How the Los Angeles Dodgers reached their third World Series in six years
USA TODAY Sports' Gabe Luck breaks down how the Dodgers dominated the Brewers en route to another World Series appearance.
Sports Pulse
- Trey Yesavage picked up the win in Game 6 of the ALCS, his sixth career MLB start.
- The 22-year-old right-hander was a first-round pick in the 2024 draft.
- Yesavage is receiving rave reviews from veteran teammates Max Scherzer and Kevin Gausman.
TORONTO – Julio Rodriguez took the fourth ball, dropped his bat, clapped his hands twice and exhorted his teammates. Seattle Mariners dugout. Sure enough, they found themselves in a two-run hole in the third inning of Game 6. American League Championship Seriesbut Cal Raleigh, the likely AL MVP, walked to the plate and the bases were loaded.
The score was about to change with one hit from the man who hit 64 home runs in the playoffs. Just one hanging splitter, misplaced fastball or cement-mixer slider from a 22-year-old rookie who was pitching in AAA a month ago, and the Mariners were on their way to their first trip to the World Series.
Nevertheless, Toronto Blue Jays We were thinking something completely different: Trey Yesavage, with all six major league starts under his belt, is not your average rookie.
“When he has the ball,” Max Scherzer, a 41-year-old future Hall of Fame right-hander, tells USA TODAY Sports, “we all believe in him.”
So Yesavage threw just one MVP split-fingered fastball, and Raley hit a 100 mph straight to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., starting a fundamentally great 3-6-1 double play that ended with Yesavage blindly finding the bag with his right foot.
That ended the threat and began an almost absurd sequence of three double plays in three innings, lifting the Blue Jays to a 6-2 victory that ended the series 3-3 and set the stage for the most pulsating pleasure in sports.
Game 7, World Series winner, loser walks away with a winter of regrets.
At this point, the losers won't be the Blue Jays, who have overcome rambling game 5 defeat to save the season.
Shout out flowers to Guerrero and Addison Barger for their home runs and Barger's three RBIs, and closer Jeff Hoffman for his two near-perfect innings of relief.
But know this: The Blue Jays won their first World Series since 1993 thanks to a guy drafted 20th overall just over a year ago, who started the year in minor A, climbed the ladder to Toronto in September and battled October's biggest demons to earn the trust of a veteran club and, in Game 6, the entire Canadian populace. watching baseball.
But how?
“He has a quiet confidence,” Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman said. “He jokingly said that he used to play in a lot of big games (as a pro) and it's funny that he thinks they were super big games. But he really looked back at those games and how he played them, just with bigger crowds.
“He's not afraid of anyone. He might be a little young and maybe naive, but he'll just go after guys.”
It was the only way to avoid the trouble that befell him in Game 6.
An inning later, after Raleigh's double play, the one-out drama returned as Seattle hit a single to load the bases again. Now let's talk about going right at them: Yesavage walked J.P. Crawford with two quick strikes and the splitter came back, Crawford grounding one to Isaiah Kiner-Falefe, who caught it, threw it to second and was already pointing to the sky before shortstop Andres Jimenez made the turn.
“His splitter is next level,” Scherzer said. “He makes the best hitters in the game look stupid. It's such a big pitch, it gets him out of so many dangerous situations.”
Want another one? Fifth inning, single by Dominic Canzone, strikeout by Leo Rivas on the split, but now the lineup has changed. Yesavage's pitch count reached 70 and his velocity has slowed since his first playoff start against the Yankees (historical) and second in Game 2 against the Mariners (terrible).
Moreover, Rodriguez hit a three-run homer off Yesavage in the second game.
So, what was your mental state at that time, John Schneider?
“Not very good,” says the Blue Jays manager.
Don't worry. Rodriguez swung at a fastball on the first pitch, and this time it was Jimenez's turn to initiate, the 6-4-3 DP maintaining the emotional edge—and momentum—at third base.
That's no small thing in the ALCS, which, from the Blue Jays' point of view, went lose-lose-win-lose-win. For smaller players, the whirlwind may make their heads spin.
After a superb double play in the third inning, the Blue Jays' dugout erupted and a 2-0 lead quickly turned into a 4-0 lead when Ernie Clement's groundout triple topped Barger's two-run laser into the right field seats.
“That's it. It's such a fast-paced game,” said Clement, who had two more hits to give him eight in the series. “You can see it in the last two games: whoever has the momentum rises up and gets things done.
“For (Yesavage), speaking like that in these situations shows poise and maturity.”
He gave them 5 ⅔ innings, gave up two runs, struck out seven, struck out six in a row to set the tone before epically dodging trouble in the middle innings.
And with each escape, the 44,764 fans filling Rogers Center roared, the tension of the night easing with each inning.
Not quite East Carolina, where Yesavage played a year ago. It's not like he was trying to drown out the noise.
“That’s not really how I had to deal with it,” he says. “It was how I could use it to my advantage.”
It's one way of dealing with stress, an ability that has come to his much more experienced teammates since the Blue Jays recalled him in September, hoping to make an October weapon out of a guy who had risen to A, AA and AAA in just a few months.
“That's what you notice right away when you meet him: he's very level-headed, very calm,” Hoffman says. “He's got a great presence and the fact that he's keeping him in those big games is a really good sign, a really cool thing for the Blue Jays going forward.
“You can see the makeup. And he's got what it takes and he's got a great group of guys around him that will help him in any way possible moving forward.”
Yesavage's work is finally complete for the year. Every member of the Blue Jays' pitching staff expects to be available for Game 7 except Yesavage, who can just watch, learn and marvel at this amazing opportunity to win a championship ring before he even spends a month in the big leagues.
At the same time: He is the reason they are still alive.
Guerrero says: “I'm very proud of him: 22 years old, young, hungry, and you can tell he goes out and does everything he can to win the game.”
