages’ boyhood home in Mantua, Cuba, from the southern tip of the Florida Keys. Yet the short distance between those two points is unbridgeable.

Politics has separated Cuba and the U.S. for most of the last 65 years, the last vestiges of a Cold War policy that has divided families and hurt people on both sides of the Straits of Florida far more than it has punished the Cuban government.

So when the Dodgers open the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, Pages’ parents and his sister likely won’t be sitting in the stands with the other players’ families. They’ll probably be searching for the game on Cuban TV or on a spotty internet link.

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.

Sonoda explained bashfully, “These are my shobu pantsu.”

TORONTO — This is a brutal October for the Angels, and not just because they are defendants before a jury that must determine whether the team is guilty of negligence or ignorance that contributed to the death of one of its players.

On the field, baseball’s longest postseason drought extended to 11 years. They just hired their fourth manager in five years and gave him a one-year contract, which makes him a lame duck before he ever manages a game. Kevin Pillar, who played for the Angels last year, said on “Foul Territory” this week the team is “very, very far behind” in clubhouse facilities and amenities.

“It’s a big selling point to get players,” Pillar said.

In Toronto, the starting pitcher for Game 1 of the World Series Friday against the Dodgers: rookie Trey Yesavage, drafted last year from East Carolina University. The Angels, who have failed in developing pitching and have based their rebuilding strategy on drafting polished college players and rushing them to the major leagues, passed on Yesavage.

Though the Dodgers are forever embedded in baseball history, some parents are making extra certain they also prevail in the future — by naming their children after the Boys in Blue.

“Bout 250 Mexican kids in 10 years gonna have to explain why they named Shohei Rodriguez,” one viral post on X quipped after Shohei Ohtani hit three home runs, pitched six shutout innings and struck out 10 Brewers in the NLCS-clinching game. The prediction may not be so far off: Nameberry, the world’s largest baby naming site, saw a 1,000% increase in searches on the name Shohei just this week.

From Shohei Ohtani to Clayton Kershaw to Freddie Freeman — all have inspired namesakes. And who knows? With the Dodgers on the verge of etching their legacy with a possible third title in six years, this baby boom of sorts may be in its infancy. Here, parents share their kids’ Dodgers-inspired names — and the stories behind them.

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.

It’s Dodgers mania. Los Doyers clinched their spot in the World Series for the second year in a row.

Game 1 kicks off Friday. The first two games facing the Toronto Blue Jays will be away, with the Dodgers returning home for Games 3 and 4. Local restaurants and bars are preparing for back-to-back World Series wins by hauling in extra TVs and adding food and drink specials.

Whether you’re heading to Dodger Stadium and looking for a pre- or post-game destination or just want to be in the thick of Dodger madness, keep reading for 11 places near the stadium that are screening all of the games:

READ THE FULL STORY >

For much of the year, the Dodgers’ starting rotation felt broken.

In large part, because the pitcher acquired to be its anchor was struggling to find himself.

It’s easy to forget now, with Blake Snell in the midst of a historic October performance that has helped lead the Dodgers back to the World Series. But for most of his debut season in Los Angeles, the two-time Cy Young Award winner and $182-million offseason signing was grappling with frustration, enduring what he described recently as “the hardest year of my career.”

First, there was well-documented early adversity: A shoulder problem that Snell quietly pitched through in two underwhelming starts at the beginning of the campaign, before sidelining him on the injured list for the next four months.

Here are the World Series Game 1 lineups for the Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays on Friday night:

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.”

The Dodgers had just vanquished the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that did everything right, with four starting pitchers whose contracts total $1.35 billion.

A smile started to form on the face of Dodgers closer Roki Sasaki as he described his disposition in the bullpen.

“Every time,” Sasaki said, “I’m praying the starter will pitch a complete game.”

No sooner had the Toronto Blue Jays clinched a World Series spot against the Dodgers than the torrent of memes, posts and tweets flowed, all with some version of this one-liner: Finally, Shohei Ohtani is on the plane to Toronto.

On a December day two years ago, as Ohtani navigated free agency: three reports surfaced: there was a private plane flying from Orange County to Toronto (true); Ohtani had decided to sign with the Blue Jays (false); and Ohtani was on a flight to Toronto (false).

When the jet landed, surrounded by reporters and photographers and even a news helicopter, an entire country fell into despair. The gentleman on the plane was not Ohtani.

He was Robert Herjavec, a star on “Shark Tank” and a prominent Canadian businessman with homes in Toronto and Southern California.

You. And you. And you too.

You all ripped the Dodgers for standing fairly pat at the trade deadline, despite glaring holes in left field and in the bullpen. Heck, this was the headline in this very newspaper: “Andrew Friedman struck out on the Dodgers’ urgent need for a closer.”

How ever would the Dodgers return to the World Series?

The San Diego Padres had crept within three games of the Dodgers, and they had given up one of their two elite prospects for Mason Miller. The Philadelphia Phillies, a team that finished with more wins than the Dodgers in the regular season, had swapped prospects for Jhoan Duran.

TORONTO — They did not come charging out of the dugout. They did not mob one another with a dogpile by the mound.

When the Dodgers won the National League pennant last week, their on-field celebration hardly looked any different than normal. What would be a frenzied moment of accomplishment for others, they seemed to treat as almost routine.

“The celebration wasn’t even there,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said, “because everybody is consumed with winning a World Series.”

“That,” he added, “is the only celebration that we want to really have.”

George Springer has become a hero in Toronto, where his five-year tenure with the team culminated in his go-ahead home run in Game 7 of the ALCS this week.

But in Los Angeles, the veteran slugger remains a villain for his role on the 2017 Houston Astros team that beat the Dodgers in that year’s World Series — and was later found to have been stealing signs with their trash-can-banging system that year.

Though Springer was among the more apologetic players from that Astros team after the scandal went public in 2019 — “I regret everything,” he said at the time — he has nonetheless been greeted with vociferous boos in every return trip to Dodger Stadium since.

So what was he expecting for this World Series?

“I just have to focus on the game,” he said, deflecting from the narrative. “At the end of the day, I have a job to do. I have a game to focus on. That’s where I am on that.”

Inevitably, Blue Jays manager John Schneider was asked Thursday about the Blue Jays’ failed pursuit of Shohei Ohtani as a free agent two offseasons ago.

The question elicited a smile — and a joke — from the Toronto manager.

When the Blue Jays met with Ohtani during his free agency, Schneider said, “you felt good about it, and you felt good about the feedback he was giving about our organization and an opportunity here.”

“But you never really know what a player’s feeling in free agency,” he added. “There’s a lot of things that have to line up for them personally, too. You can’t really think about what if.”

Schneider’s one vivid memory of that meeting: When the club gifted Ohtani a Blue Jays hat and a team-branded jacket for his dog, Decoy.

“I hope he brought his hat, the Blue Jays hat that he took from us in our meeting … and the jacket for Decoy,” Schneider said. “Like, give us our stuff back already.”

A couple of hours later, Ohtani said the gifts were in his garage, where they will stay for the time being.

“No, no. I’m going to keep them and take care of them,” he said.

Staff writer Dylan Hernández contributed to this story.

From the outside, the Dodgers know the easy narrative to their season.

About how, after beginning the campaign with the highest expectations imaginable, they spent much of the year failing to live up to the hype.

How, during what was already a dismal second-half slump, they seemed to reach rock bottom when they squandered a no-hitter and three-run lead in a stunning ninth-inning loss in Baltimore last month.

How, in the six weeks since, they’ve looked like a rejuvenated and refocused club, following that nightmarish defeat with a 15-5 finish to the regular season and torrid march through October — going 9-1 en route to a National League pennant and return trip to the World Series, which will begin with Game 1 on Friday night.

Trey Yesavage wasn’t even in majors seven weeks ago. But on Friday he’ll start Game 1 of the World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays becoming, at 22 years and 88 days old, the youngest pitcher to start a World Series opener in 78 years.

Opposing him will be Dodgers left-hander Blake Snell, 32, a two-time Cy Young Award winner who will be pitching in his 16^th postseason game and making his third World Series start.

“Right now in the moment, it’s the most important start of my career,” Snell said. “I have a chance to win a World Series, the ultimate team goal.”

It’s certainly the biggest start of Yesavage’s big-league career, which is just six games old.

“I wake up every single morning and I thank the lord that I’m here in this situation, that he blessed me with this opportunity,” said Yesavage, who began the season in Low A ball in Dunedin, Fla. “It’s something I never even would have dreamed of. But I’m here now and I’m embracing it fully and I’m so happy to be here.”

Yesavage is the youngest pitcher to start a World Series game since the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner in 2010 and the youngest to start the opener since the Dodgers’ Ralph Branca in 1947. The hard-throwing right-hander won his only decision in three regular-season starts, posting a 3.21 ERA in 14 innings, before going 2-1 with a 4.20 ERA in 15 postseason innings, striking out 22.

The last time the Dodgers visited Toronto, the Blue Jays organization was at rock bottom.

The club was barreling toward a last-place finish in the American League East in 2024. Its fan base was disgruntled with a sorely disappointing offseason. And the Rogers Centre crowd was booing Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, who spurned the Blue Jays after they were a finalist in his free agency process to sign in Los Angeles instead.

What a difference a couple years can make.

When the Dodgers return to Toronto this week, it will be for Game 1 of the World Series, beginning on Friday night.

TORONTO — The Dodgers released their roster for the World Series on Friday, and a key piece in the bullpen was missing as expected.

Left-handed reliever Alex Vesia was not on the roster, as he and his wife handle what the club said on Thursday was “a deeply personal family matter.”

The Dodgers open the 2025 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre in Toronto on Friday at 5 p.m. PDT.

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 1 of the World Series:

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

Game 2: Saturday, 5 p.m. at Toronto | Fox, Fox One, Fox Deportes

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