The Toronto Blue Jays are hoping Game 4 of the World Series will end with a victory after the Los Angeles Dodgers won Game 3 in the 18th inning.
Monday’s six-and-a-half hour outing in Los Angeles, Calif., tied the longest World Series game ever recorded – an 18-inning Game 3 at Dodger Stadium seven years ago.
It was an instant classic: extra innings were required to break a 5-5 deadlock that had persisted since the seventh inning.
Canadian Freddie Freeman homered leading off the bottom of the 18th to seal the 6-5 win for the Dodgers and a 2-1 series lead for the defending champions.
“That could go down as one of the greatest games of all time,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Most fans in the crowd of 52,654 who stuck around were on their feet throughout, including 89-year-old Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, and only sat down between innings. At Rogers Centre in Toronto, thousands of fans seated for a watch party stayed until the very end – 2:50 a.m. Tuesday – hoping for a Blue Jays win.
Home runs by Teoscar Hernández in the second inning and Shohei Ohtani in the third got the Dodgers to a 2-0 lead. Toronto rallied with four runs — two unearned because of a Tommy Edman error — to take a 4-2 lead in the fourth.
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Alejandro Kirk hit a three-run home run off Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow and dashed excitedly through the Blue Jays dugout, holding their home run jacket. Andrés Giménez added a sacrifice fly before Glasnow completed a 29-pitch inning.
Los Angeles tied it at four in the fifth. With two outs in the Toronto seventh, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. singled off reliever Blake Treinen and scored from first on Bo Bichette’s sharp single down the right-field line for a 5-4 lead. Ohtani’s second solo homer tied it 5-5 in the seventh.
“What matters the most is we won,” Ohtani said through a translator after the game.
“What matters the most is we flip the page and play the next game. … I want to go to sleep as soon as possible so I can get ready.”
Toronto pitch Shane Bieber will make his first World Series start and fourth of this postseason in Game 4, facing off against Ohtani on the mound.
“The Dodgers didn’t win a World Series today,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.
“They won a game.”
First pitch is set for 8 p.m. Eastern Tuesday.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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