LA Dodgers hold on in Toronto to force winner-take-all Game 7 in World Series | World Series

Los Angeles Dodgers stayed alive Friday night, getting to Toronto Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman for three runs in the third inning to win 3-1 and even the World Series three games apiece. On Saturday, baseball fans around the world will be treated to a winner-take-all seventh game as the Dodgers look to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since 2000. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays will try to play spoiler and end the upset to win their first World Series since 1993.

After the Dodgers offense struggled in the first four games of the series, cutting only .201/.296/.354 As a team, manager Dave Roberts shuffled his lineup ahead of Game Five. But it failed because the Dodgers managed only four hits and one run against Blue Jays rookie Trey Yesavage and his bullpen. Before Game 6, however, Roberts made a couple more minor changes, inserting steely veteran Miguel Rojas into the lineup at second base and batting the ninth while moving Tommy Edman to center field to hit the eighth, hoping to squeeze more out of the bottom half of his lineup. “I just felt like at the end of the day, having both of those guys there, that's how we had to build it, and I'm really happy with that,” Roberts said before the game.

Gausman, the Blue Jays' 34-year-old ace, began the contest by retiring the first seven batters he faced, challenging hitters with his fastball and making four straight strikeouts with his splitter. Edman jumped on a first-pitch fastball in the top of the third inning and sent it over the glove of a diving Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for a walk-off double. The hit put the man on base for the first hitter. Shohei Ohtani for only the eighth time in the series, this is exactly what Roberts wanted in terms of roster shuffling. With first base up, Blue Jays manager John Schneider intentionally walked the Japanese star before Will Smith made them pay with a double into the left field wall and scored Edman to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. “If there's a clear opportunity to take the bat out of his hands, yeah, we'll do it,” Schneider said of Ohtani. “Again, man, they have some really good hitters on the roster, so you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t sometimes.”

Meanwhile, Mookie Betts was moved to the cleanup spot after hitting just 3-for-23 (.130) with no additional hits in the first five games of the series. “I don’t want to talk about anyone else,” Betts said after Game 5. “But for me, I was just terrible.” After Freddie Freeman walked to load the bases, Betts jumped on a fastball and drove it through the infield gap to score two more runs, making it 3–0. “We talked about letting the game come to him a little bit, and he's been a huge success for us,” Roberts said.

Addison Barger regained some of the momentum in the bottom of the inning, energizing the 44,710 Blue Jays fans in attendance at Rogers Center when he hit a leadoff double to left field before George Springer struck him out with a single. But no one had any better luck against Dodgers superstar Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who owned all six innings while varying his consistency throughout the game, keeping Blue Jays hitters guessing en route to pitching six innings of five hits, one run and five strikeouts. “He’s a damn good pitcher,” Schneider said afterward.

With the third inning behind them, Gausman and Yamamoto picked up where they left off, striking out and keeping both teams' hitters off the scoresheet. Both managers went to their bullpens in the seventh inning, and Gausman finished with three hits, three runs and eight strikeouts over six innings. “I thought it was a lot like the second game between him and Gaus,” Schneider said. “I don't want to lose sight of what Kev did too, coming out of the chute the way he did, and again only one inning. And they hit a couple big shots.”

Neither team truly threatened again until the bottom of the ninth, when Dodgers closer Rocky Sasaki re-entered the game after throwing 25 pitches in the eighth inning and lost control of his splitter, hitting Alejandro Kirk in the arm. After speedster Myles Straw entered the game in Kirk's place, Barger hit a line drive double that crashed into the bottom of the left field wall, causing outfielder Justin Dean to give up the ball and signal to the umpires that it was stranded. Both Straw and Barger scored easily when Dean ran towards the ball, but the umpires determined that the ball was in fact stuck and therefore ruled the hit a double under ground rule. “You like the way it developed, who was going to take the field and things like that,” Schneider said after the game. “But yeah, it didn’t work out tonight.

“Baseball happens sometimes.”

Roberts seemed to press the right buttons again when he gave Sasaki the hook in favor of presumptive Game 7 starter Tyler Glasnow with one out and two on in the ninth. “I just felt like Rocky wasn't as spicy,” Roberts said. “I was looking for someone who could get some swing-and-miss and some high-end stuff, and that's why I decided to go with Glasnow.”

Glasnow got its first hitter, Ernie Clement, who came in ahead of Andres Jimenez. hit a hard hit to left fielder Enrique Hernandez. Hernandez made a good interception and caught it in stride before noticing Barger had moved too far from the second base bag to third, looking to score the tying run. Rojas called for the ball in the second and Hernandez threw a dart there, getting a force out on a game-ending double play. “Kiké's just a great jumper. He's one of my favorite baseball players to watch. He's one of the most mind-blowing baseball players I've ever been around,” Roberts said.

“Miggy [Rojas] played a hell of a game from second base and made some huge plays,” Roberts added. “We were hoping for that kind of energy tonight. We learned this from Miggy.

As the World Series comes to an end in Game 7 on Saturday night, the stakes couldn't be higher. The Dodgers and baseball's biggest star are hoping to meet each other for the first time since the New York Yankees won three straight titles from 1998 to 2000. upcoming labor negotiations between the players' union and the owners – some of whom believe the lack of a salary cap has created an uneven playing field for Major League Baseball's other 29 teams. “We're going to put that aside,” Roberts said of Saturday night's decider. “I don't think the pressure, this moment, will be too much for us. We've got to go out and win one baseball game. We've done that all year.”

While the stakes for the Jays may not seem straightforward, it's about the potential to unite a country of 40 million people: inspiring a new generation of Canadian boys and girls to love baseball. It's also a chance for their hometown hero, Guerrero Jr., to write himself into the history books, making him an immortal Canadian with a postseason that no one in the country has ever seen before.

“See you tomorrow,” Schneider said. “It's going to be exciting here. These guys, it's business as usual, even though it all comes down to one game. These guys are really good at just turning the page.

“It's going to take a while to sink in. It's a wild ending. I like the way we played… but we'll be ready to play tomorrow. Everybody will be ready to play.”

Winner of the 2025 competition. World Series a decision will be made in 24 hours in downtown Toronto. The only question remains: who will be the hero on the sport's biggest stage? “Those are the two best words in sports,” Schneider said. “Game 7”