Dodgers miss the mark in Game 5

Los Angeles, CA (News 4 Us Online) –  You could almost sense what was coming. Dodger Stadium was brimming with excitement before Game 5 of the World Series. 

Former Los Angeles Laker great and basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson even threw out the ceremonial first pitch getting Los Angeles Dodgers fans even more pumped. 

The buzz kill arrived shortly after that at Chavez Ravine. All it took was two pitches to wipe the smiles off the faces of the Dodger faithful. Before folks could get in their seats properly, Toronto jumped out to a 2-0 lead. It went downhill from there. 

The Dodgers well-stacked and all-powerful hitting lineup was dominated by a rookie pitcher. Trey Yesavage isn’t just any rookie. His story will make good for a Lifetime movie. When the season started, Yesavage wasn’t even on the Toronto Blue Jays’ big-league roster. 

He was too busy trying to earn his stripes in the minor leagues before being called up. Now, the 22-year-old rookie is the talk of Major League Baseball after pitching seven innings and striking out 12 batters in a 6-1 Game 5 win for the Blue Jays. After three games in Los Angeles, the series shifts to Toronto for final two games. 

“Just getting in the zone early, being in my count, just throwing whatever I wanted when I was in two strikes,” Yesavage said after the game. 

Toronto holds a 3-2 advantage over the Dodgers. As for the Dodgers, not hitting the baseball seemed to be the problem again. Between Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, and Shohei Ohtani, the fearsome foursome went hitless in 15 at-bats in the defeat. As a team, the Dodgers managed just four hits in the game, two of them by Teoscar Hernandez. 

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts talked about the lack of productivity by the offense. He’s not happy with what he is seeing.  

“It doesn’t feel great,” Roberts said. “You clearly see those guys finding ways to get hits, move the baseball forward, and we’re not doing a good job of it. I thought Yesavage was good tonight mixing his fastball, slider, and the split. But, yeah, you still have to use the whole field and take what they give you, and if they’re not going to allow for slug, then you’ve got to be able to kind of redirect and down club — or club down to take competitive at-bats, and you see whether it’s Barger or Bichette. You know, those guys are doing it. But again, we have that ability. We’ve got to make some adjustments. 

For Betts, who recently won the Roberto Clemente Award for his philanthropic work in the community, the struggles at the plate has been an ongoing thing during the series. Through the first five games of the series, Betts has made 23 appearances at the plate and has come up with only three hits and scored one run.

Roberts thinks Betts is trying too hard to make something happen. 

“I think he’s pressing,” said Roberts. “Hopefully, the off day, find a way to get away from it, and then go out there and just kind of focus on one game and be good for one game, go out there and compete. But I think you can see, you know, there’s a little anxiousness in there. But it’s not the first time he’s struggled, it’s not the first time he’s faced elimination. And it’s not just Mookie, it’s everyone that’s got to do their part too.”

Instead of a bedlam atmosphere, Dodger Stadium turned into a quiet space, with people stunned by the sudden developments in the first inning. In a must-win Game 4, the Blue Jays came away with a gut-check victory to event the series at 2-2. Toronto then picked up where it left off, hitting the Dodgers right square in the mouth.

Davis Schneider took Blake Snell’s first pitch of the evening out of the ballpark for a home run. If that wasn’t enough, Vladimir Guerrero complimented Schneider’s blast with a four-base dinger of his own. Right off the bat, the Dodgers were staring down a 2-0 deficit. 

Schneider said it was huge to take the home crowd out of the ballgame immediately. 

It was great,” Schneider said. “The more runs you can score early I feel like is really good, especially off Snell, he’s such a good pitcher. He kind of settled in after that, but getting two off of him early is so big. Doing it on the away side is, I feel like, just as important, just because they’re all amped up and everything like that, and getting two runs in the first is really awesome. Hopefully we can do that against Yamamoto on Friday. But take it one game at a time, one pitch at a time, and go from there.”

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