Toronto Blue Jays' Addison Barger watches his grand slam home run take flight during the sixth inning.David J. Phillip/The Associated Press
In Friday’s first game of the World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers had a clear approach to the game – they would Dodgers their way through it.
Their ace, Blake Snell, came out looking like he’d gotten a ransom phone call five minutes before taking the field. Snell can sometimes be a little erratic. On Friday, he couldn’t locate the plate with binoculars. But no problem, his team seemed to say. He’ll Dodgers it.
Toronto loaded the bases in the first. No problem. He’ll Dodgers it.
Snell gave up a single against the wall in the fourth, and then a home run – his first since August. No problem. He’ll Dodgers it.
Snell was back out in the sixth, nearing 100 pitches and looking like he could lie down on the mound and fall straight to sleep. Being allowed to face Alejandro Kirk (the to-the-wall single guy) after walking Bo Bichette was one thing. Being allowed to stay in against Daulton Varsho (the home-run guy) after putting Kirk on was another.
Nine pitches into his at-bat with Varsho, Snell hit the Jays centre fielder. The likeliest explanation was some combination of exhaustion and frustration.
The eventual result – an L.A. bullpen Three Mile Island, an Addison Barger grand slam, a nine-run inning and an 11-4 Toronto victory.
World Series Game 1: As it happened
Blue Jays' Vladimir Guerrero Jr. celebrates as Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers walks back to the dugout after Game 1.Cole Burston/Getty Images
The rest of baseball can stop rushing to find their outfit for the California coronation. We have a World Series to play in the interim.
If any Toronto manager had stuck with a starter the way L.A. stuck with Snell, Jays fans would currently be in a Home Hardware looking for a couple of planks and a bucket of nails.
But the Dodgers can do this, because they’re the Dodgers. That’s their greatest strength, and their only weakness. They’re one game down and they think they’re two games up.
There was a moment in the second inning that spoke to this idea. The Dodgers had loaded the bases on Jays rookie Trey Yesavage. Shohei Ohtani was at-bat. Big, big moment. I don’t care who you root for, or even if you like baseball.
Cameras panned to the L.A. dugout. Manager Dave Roberts and conflicted Canadian Freddie Freeman were standing at the top of the steps, chatting, laughing, having a good old natter. A key sequence in the game, and the two of them looked like they were waiting for a bus.
It’s good to be loose. The Dodgers hit this World Series like they were macrodosing muscle relaxants.
By the time Alejandro Kirk came back to the plate in the sixth and hit a two-run homer, the Dodgers didn’t look relaxed any more. That’s the only downside to the size of the Jays’ Game 1 victory. It may have slapped the Dodgers awake.
Addison Barger, right, celebrates after hitting a grand slam with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. during sixth inning.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Everything Toronto changed to start the World Series worked. Bo Bichette looked great at second base and at the plate. Yesavage was solid. The offence remains in a Grand Canyon-sized groove.
If you had to describe the opener in baseball terms, you would call it Ernie Banksian. It felt like two games worth of action. Now for the psychology.
Though this is the first post-season Game 1 they’ve dropped in two years, the Dodgers will still think they are winning this series. They may be considering cancelling the golf round they booked in Scotland next weekend, but they will believe this has only just begun. Toronto must allow them to think that. Encourage them in it.
That work falls to the rest of the baseball – to all the American-based pundits and number crunchers who will tell you that L.A. has too much pitching to lose the World Series. One aberrant Snell start doesn’t change that.
The stats-oriented nature of baseball does not allow for the most crucial factor in any game – luck.
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Throughout this run, the Jays have been so lucky they’ve made it seem like a skill. Whenever they’ve needed a hit, or a big out, or a burst to demoralize the opponent, they’ve gotten it. Even their losses have been well placed. At no point have they actually felt like losing. Not because they were in control, but because they were lucky.
On Friday, Toronto’s luck ran out. You could feel that in the early going, and so could the crowd. It happened around the time Ernie Clement tried to turn a bad L.A. throw to first from one extra base into two and got caught at third.
Against New York or Seattle, that works. But not early on Friday.
Clement couldn’t believe it. After being tagged out, he looked up at the third-base coach and said, ‘Yeah?’ like he was talking to the arbitrating authority.
Right then, Toronto had passed its luck to the other side. Then L.A. passed it back.
If someone had told you before the game that Ohtani was going to crush a seventh-inning home run and that it wouldn’t matter, what would you say? You’d say, ‘Lucky.’
The Jays’ first Mission Impossible was beating the Dodgers in the opener. It was a non-negotiable necessity. Toronto can now afford to lose Game 2, but I wouldn’t advise it.
The Dodgers are also creatures of luck. Why else do you think they stuck with Snell when his own mother would have pulled him? It was 2-2 at the time and still too early for the Dodger luck to have appeared. Why not tempt it into arriving? Show Toronto that fate has a new boyfriend, and he lives in Hermosa Beach.
That didn’t work, and the Blue Jays killed them for it. We’ll try it again on Saturday night.
Somebody’s going to win this series and when they do it won’t be because they attacked left-handed pitching. It will be one of two things – because things just broke their way a few crucial times; or because they trusted luck, and luck didn’t trust them back.