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Bradford Doolittle
LOS ANGELES — The only thing harder than coming off an 18-inning win in the World Series is coming off an 18-inning loss in the World Series.
The Toronto Blue Jays became the second team in baseball history to face that task Tuesday night — and like the 2018 Boston Red Sox, they responded with a resounding win. Behind a third-inning Vladimir Guerrero Jr. blast off the Shohei Ohtani and a much-needed quality outing from starter Shane Bieber, the Blue Jays cruised to a mostly drama-free 6-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, evening the Fall Classic at two games apiece.
“I think this is a quote from Herb Brooks, but we are a team of uncommon men,” third baseman Ernie Clement said. “I think a normal team would’ve folded today, and we’re not normal. I think we’re the best team in baseball, and we got out of bed today with our hair on fire and ready to play.”
Call it resiliency. Call it moxie. Call it the natural spark provided by Guerrero’s two-run blast off the game’s biggest star, but the Blue Jays had it on full display Tuesday, recovering from the disappointment of battling the Dodgers for 18 innings in Game 3 only to lose on Freddie Freeman’s game-ending homer.
“It’s baseball. It’s the World Series,” said Toronto outfielder Addison Barger, who had two of Toronto’s 11 hits. “You get that adrenaline with the fans here and everything and it being the World Series. That kind of gets you through.”
So it’s all adrenaline?
“And a lot of caffeine,” Barger quipped.
One night after both teams emptied their bullpens to cover what amounted to two full games, both clubs needed their starters to work into the middle innings. Both did. Bieber went 5⅓ innings, holding the Dodgers to a lone run while striking out three.
A midseason pickup for the Blue Jays in a trade with the Cleveland Guardians, Bieber has won a team-best six games since his arrival, including the playoffs. The 2020 American League Cy Young winner almost made an appearance earlier than planned: It was possible that had Game 3 extended even longer, he would have come on in an emergency relief appearance.
“I think I was probably very close to getting the ball,” Bieber said. “Ultimately, I choose to believe it’s worked out the way that it’s supposed to work out, and I was able to make the start tonight.”
Guerrero’s homer was the seventh of his postseason career, establishing a franchise record previously held by Joe Carter and Jose Bautista. All seven homers have come this postseason, Guerrero’s fourth time in the playoffs.
“I think this is a quote from Herb Brooks, but we are a team of uncommon men. I think a normal team would’ve folded today, and we’re not normal. I think we’re the best team in baseball, and we got out of bed today with our hair on fire and ready to play.”
Blue Jays third baseman Ernie Clement
The Game 4 homer continued Guerrero’s red-hot playoff run, during which he has hit .419 over 15 games with seven homers, 14 RBIs and a 1.306 OPS. And he stayed hot after playing 18 innings the night before. The key: plenty of Zs.
“It hurts when you lose a game like that, but I was so tired that I just went to sleep,” Guerrero said. “I was just looking for a pitch to do damage, and I saw it right there up in the zone and I could do damage.”
Clement chased Ohtani with a double that was part of what became a four-run rally in the seventh. That extended his postseason hitting streak to 10 games, the longest such streak for Toronto since Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar did it in 1993 — the last time the Blue Jays won the World Series.
Like everyone else in the Toronto clubhouse after the game, Clement was asked how he felt when he arrived at Dodger Stadium for Game 4, after playing for more than 6½ hours Monday.
“Just tons of energy,” Clement joked, indicating the opposite. “The body didn’t hurt at all. Just exactly what you’d think after playing 18 innings.”
With the win, the Blue Jays displayed the kind of turn-the-page ability that marks teams that survive the October labyrinth and often becomes a theme of postgame conversation when a club bounces back from a tough loss. It is a common theme but in this case was an uncommon example, because only one other game in Series history has lasted as long as Game 3.
Still, the Blue Jays have embraced the resiliency trope.
“Anytime you go 18 innings and come out on the losing end, it’s a little bit deflating,” Clement said. “We did a great job bouncing back. It’s a testament to the character in this clubhouse.”
Toronto’s victory echoed that of the 2018 Red Sox, who lost to the Dodgers in Game 3 of that World Series, also at Dodger Stadium, also on a game-ending homer. Boston recovered to win Game 4 9-6 by battering the weary Los Angeles bullpen and went on to win it all in Game 5.
The Blue Jays can’t repeat that, but in evening the series, they ensured there will be a return trip to Toronto, where 30,000 fans watched the game at Rogers Centre and reacted as if the action were playing out on the empty field before them.
“30,000 at the Rogers Centre?” Bieber said when told of the gathering. “Very cool. They deserve it. They deserve to end it on our terms, and in Toronto.”
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