Blue Jays unable to solve Dodgers’ Yamamoto in Game 2 World Series loss

TORONTO — For all the strategizing and planning teams do before games, especially those of October consequence, they have no way to be sure where the highest point of leverage on a given day might be as it unfolds. Maybe it’s a rally in the early innings, or protecting a slim lead late. Or perhaps it’s a tough pocket of hitters in the middle frames, the way it was for the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series opener, when Mason Fluharty and Seranthony Dominguez pinned the Los Angeles Dodgers down until the offence arrived. All teams can really do is play things out.

“Every time you think you can figure out baseball and put it into an equation, baseball has a funny way of shaking that up and making you look at the game in a whole different way,” is how Max Scherzer, slated to start Game 3 of the World Series, put it. “You can’t make baseball into an equation. You’ve got to come every single day ready to play. Anything can happen. The ball can bounce any which way and you’ve got to go out there and make your own luck … feel the moment and rise to it and go out there and make a play, make a pitch for your team. That works more than trying to figure out a way to navigate.”

Scherzer will put that approach into action Monday in a vital swing game in the Fall Classic after the Dodgers broke a tight duel with go-ahead solo shots from Will Smith and Max Muncy off Kevin Gausman in the seventh inning of a 5-1 win that evened the best-of-seven.

Up to that point Gausman had matched Yoshinobu Yamamoto zero for zero and was as much in control as his counterpart on the mound. The two solo shots broke a 1-1 tie, the Dodgers added on against the Blue Jays bullpen in the eighth and Yamamoto cruised to his second straight post-season complete game, an accomplishment nearly unfathomable in this age of Trajekt pitching machines, advanced scouting and high-level game-planning.

No pitcher had gone the distance in consecutive post-season starts since Curt Schilling did in three straight outings for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001, underlining the rarity of his efforts.

“For sure, especially in today’s age with the pitch count, but he’s earned that right,” said Gausman. “I truly believe he went back out there because of what he did the last game. You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due — he’s a really good pitcher.”

Yamamoto — who this season leveraged the repertoire that earned him a $325-million, 12-year contract two off-seasons ago after an uneven debut in 2024 — showed that with a six-pitch mix made up primarily of a fastball that averaged 96.2 m.p.h., a split that disappeared from the zone and a curveball that looked like it was being reeled back at the end of a fishing line.

Add in a delivery that starts with his body moving in opposite directions and not even a fourth time through the lineup was an issue Saturday night, when the Blue Jays got their first in-person look at him.

“He gets on you pretty quick because he throws short-armed,” said Alejandro Kirk, whose sacrifice fly in the third plated the only Blue Jays run. “He did a good job. … But I think we’re going to have better results the next time we face him.”

Gausman, meanwhile, allowed only four hits and three runs while striking out six, but he had no margin for error and now Scherzer’s up against Tyler Glasnow as the series shifts to Los Angeles. Of the 64 times a World Series has been tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner has taken the title in 42 of them.

“We know what we’re capable of doing,” said Nathan Lukes, whose single in the first was one of only four Blue Jays hits. “Just put it behind us and go into Monday.”

The late home runs sucked the wind from another raucous crowd of 44,607 that picked up where Friday’s audience left off by chanting “We don’t need you,” as Shohei Ohtani led off the game. The fervour and engagement of Canadian fans has drawn the attention of commissioner Rob Manfred, who said on the field that “the Blue Jays have done a phenomenal job, not only in the home market but throughout Canada, developing an audience, developing a fan base.”

“The number of viewers that we’ve had in Canada throughout the post-season are really a boost to the game,” he added. “So hats off to (president and CEO) Mark (Shapiro) and (owner) Edward Rogers. They’ve done a great job.”

An even better job was done by Yamamoto, who allowed only one run on four hits while striking out eight, keeping a Blue Jays offence that exploded for 11 runs in the opener, mostly against the bullpen, at bay.

Toronto pitchers had simultaneously kept L.A.’s hitters down, and manager Dave Roberts felt his team needed to get back to “being aggressive early, but then (have) the ability to win pitches as we get deeper in the count. If you look at early-count hitting, they were better (Friday) night, and then as far as with two strikes, winning pitches late, fouling pitches off, they were better. That’s sort of, you know, the tale of the two offences (in Game 1).”

The reverse held true Saturday, as Smith’s homer came on a 3-2 heater meant to be down away but ran back to the inner edge, while Muncy’s blow was on a 2-2 fastball.

Even in the first inning, Freddie Freeman fouled off three pitches before capping an eight-pitch at-bat by ripping a splitter into the right-field corner for a two-out double. Two pitches later, Smith sent a slider up the middle to open the scoring.

“We executed pitches up in the zone, down the zone when we needed to, tried to keep them off balance,” said Gausman. “And, really, two pitches to two really good hitters, that was the difference.”

Yamamoto held that lead in the bottom of the first despite a George Springer double and Lukes single that put men on the corners to open the inning. The right-hander rallied to get Vladimir Guerrero Jr. swinging, Kirk on a soft liner to first and Daulton Varsho looking.

But he wasn’t as fortunate in the third when he hit Springer on the left forearm with a 96.4 m.p.h. fastball to open the inning, Guerrero followed with a laser 113.9 m.p.h. single off the left-field wall and Kirk tied the game with a sacrifice fly to centre.

“(Yamamoto) escaped a pretty hefty inning” in the first, said Lukes. “And then later in the game, he escaped another one. He just made his pitches and did his job. … Obviously our goal is to get that starting pitcher out of there as quick as possible and get to the bullpen. It just didn’t go our way this time.”

The score held there and the leverage kept increasing until the fateful seventh, while the Dodgers bled out another pair of runs in the eighth. They loaded the bases with one out against Louis Varland before Jeff Hoffman came in and uncorked a wild pitch to bring home one run, before a Smith fielder’s choice, on a ball shortstop Andres Gimenez opted to try for a double play on rather than throwing home, made it 5-1.

“We didn’t have the results,” said Kirk, “but I think we fought.”

As did the Dodgers and it’s only going to get harder with both teams now in a race to three more wins and the key tipping points in each game only becoming more and more important.