World Series Game 3 had a little bit of everything: Dodgers-Blue Jays marathon game scripted for Hollywood

LOS ANGELES — This was the type of game where you drop to your knees and thank heavens you decided, at whatever point, to become a baseball fan. I found myself thinking in the seventh inning that if you just randomly brought a non-baseball fan to this game, they’d immediately become a die-hard fan, hooked for the rest of their life. It was almost like — just a few miles from Hollywood — the game was scripted for maximum entertainment. 

It lasted 18 innings and ended on another Freddie Freeman walk-off home run, just like Game 1 of last year’s World Series. This one was a solo shot to dead center field. The thousands of fans who were still in attendance shot to their feet and roared, soon serenaded with “I love L.A.” It was a 6-5 Dodgers win in 18 innings.

The extra-innings portion of the game dragged and, let’s face it, no one who had never seen baseball before would want to be here for almost seven hours. For those first 7-9 innings, though, it was breathtaking and the whole game provided plenty of quirky twists and turns. And then a walk-off home run. All’s well that ends well. 

“It’s one of the greatest World Series games of all time,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the game. “Emotional. I’m spent emotionally.”

I’ve been to some amazing games. I thought about the walk-off grand slam last year, Game 7 in 2016 (because of course I did), Game 5 in 2017, Game 6 in 2011 and so many more. There were more dramatic endings in that list, more weight-of-history games in there and higher-scoring affairs, but this one was incredible theater like only a few others have had in recent World Series history. Again, if we limited our scope to nine innings, it was only missing the dramatic ending. And in extras, there were plenty of close calls. There was a ton of traffic on the bases. The two teams combined to leave 37 men on base. Both teams were tantalizingly close multiple times to taking this one in extras before the 18th, when the Blue Jays stranded runners on second and third base before the Freeman walk-off.

There were even storylines that went beyond this particular game. 

Remember, this is the first-ever World Series meeting between the Blue Jays and Dodgers. There’s history with George Springer from the 2017 Astros, and he’s been showered with boos like I’ve rarely heard before. We had an all-time great pitcher starting on the mound for the Blue Jays in Max Scherzer. 

Even post-prime Scherzer at age 41 was pretty good for the most part. He looked like vintage Mad Max for a few moments. And Shohei Ohtani was responsible for RBI on two of the three runs charged to Scherzer. Can’t really blame him there. 

Did I say Ohtani? Yes, the best baseball player in the world was front and center in this one. Again. He led off with a double. Then he hit a home run. Then he doubled home an important run during a game-tying rally. Next time up, with the Dodgers trailing again, he again tied it. This time with a home run. 

That’s 12 total bases, two shy of the World Series record. After that home run, Ohtani was 9 for his last 15 with six home runs and two doubles. Are you kidding me with this? It’s about the time someone misguidedly says, “you can’t make this stuff up!” Yeah, you could. We could do it in a movie. Before Ohtani came about, though, most people would’ve deemed the movie unrealistic, even before you consider the pitching.

That’s how good he is. The Blue Jays realized what was going on and intentionally walked him the rest of the game. Yes, four intentional walks before he took a four-pitch walk where every pitch was far out of the strike zone. The ol’ unintentional intentional walk. Ohtani got on base nine times. That’s a record both for the regular season and postseason. 

This game wasn’t all Ohtani. Far from it. He was a main character, but there were plenty of other huge moments. 

We saw the Dodgers jump out to a 1-0 lead in the second on a Teoscar Hernández home run. It was his sixth of the playoffs in 13 games. Ohtani’s homer in the third came next, putting the Dodgers up 2-0. 

The door was left open for a Blue Jays rally in the fourth on a Tommy Edman error and the Jays burst through that door. An Alejandro Kirk three-run home run gave them the lead and they tacked on another run after that. Kirk, by the way, had 15 homers and 76 RBI in 130 regular-season games. In the playoffs, he now has five home runs and 13 RBI in 14 games.

The Dodgers answered in the fifth, as Ohtani hit an RBI double and Freddie Freeman drove him home with a shot down the first-base line. 

That same first-base line came into play (again) in the seventh when the Blue Jays took the lead (again). Vladimir Guerrero Jr. singled and Bo Bichette — hobbled leg and all — sent a shot right down that same line. A wicked carom off some broadcasting equipment gave a bit of extra time to help Guerrero score from first, barely. He even did a fun slap of home plate to beat the tag. 

And then Ohtani tied it with the seventh-inning homer.

There were all kinds of quirky plays mixed in. A runner was thrown out at third after trying to advance on an infield hit. A ball hit off Freeman’s glove in the eighth for a hit, but then a runner trying to go from first to third was thrown out. There were close calls on the bases. Freeman was thrown out at home on a not-so-close call. There was even a play where a runner on first base was picked off because he thought a batter had drawn a walk, though it was called a strike instead of a ball. The top of the 10th ended with a runner being thrown out at the plate with his star teammate on deck.

In fact, Edman made two of those throws, redeeming himself for that bad error earlier.

There was a play at third base in the 11th where the defender tried to field a possible infield hit with two runners on by standing with a foot on the bag while he grabbed the ball. It didn’t work. The runner was safe. Man, we had so many quirky plays.

A starting pitcher who temporarily converted to closer had to come in and get five outs to finish the ninth. He was followed by another starter who is coming out of the bullpen this October.

And then another all-time great, Clayton Kershaw, entered in the 11th with the bases loaded. He’s in his final season and gave up five runs in two innings in his NLDS outing and hadn’t pitched since. He faced a 31-year-old in Nathan Lukes, who spent 10 years in the minors. He fouled off two 3-2 pitches before grounding out softly to end the inning. 

Will Klein, who had one inning of playoff experience and less than 23 innings of regular-season experience in his career threw four scoreless innings for the Dodgers in relief. He’d never previously gone more than two innings in an MLB outing.

Drama. Fun. Redemption. Historically great players going at it. Marathon extra innings with several tease jobs. Game 3 of the 2025 World Series truly had it all.