TORONTO — First, Kiké Hernández heard it. Then, he couldn’t see it. There was no time for him to think, for him to process the idea that this could be the end for the Los Angeles Dodgers in this World Series and all that came next. All Hernández could do was run, praying that as he kept going, he could see Andrés Giménez’s broken-bat flare in the lights before it touched down into left field and before Rogers Centre erupted into a frenzy in the ninth inning.
“When the World Series is on the line,” Hernández said, “I was willing to get hit in the face.”
The ball landed in his glove. Hernández sensed the Toronto Blue Jays’ Addison Barger, the potential tying run who had nearly leveled this game just moments before, had strayed too far off second base. Before anyone could process the madness, Hernández bounced a throw to second baseman Miguel Rojas, who clung onto the ball and the base long enough to double off Barger and save the Dodgers’ season.
From his backside, Rojas roared loudly enough to rip through a stunned crowd. The ridiculous game-ending double play will be seared into World Series history. The Dodgers survived, winning 3-1. There will be a Game 7 Saturday night.
It is close to inexplicable how the Dodgers continue to do this. How they have found themselves on the right side of the madness so many times and somehow kept going. How they spun the wheel in Philadelphia. How they watched the Phillies’ Orion Kerkering lose his mind in a deciding moment. How they managed to survive this — runners on second and third, no one out in a 3-1 game in the ninth against a Blue Jays team that came from behind to win more games than any team in the sport.
Justin Dean fields the fateful ground-rule double hit by Addison Barger in the ninth inning. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
Somehow, the Dodgers are here. Still alive. Maybe this is just who they are.
Maybe it starts with Dave Roberts, who addressed reporters Friday afternoon wearing a cap stained with dirt, a face of regret and an ease one would hardly expect from a manager facing elimination in a series few expected them to lose.
The Dodgers’ trip to Toronto allowed them time to stew. Their offense had collapsed, as had their grasp of this World Series. The team plane transporting players north of the border was delayed multiple hours on the tarmac late after Wednesday night’s Game 5 loss. Some pump or light or button, whichever it was, parked them in misery. When the Dodgers landed in the morning, traffic congestion from Toronto Pearson International Airport only prolonged matters.
Roberts declared Thursday evening’s workout at the Rogers Centre optional. His team had perfect attendance. That excited the manager, whose mantra of relentless optimism has been a guiding principle and prompted him to stir up a little levity. Roberts challenged utilityman and pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim to a race, asking for a brief head start. Roberts, who authored one of the most famous stolen bases in postseason history, biffed it near second base this time and emerged covered in dirt.
“That will be the last full sprint I ever do in my life,” Roberts said.
“Right before a Game 6 facing elimination, this guy is, like, on the ground, like, with his uniform full of dirt, and he’s not backing away from it,” Rojas said. “So that’s what it tells you about Doc, and he’ll do anything for this group to spark the team.”
By Friday, Roberts hadn’t completely cleaned off his hat. His hamstring was sore. He didn’t care. He hoped the wager would inspire his team to play fast and loose — like nothing else mattered.
“We all know that everything has to go perfect for us to be able to pull this off,” Teoscar Hernández said.
Yet they did not press.
“I can’t really describe it other than the love for each other,” said Mookie Betts, whose two-run single in the third made it 3-0. “It’s hard to explain, to feel what I feel. But I know it comes from love.”
The Dodgers exemplified the freedom their manager wanted them to play with. They executed within slim margins. Their offense put forth a three-run outburst in the third inning, their most runs in an inning since they closed out the National League Championship Series.
The Dodogers got another brilliant start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who went six innings before handing the seventh inning to a bullpen that once again made things interesting. Roki Sasaki entered in the eighth inning, entrusted with maintaining the lead over six outs, and recorded just three. The Dodgers needed everything to go right just to have a situation to wriggle out of in the ninth.
The score was 3-1 with a runner on first when Barger bashed a Sasaki fastball to the wall in center field. Justin Dean, a defensive replacement who has played all of 30 games in a Dodgers uniform almost exclusively to stand in the outfield, broke back on the ball as it soared over his head, to the wall and … got stuck there.
Dean raised his hands to signal the ball was stuck, as he’d been taught to do while playing youth travel baseball in South Carolina. But Dean had never done so in a game — let alone a World Series. Behind him, Kiké Hernández urged Dean to run and retrieve the ball and throw it in rather than leave it up to the umpire’s discretion. Barger and pinch-runner Myles Straw scurried around the bases. The crowd at Rogers Centre, sensing an inside-the-park home run, was on tilt. Left-field umpire John Tumpane signaled the ball was dead.
“I’m glad the umpires made the right call,” Hernández said.
Straw was placed back at third base with Barger at second base as Tyler Glasnow, pitching on three days’ rest and making just his second relief appearance in seven years, entered the fray.
Then, the Dodgers executed. Catcher Will Smith, sensing that Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement would be aggressive early in the count with the tying runs in scoring position, called for a two-seam fastball inside to run in on Clement’s hands. Glasnow’s first pitch jammed him, as Clement lifted a shallow pop-up that Freddie Freeman swallowed at first base for the first out.
With the left-handed Giménez up to bat, Hernández drifted forward in left field, hoping to be shallow enough to fire a strong throw home to get Barger should a ground ball sneak through the left side of the infield. He was stepping forward when, in the hush between Glasnow’s third pitch leaving his hand and Giménez’s swing, Hernández heard Giménez’s bat break. So he broke in on the baseball, even as it drifted into the Rogers Centre lights.
“I was praying,” Roberts said.
Hernández got enough of a bead on the ball to travel the necessary 52 feet to catch it on the fly.
“I don’t know if another left fielder makes that play that easily,” Rojas said in Spanish.
Hernández watched the play in front of him. Barger had taken too aggressive a path off second base. Hernández’s bounced throw beat Barger back to the bag, sending Rojas sprawling, but only after he completed the play. The Dodgers had not wavered, keeping their heads as another team’s misstep unfolded in front of them.
This, Rojas said, is who the Dodgers are.
“Everybody … wants the moment to come to them,” Rojas said. “I think that’s the difference between the results that we’re having right now.”
The result: another day in their season, one win away from back-to-back World Series titles.
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