The Dodgers forced a Game 7 last night in what was a gut-wrenching 3-1 victory that came down to a three-pitch save by Tyler Glasnow with the tying run on second base. Chad covered the game in his recap, and it was a tough watch as all elimination games are, particularly in the ninth inning.
Now, after 162 regular season games, three rounds of playoffs, and six games in the World Series, it all comes down to this, Game 7. Shohei Ohtani will be on the mound starting on short rest, in what could be a legacy defining outing, even if brief. Starting opposite of that future hall of famer is another future hall of famer, in Max Scherzer. Scherzer will look to earn his third World Series ring and lead Toronto to their first title since 1993, while Shohei Ohtani will look to win his second in two years with the Dodgers, and his first while contributing on the mound. All hands on deck tonight for both sides, and the only guys that are very likely to be unavailable are Kevin Gausman and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but the latter is a mad man, so who really knows.
5:00 PM
Toronto
DH
Ohtani (L)
DH
Springer
C
Smith
LF
Lukes (L)
1B
Freeman (L)
1B
Guerrero Jr.
SS
Betts
2B
Bichette
3B
Muncy (L)
RF
Barger (L)
RF
T. Hernández
C
Kirk
CF
Edman (S)
CF
Varsho (L)
LF
K. Hernández
3B
Clement
2B
Rojas
SS
Giménez (L)
P
Ohtani (R)
P
Scherzer (R)
The Dodgers will run out the exact same position players as last night, with just a few adjustment to the batting order. Max Muncy will bat fifth, swapping places with Teoscar Hernández, while Tommy Edman hits seventh, swapping places with Kiké Hernández. Miguel Rojas will get the start again at second base after a few great defensive plays in Game 6.
The team still managed just four hits in an elimination game last night, in yet another sad offensive performance. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will not be there to save them tonight. Shohei Ohtani had a hit and a walk as did Will Smith and Mookie Betts, while Freddie Freeman had a walk and Tommy Edman had a double. The top four in the lineup reached a total of seven times, while the remainder of the lineup was 1-for-19 with nine strikeouts and no walks. Putrid. You can win games like that, but everything has to go right, and last night nearly everything did go right. If the offense can just show up one time, they have a very good chance at being the first team to win back-to-back World Series titles since the Yankees’ three-peat in 1998-2000. Not asking for one month of good offense, one series, one week, just one measly game of hitting like they’re capable of.
——
Ohtani is pitching on three days rest, most recently pitching in Game 4 on October 28, where he went six plus innings on 93 pitches. He was relatively sharp in that outing despite the final line, with his big mistake being a hanging sweeper to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the third inning that was deposited into the left field seats. Ohtani had allowed just two runs through six innings, but was sent back out for the seventh due to the deficiencies of the bullpen, and similar to Blake Snell, struggled in his final inning. He allowed hits to each of Daulton Varsho and Ernie Clement, before being pulled for Anthony Banda who allowed both runs to score. His final line was 6+ IP, four earned runs on six hits and one walk with six strikeouts. It was a great start until it wasn’t, and he’s now made three starts in the postseason, totaling 18.0 innings with a 2-1 record. He has 25 strikeouts to just five walks in those 18 innings, and despite a 3.50 ERA, owns a 2.08 FIP, a WHIP of 0.89, a batting average allowed of .172, and a strikeout rate of 35.7%.
His velocity was down a tick his last time out which is something to monitor tonight, and he threw his splitter just three times which is odd considering he went to it nine times in both of his previous outings. He primarily uses it to get whiffs against left-handed batters, so we’ll see if he goes to the splitter a bit more than last outing, or if he leans on the rest of his arsenal. It’s undetermined how many innings or times through the order he’ll be able to go, but the Dodgers would obviously love as much length as possible out of him. My guess would be three innings and one time through the order, but if he’s cruising or feels good, etc., I wouldn’t be surprised if they let him go longer. It’s Game 7 after all.
Glasnow will likely be the first up after Ohtani, as today would be his start on “regular rest” after pitching in Game 3 on October 27. He pitched on four days rest just once this regular season, but he’s done it plenty of times over the course of his career. However, he hasn’t pitched the day following a relief outing which could impact things a bit. Despite his save requiring just three pitches, he still had to get up, get loose and warm up, and get into live game action, all a little more stressful on the body than a side session. Like Ohtani, they’re probably not expecting a full six inning outing or anything, but if they can get through six or seven quality innings between these two, they’d probably be happy with it.
Scherzer will be on four days rest, or regular rest for a starter that throws every fifth day. He did so in just five of his 16 starts this season, compared to starting on five days rest in eight of the remaining outings. Considering that he’ll essentially just be making a regular start, I’ll post Alex’s excerpt from the Game 3 thread.
Max Scherzer gets his second start of this postseason. He got the Game 4 start in Seattle and was solid, allowing two runs and three hits in 5 2/3 innings, but did issue four walks. Scherzer had a rough season overall, starting with a three-inning outing back in March. He got placed on the IL after that game with thumb inflammation and lat muscle soreness and ended up missing three months (insert joke about Dave Roberts overusing him) and returned in late June. He was mostly solid in his first 10 starts post-injury, posting a 3.47 ERA in 57 innings including a two-run, six inning outing in LA against the Dodgers. The wheels fell completely off in his final six starts of the season. He allowed four runs in a game in four of those six starts and his second-to-last start of the season only lasted 2/3 of an inning and he allowed seven earned.Scherzer is typically a four-pitch pitcher. He leads with a fastball (48.5 percent), slider (23.7 percent), change (14 percent) and curve (11.9 percent). In the ALCS, he threw the fastball a bit more (51.7 percent) and the slider a bit less (18.4 percent). He didn’t allow a hit on his slider or curve. He allowed a single on a fastball and a single and a homer off his change. His 92.4 MPH average exit velocity in that game was his second-worst all season (95.6 MPH on March 29). When he faced the Dodgers back in August, Scherzer threw the fastball 53.1 percent of the time and averages a season-high 94.2 MPH on it. The Dodgers singled twice off his fastball and twice off his curve. They also hit a double and Mookie Betts homered off the slider.
Scherzer wasn’t particularly sharp in that Game 3 outing, going just 4.1 innings, but he kept Toronto in the game long enough for their offense to pick him up against Glasnow. He allowed just two earned runs, both on solo homers by Teoscar Hernández and Ohtani, but allowed a total of five hits and one walk with just three strikeouts. The Jays and Scherzer would probably hope he could provide a little more length or prevent more runs today, but once again, all hands on deck for Game 7. It’s very likely Trey Yesavage gets into this game for a couple innings, who the Dodgers could not hit if their life depended on it in Game 5.
——
Dodgers caught a break last night with the Barger double getting stuck under the wall, but there’s been a lot of discourse on something that has a very straightforward ruling. The discourse probably should’ve been about the hitting and baserunning after the double that allowed for Glasnow to get a three pitch save.
There should be confidence in the pitching staff to prevent enough runs to keep the Dodgers in this game, the offense just needs to show up one time.
======
First pitch is at 5:00 PT on FOX.
Buckle up.
