The Dodgers have power and starting pitching, and the Blue Jays have hitting and a refusal to strike out; the teams split the first two games of the World Series.
Anyone who believed that the Los Angeles Dodgers repeating as World Series champions was a fait accompli was simply not paying attention. Yes, the Dodgers entered the Fall Classic with a 9-1 post-season record, coming off a dominant four-game sweep of the team with the most win in MLB this season. But, the Toronto Blue Jays are not the Milwaukee Brewers. And what the former does better than nearly anyone runs counter to what the Dodgers do best. This was destined to be a competitive World Series. And after two games in Canada, with each team winning one, we are now left with a best-of-five starting in Los Angeles on Monday night.
Over the course of 162 games, Dodgers pitchers struck out more batters than any other staff. Over the course of that same 162 schedule, only the Kansas City Royals struck out less often than Blue Jays batters. To make matters even more difficult, the Blue Jays led all of baseball in base hits and batting average. And when they didn’t get a hit, they were fifth in the league in productive outs. All of this is a statistical way of saying that the Blue Jays bats were a tough match-up for the Dodgers arms.Game 1
In Game 1 of the World Series, the Blue Jays’ strengths were made abundantly clear. Their goal heading into the series was to get to the Dodgers shaky bullpen as quickly as possible. The fastest way to do that is to run up pitch counts. Well, in the bottom of the first inning of Game 1, Toronto forced Los Angeles ace Blake Snell to throw 29 pitches. They did not score (they actually left the bases loaded), but they still won the inning. After just a single frame, it was clear that Snell wouldn’t/couldn’t go too deep into the game, and that the Blue Jays would have a crack at that soft underbelly of a relief core (which is even softer with the absence of lefty Alex Vesia, who is away from the team dealing with a “deeply personal family matter”).
With the score tied at two going into the bottom of the sixth inning, Snell had thrown 84 pitches. Bo Bichette started the inning working a six-pitch walk.
