And just like that, the two sweetest words in the English language: Game 7.
I shouldn’t need to say much more than that to hype you up. Will the Dodgers win their second title in a row? Or will the Blue Jays win their first in 32 years? What more could we ask for from a baseball game?
Throughout this postseason, I’ve been previewing the next day’s action, game by game. And, well, whatever happens today, this is the last day. Let’s buckle up and enjoy the show. Here are five storylines for Saturday’s World Series Game 7.
What role(s) does Shohei Ohtani play?
Well, we know he’s going to be leading off, taking the first plate appearance of the game, being a terrifying presence every nine hitters — being one of the best sluggers in the world, obviously. But of course one of the most wonderful things about having Ohtani on your team is that hitting the ball into the stratosphere isn’t the only thing he does.
Now that Tyler Glasnow was used to close out Game 6, although it only took him three pitches to get three outs, it sure looks like Ohtani is going to start. Which: Wow. The Dodgers have been so careful with Ohtani’s pitching schedule coming back from Tommy John surgery, but now they’re using him on … three days’ rest? In Game 7 of the World Series? Sure, Ohtani can do anything. But asking him to do things for the first time in Game 7 of the World Series is quite an ask. The Dodgers have the ultimate weapon. What better time to deploy it?
What will the Jays get from Scherzer?
If Scherzer were an ordinary person, it might be a little unreasonable to ask him to go from “not even being on the postseason roster for the ALDS” to “guy who is going to save us in a Game 7 of the World Series” in the span of a fortnight. But, well, we all know that Scherzer is anything but “an ordinary person.” Scherzer is, in many ways, the personification of postseason baseball: When you think of the last decade-plus of Octobers, it’s hard not to see a closeup of Scherzer’s face, staring down some poor hitter.
Still, he is in his 40s, and while his start in the ALCS was heroic, he also gave up three earned runs in 4 1/3 innings in Game 3 of this series. (Albeit, two of those runs scored after he left the game.) But this is not, in fact, vintage Scherzer. Given that, how much do the Jays expect from him? And how much will he be comfortable giving without tackling John Schneider when he walks to the mound to take him out? It’s not like he’s uncomfortable with World Series Game 7s: He pitched in the most recent one, after all, when the 2019 Nationals took down the Astros.
Are Mookie Betts and George Springer back?
The Dodgers have been waiting all World Series, all October, all season, really, for Betts to give them a moment like he did in the third inning of Game 3. That two-run single was the clutch hit we’ve all expected. Does this mean the old Mookie is back? Not necessarily. But it’s fair to say the Dodgers feel a lot more confident with him in a big spot than they were heading into Game 6.
Speaking of which: As painful as it might have looked to see Springer swing hard in his first game back since tweaking his oblique — and it actively hurt me to watch him — he is the guy who had the lone RBI for Toronto in Game 6, while going 2-for-4 out of the leadoff spot. He’ll be in the lineup again. Will it continue to be so painful? Will it matter in a big moment?
What do the Dodgers’ bullpen plans look like?
You can’t blame Blue Jays fans for breathing a sigh of relief when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts (quite reasonably) pulled Yoshinobu Yamamoto after six innings in Game 6. The guy was coming off consecutive complete games, including one earlier in this series, so getting him out after six must have felt like a coup. Plus, the Dodgers’ bullpen doesn’t exactly scare you these days.
Well, that bullpen survived … barely. Left-hander Justin Wrobleski was excellent in the seventh, and Roki Sasaki made it through a shaky eighth before immediately getting into huge trouble in the ninth. It took Glasnow – and an absolutely wild game-ending double play – to escape that mess. So, now what?
Wrobleski only threw 16 pitches, so he’s available. You would think the Dodgers would trust Will Klein by now, considering what he did back in Game 3, the last time he pitched. Glasnow is probably still on the table after just those three pitches. Heck, it’s Game 7: Blake Snell might be on the table. But after Sasaki threw 33 high-stress pitches and struggled on Friday, you have to think Roberts may try to find another path to victory on Saturday.
Who gets the Game 7 moment?
It has been too long since we had a World Series Game 7. Six long, long years, to be exact; we’ve been through so much since 2019! We just haven’t had enough of these: This is only the fifth of the last 20 years. The best of those Game 7s is probably the Cubs triumph in 2016, but honestly, there is no such thing as a bad Game 7.
Who is the hero? Is it Ohtani? Is it Vlad Jr.? Is it someone who we haven’t even thought of yet? (It’s probably that person.) I mean, it’s Game 7 of the World Series. This is as good as it gets.
