Whicker: Blue Jays turn out to be the marathon men, beat Dodgers in Game 4

The Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 in Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium to even the series at two games apiece. Photo: Toronto Blue Jays

October 29, 2025

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

Wait a minute. Now that the World Series has become best-of-3 (“European rules,” as Jesse Ventura used to call it), why are the sixth and maybe seventh games being played on Toronto’s field?

Are you saying that the Blue Jays won more games in the regular season than the Dodgers did?

So sad, to see a grown narrative break down and cry.

The Blue Jays themselves never got the memo. It was assumed they had won a lottery to become the Dodgers’ victim in this Series, or maybe they’d impressed someone in a fantasy camp. But Toronto, winners of 94 games as the Dodgers were winning 93, proved sleep is overrated on Tuesday with a businesslike 6-2 win in Game 4 at Dodger Stadium. They play one more, on what promises to be a wickedly hot evening, before they pack up for Toronto and Game 6, versus Yoshinobu Yamamoto, on Hallowe’en.

A perceptive writer for the Toronto Star took a look at the David vs. Goliath narrative and wondered why they wound up in the same weight class. He said Toronto wasn’t David and the Dodgers were miscast as the awe-inspiring giant. He said they were more like Achilles, the gallant Greek soldier with one major flaw, easily exploited. Game 4 proved that reports of life in the Dodgers’ bullpen, based on its Game 3 performance, were greatly exaggerated.

After the Jays expanded a 2-1 lead to 4-1 against Anthony Banda, Blake Treinen again became the primary heel, as Dave Roberts continues to squeeze him and hope 2024 pops out. Dodger fans have spent the past nine seasons watching them wipe out three-run deficits in the late moments. For some it’s the most vivid memory of their schoolyard years. But against Treinen, Bo Bichette rocketed a single off the left field wall, and Addison Barger zipped a ground ball through the shortstop hole. The Jays led 6-1, and erstwhile starter Chris Bassitt and Everdyay Louie Varland took it from there. Treinen has gotten two outs and given up five hits in this Series.

Before that, Shane Bieber knew he’d be pitching in the shadow of Shohei Ohtani. Bieber is comfortable in such obscurity. He was a preferred walk-on at UC Santa Barbara, and there’s the oft-told story about the high school game between Bieber’s Laguna Hills and Blake Taylor’s Dana Hills. The scouts showed up en masse and left when Laguna Hills knocked out Taylor in the second inning. Bieber kept throwing his mid-80s darts and won. Taylor was a second-round pick, and Bieber wasn’t drafted at all.

But he got a sudden velocity boost while he pitched for UCSB, which went to the College World Series, and Cleveland picked him in the fourth round. He was in the majors by 2018 and was the MVP of the All-Star Game the next year. The year after that, he won the American League Cy Young Award. Then came Tommy John surgery early in 2024, and a year and a half of renewed seclusion. By the time Bieber returned to the majors he was with Toronto, on a team disinterested in what happened yesterday, even if yesterday continued an 18th inning homer by Freddie Freeman.

In the third inning Vladimir Guerrero Jr. crushed a two-run homer off Ohtani and Bieber led, 2-1. He gave up one hit in the next three innings and left in the sixth, with two Dodgers on and one out. Lefty Mason Fluharty, who was touched up in Game 3 by Ohtani and Freeman, retired Max Muncy and Tommy Edman and got the Blue Jays back in the dugout. Bassitt handled the seventh and eighth and Varland, who has pitched in 13 of 15 postseason games, took care of the ninth. But the night belonged to Bieber, one of the few folks in the ballpark who ignored the trajectory of Superman and stuck to his own flight path.

Playing 18 innings and losing is the equivalent of a doubleheader sweep. But when Toronto manager John Schneider was asked if he feared the Blue Jays would lose Game 3 twice, he snorted and said no way. They were down 2-0 to Seattle in the ALCS after they lost the first two games at home, remember, and they were down 3-2 when they got back to Toronto, and yet they still won. Here, they didn’t have George Springer, who hurt himself on a swing in Game 3 but, according to Barger, it just took some belief and “a lot of caffeine” to show up on Tuesday.

Guerrero accelerated that process after Freeman’s homer. He was the last person to get back to the clubhouse and he noticed the general mourning. He told the Jays to get their heads out, that he was still fairly certain it took four wins to get a championship, and if someone wanted to play some music, go ahead. Somebody did, and the palate was cleansed.

Game 3 took more out of the Dodgers, it turned out. Will Smith caught all 18 innings. That was admirable, but Smith went 0-for-4 Tuesday and is hitting .235 in the Series. Max Muncy is hitting .176, Mookie Betts .158, Andy Pages .067, Kiké Hernandez .188 and Tommy Edman .167.

Overall the Dodgers are hitting .214, and .207 with runners in scoring position, including zero extra-base hits. Such feeble production, not bullpen follies, is the main reason the Dodgers only have one full-season World Series title in Roberts’ tenure. Roberts said the lineup, which hasn’t changed in these four games, will be different in Game 5 against Trey Yesavage, with a strong hint that Edman would move to centre field, Miguel Rojas to second and Pages to the bench.

The great Ohtani is hitting .400. Yet his task on Tuesday was even beyond his reach. Pitching against this dogged Toronto lineup, on top of a game in which he was on base nine times, on top of his hitting duties? Ohtani still went six innings with six strikeouts. Even with that, and with Yamamoto’s complete game on Saturday, Dodger starters have a 4.38 ERA in the Series, and Toronto is hitting .269 against the Dodger bullpen, while its own bullpen has given up a .202 average to Los Angeles.

Bassitt is pitching out of his own shadows. He has worked three times and gotten 12 outs, with a hit and a walk. He has made 232 big-league starts over 11 years, yet this was the first time he’s pitched on consecutive days since 2013, as a member of the Class A Winston-Salem Dash in the White Sox system.

In 2023 Bassitt led the American League with 16 wins. Yet the Jays left him off the Division Series roster even though he was 11-9 in 31 starts during the season. He throws a conventional fastball about 10 percent of the time and for good reason; his average velocity is an unsafe 91 mph. But Bassitt has five other pitches, none of which are straight, and the power-hungry Dodgers have failed, so far, to get him into their sights.

Having a veteran righthander who’s willing to pitch out of the bullpen, or for that matter not pitch at all, is a luxury in an October with four playoff rounds. The Dodgers will have Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein, Monday’s rescue squad, available in Game 5. But they thought, once upon a time, that they’d have Michael Kopech or Evan Phillips or Brusdar Graterol thundering out of their bullpen from the right side. The Dodgers are envied because they can outspend their mistakes, but they can’t buy ligaments.

“We established early on that we wanted to be an old-school team,” Bassitt said. “We genuinely believe in the way we play baseball.”

Nine years of dominance have also convinced the Dodgers that they’re doing it right. When belief systems collide in a best-of-3, a World Series has a chance to live forever. Just remember that it will be decided on David’s turf. And Achilles, according to the NHL, has a lower-body injury.