LOS ANGELES – The game that had it all ended Monday at 11:50 pm PT. For the previous 6 hours and 39 minutes, Game 3 of the World Series had unfolded like a fantasy baseball landscape filled with tension, drama and madness.
It was a game unlike any before, and one that would never be repeated, and when the 18th inning ended, Los Angeles Dodgers won Toronto Blue Jays 6-5In a way, this was a relief because holding your breath for hours on end is not a sustainable lifestyle.
That's the price we pay for an event like Game 3. The Dodgers and Blue Jays competed at an exceptional level in the longest game in World Series history by innings and the second longest by time. They struck and counter-punched, emptied benches and bullpens. They performed miracles and found parts of themselves they didn't even know existed. And in the 18th inning it was Freddie Freemanalready a hero of last year's World Series, bringing a sinker with a center cutout from Brandon Little over the center field fence at 406 feet.
Over the 121-year history of the World Series, 703 games have been played. While there are certainly competitors, this player has entered the upper echelon, undeniably elite, and left the 52,654 fans at Dodger Stadium as giddy as they were nearly seven years ago, when the only 18-inning game in World Series history ended the same way: with a goal that sent the Dodgers off the field.
In Game 3 of the World Series…
609 pitches (LAD: 312, TOR: 297)
There are 37 runners left at the base
25 position players used
19 jugs used pic.twitter.com/MBHReOJ16x— ESPN Analytics (@ESPNInsights) October 28, 2025
There were many stars, and after the madness, one of them stood in the Dodgers clubhouse, still trying to process what had happened. Will KleinThe last man out of the Dodgers bullpen, a pitcher who topped this year in two innings and 36 pitches, tossed four innings of one-hit ball and struck out five on 72 pitches. The last one, an 86 mph curveball, caused a swing and miss from Tyler Heineman and the cry of Klein, who understood what was asked of him and knew that he had completed the task.
Games don't become classics without efforts like Klein's—and he had a fan who wanted to acknowledge that. Entered the Dodgers clubhouse Sandy Koufaxhis outstanding Dodgers pitching specialist, who at 89 looked no worse for wear at 12:48. Koufax walked up to Klein, extended his hand, looked him in the eye and said, “It’s going well.”
It was the kind of game that cements the bond between a Hall of Famer and a man with 22⅔ career major league innings who wasn't on the Dodgers' roster in any of the previous three rounds of the postseason. A game that encouraged Klein to unlock his phone just to see how many messages he had, only for him to scroll… and keep scrolling… and keep scrolling to the point where he just left off. That play that made Klein marvel at a friend at the club: “Seventy-two. Can you believe it?
The third game was anarchy, a mirror image of the ball game, everything was out of whack. Shohei OhtaniHis brilliance is never in question, but seeing a baseball player reach base nine times, something that has only happened twice in major league history – neither since 1942 nor ever in the postseason – is still considered incredible, his greatness dominating the game from start to finish. He started the game for the Dodgers with a double. The next time he scored a goal. He doubled again. He scored again, his second goal of the game, his eighth goal of the postseason, tying the game at 5 and sparking the chaos to come.
At that point, Blue Jays manager John Schneider had seen enough. In the ninth inning, Ohtani became the first hitter to intentionally walk with the bases empty in the ninth inning or later in a postseason game. The next three times he came to the plate (twice with the bases empty), Schneider raised four fingers and happily gave Ohtani a free pass. In the 17th, with a runner on first, the Blue Jays decided to pitch to Ohtani, and Little immediately hit four balls well out of the strike zone. (Schneider said after the game that he would tiptoe around Ohtani more often in the coming days.)
Schneider's decision making earlier in the game, in which he attempted to cover runs while replacing a group of runners, left the Blue Jays' lineup in jeopardy for much of the second half of the game. Against a Dodgers bullpen that was a sieve for much of the postseason, Toronto managed just one run in 13⅓ innings. Los Angeles used 10 pitchers, including Clayton Kershawfuture Hall of Famer. Kershaw came out in the 12th with the bases loaded after getting through a nine-pitch at-bat against Nathan Lux and prompted the dribbler to move to second base, which Tommy Edman scooped up Freeman's glove.
The game, which featured 609 pitches, featured numerous memorable moments, the most in an entire postseason game since MLB began tracking pitches in 1988. Will Smith threw the ball to center field and dropped his bat, thinking he had won the game. The ball died on the warning track. Teoscar Hernandezwho, like Ohtani, had four hits, did the same in the 16th. It also ended up in the glove.
At this point, Klein arrived and began to create a modern Nathan Eovaldiwho threw 97 pitches in the final six innings of the 2018 marathon. In Klein's last inning Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who had thrown a complete game on 105 pitches two days earlier — was warming up in the bullpen. Klein walked two batters. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts could have easily gone to Yamamoto. He stuck to Klein.
Klein simply did it because he had to, and that, as much as anything else, is the lesson of a night like Game 3, when a great game – which was the first dozen or so innings – turns into something completely different. The third game was a test. About endurance and will, or, so to speak, about Will.
“You just have to either do it or not,” the Dodgers reliever said. Justin Wrobleskiwho spent time with Klein in Triple-A this season. “You go out there and say, 'I know what needs to be done here, and let's see what I've got.' I love moments like this because it tests your character. Moreover, it is a test of everything else.”
Klein passed. And Freeman, of course, is the valedictorian of moments like these, one of the clutch kings of his generation. He struggled most of the postseason, entering the game with only one RBI in the Dodgers' previous dozen playoff games. His first two appearances in this World Series were a far cry from his performance the previous year, when, after battling through a series of injuries, he hit a grand slam in Game 1 and became the series MVP. It wasn't just a lack of production. He also didn't hit the ball particularly hard.
In the closing stages of the third game, he finally did it. This happens in 18-inning games. They are uncomfortable and scary and can end with the snap of a bat. It's horrible. It's beautiful. This is all.
Those who were lucky enough to witness it will never forget it. They squirmed, winced, closed their eyes, prayed, squealed and cowered, and in the end they saw 31 hits, 37 runners on base, 19 pitchers and one particularly majestic hit that, 10 minutes before Monday's switch to Tuesday, capped one of the best World Series games ever – and gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.
Klein isn't sure how his arm will feel by the time he returns to the stadium Tuesday for Game 4. Usually, he says, he plays the second day, and the soreness does not appear until the second day after the walk. However, after being showered with praise from his teammates, thanked by Koufax and etched into the annals of Dodgers history, tomorrow and the next day were of little concern.
“I feel great right now,” Klein said, and with good reason.
He was the winning pitcher, the stopper, the MVP of the night as much as Freeman and Ohtani, and the rush of adrenaline drowned out any pain that eventually came. That's for another day. It was everything – and even more.
