Copyright yardbarker
The 2025 World Series has already delivered some magical, unforgettable moments that will stand in the record books, and archives of baseball lore for generations. One feat, being the pinch-hit grand slam home run, by Addison Barger, came as the shock and awe moment that nobody, other than Dan Plesac of course, could have foreseen for game one. That had never happened before, so to be certain, there will be a display in Cooperstown, set aside for fans to relive the at bat that blew the game open, in favour of the Blue Jays. Conversely, there was game two, when Yoshinobu Yamamoto surprised no one, by methodically deconstructing Toronto’s pesky and at times, powerful offence. The Dodgers’ ace became the second pitcher in the team’s history, to have a complete game (CG) victory in both the NLCS, and the World Series. The feat brought back memories of Orel Hershiser’s complete games, and incredible streak of scoreless innings back in 1988. That performance fed perfectly into Dodgers manager Dave Roberts’ game plan. The scenario where the bullpen was never called upon, and Yamamoto throwing 105 pitches, 73 of which were strikes, was effectively an upgraded carbon copy of his dissection of the Milwaukee Brewers batting order in game two of the NLCS. The only truly hard hit balls, in his two dominant outings, were from Jackson Chourio, who took Yamamoto deep for a solo blast, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who nuked a line drive that left a divot on the Rogers Centre left field wall. Had the fence been a few feet shorter, Vladdy’s shot would have most definitely gone out, and an entirely different scenario, and stat line, might have played out for Yamamoto. Now that game three of the World Series is upon us, the Blue Jays are tasked with trying to figure out the Dodgers’ number four starter. Granted, the fourth best pitcher on the Los Angeles Dodgers, could theoretically be considered the ace on all but just a small handful of other MLB teams. Game three poses about the best chance that the Blue Jays offence will see, to rally, rack up a high pitch count and ultimately score runs on a Dodgers starting pitcher. Glasnow is really, really good, but so are Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, and Luis Castillo. The Blue Jays offence was able to visibly frustrate each of those starters, by continuously fouling off pitches, taking borderline calls, and not chasing.
