In the previous piece, we broke down both clubs’ lineup choices, the starters’ outings, and the Dodgers’ bullpen as a unit.
This Part 2/3 continues with the Blue Jays’ relief pitching, then takes a deeper look at each side’s offense, baserunning decisions, and defensive steadiness to reconstruct the details and turning points behind this marathon.

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5️⃣ Blue Jays bullpen: game-by-game review
Bottom 5th, Toronto made its first pitching move, lifting starter Max Scherzer after 79 pitches just after he’d faced two batters. The key consideration: Shohei Ohtani had already stung him twice for extra-base hits; the staff didn’t want Scherzer (a righty) seeing the left-handed Ohtani a third time. Pulling him signaled confidence in the pen and a risk-management mindset in the middle innings.

68 Mason Fluharty (LHP)

First out of the gate was young lefty Mason Fluharty. He’s been outstanding vs LHB this year (.182 BA, .607 OPS, 33.3% K). The intent was obvious: neutralize Shohei.
It didn’t land. Ohtani ripped an RBI double, cutting the lead to 4–3. Fluharty then got Mookie Betts to fly out to left, but Freddie Freeman (another lefty) punched a single to right to tie it 4–4—Toronto’s lead gone in a blink.
With cleanup hitter Will Smith (RHB) due, the Jays went to a righty—Louis Varland—playing the platoon and aiming to stop the momentum.

77 Louis Varland (RHP)

Workhorse Louis Varland (11 appearances in Toronto’s first 13 postseason games, an 84.62% usage rate) faced Smith and froze him for a strikeout to end the fraught frame.
He stayed on for the bottom of the 6th against Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernández, and Tommy Edman (Muncy and switch-hitting Edman both batting left). Varland fanned Muncy to start. Teoscar singled; Edman flew out to left. Then Kiké Hernández singled to push Teoscar to second; Teoscar tried to take third on inattentive defense and was thrown out to end the inning.

48 Seranthony Domínguez (RHP)

Bottom 7th, the “A-group” righty Seranthony Domínguez came in for the 9-1-2 hitters (Andy Pages, Ohtani, Betts).
He induced a routine fly to right from Pages—then left a pitch up to Ohtani, who crushed a solo HR to left-center to tie it 5–5. That went down as a blown save.
Domínguez didn’t unravel: he blew a heater by Betts for strike three, then walked Freeman and Smith back-to-back. He regrouped to get Muncy to roll over to second (4–3) and escaped further damage.

40 Chris Bassitt (RHP)

Bottom 8th, the Jays turned to veteran starter-turned-postseason-reliever Chris Bassitt, who’d thrown 3.2 scoreless innings this October (0.00 ERA).
He faced Teoscar Hernández, Tommy Edman, Kiké Hernández—1-2-3, two flies and a strikeout (Kiké). A classic starter’s calm in relief, and a momentum snuffer as the game pushed to the tense 9th.

23 Jeff Hoffman (RHP)

Bottom 9th, the ball went to closer Jeff Hoffman. He’d stumbled in G2 (0.2 IP, 1 R; team lost 1–5), but manager John Schneider stuck with the 2025 stalwart.
Quick aside: despite sharing a surname and role with Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman, Jeff Hoffman is not related.
Task: top of LA’s order. He got Andy Pages to pop up to shallow right for the first out. With Ohtani a blazing 4-for-4 (all XBH) to that point, Toronto issued an intentional walk and challenged Betts next.
The plan paid off—Ohtani was caught stealing by Alejandro Kirk for a massive second out, and Betts fouled to right to send it to extras.
Bottom 10th, Hoffman stayed on for Freeman–Smith–Muncy. He got Freeman to pop to third, then hit Smith with a 3–1 pitch (one on, one out; Smith as the potential walk-off run). Hoffman tightened up, struck out Muncy, then Teoscar laced a firm single to left—two on, two out. Hoffman jammed Tommy Edman with a riding fastball; Edman flared foul to first, caught to end it. Two scoreless frames against the teeth of the order—wobbly at moments, but clutch.

63 Braydon Fisher (RHP)

Bottom 11th, setup man Braydon Fisher drew the 8-9-1 spots. He retired Kiké Hernández and Andy Pages quickly. With Ohtani looming, Toronto again went intentional walk (his second IBB of the night). Betts followed with a single (two on, two out), but Fisher dotted an inner-edge cutter to tie up Freeman for a flyout to left and another escape.
Bottom 12th, Fisher struck out Will Smith with four-seamers away and sliders. With Max Muncy up, Toronto avoided the RHP-vs-LHB look: Fisher out, Eric Lauer (LHP) in.

56 Eric Lauer (LHP)

(At the top of the 12th, the text notes a swap from “Masoj Fluharty” to Varland vs Will Smith—clearly referring to earlier matchups; Varland did retire Smith.)
Back to the 12th: the Jays specifically matched the lefty Lauer on Muncy. Lauer’s command and mix were crisp—he induced two infield popups (Muncy, Teoscar) to snuff the threat.
13th: Tommy Edman opened with a liner to center for a double. Miguel Rojas (for Kiké) executed a perfect sac bunt to third—runner on third, one out. Alex Call (for Andy Pages) pinch-hit and lifted a shallow flare to short for out two. Toronto then intentionally walked Ohtani and Betts back-to-back to load the bases and preserve the LHP-vs-LHB edge on Freeman. Lauer won it—medium fly to center, inning over.
14th: Will Smith retired, Muncy walked, Teoscar singled—two on, one out. Lauer elevated the heater and paired sliders to retire Edman and Rojas. Still tied.
15th: Alex Call grounded out; the Jays issued Ohtani’s fourth IBB of the game. Lauer then got Betts and Freeman to consecutive flyouts—breezy finish.
16th: Lauer was still nails: Smith and Muncy struck out in succession, Teoscar flied to right. Nine up, nine down across the 14th–16th except for that brief traffic—dominant long relief.
Final line: From the 12th through the bottom of the 16th, Eric Lauer worked 4.2 scoreless (68 pitches; 45 strikes, 66.17% strike rate), 2 K, 4 BB (3 were intentional). He blanked LA’s heart of the order and bought Toronto critical innings—one of the true heroes of the Jays’ extended stand.

54 Brendon Little (LHP)

Bottom 17th, ninth pitcher Brendon Little took over for the lower third. He K’d Edman on a foul tip and got Rojas 6–3. Alex Call singled. With Ohtani up (already four walks), Toronto chose to pitch to him—but still nibbled; Ohtani drew his fifth walk and was 9-for-9 reaching base on the night. Betts then popped to first; another hold.
Bottom 18th, Freeman led off. He’d been 1-for-6 but didn’t press. At full count, Little left a sinker middle-middle; Freeman crushed it to straightaway center. Daulton Varsho chased, but the ball cleared the wall for a walk-off HR.
After 6:39 of baseball and a parade of pitchers and chess moves, Freeman’s swing ended a classic: Dodgers 6, Blue Jays 5.

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6️⃣ Offense: how both lineups fared
Blue Jays — lineup & output
Starting order: Compared with G2, only small tweaks. Bo Bichette returned to the lineup as DH and cleanup (wRC+ 134 in the season). He’d just come back from injury (no G2 start) but was cleared for a full role. Alejandro Kirk slid from 4th to 6th, Ernie Clement dropped from 6th to 8th. 1–3, 5, 9 stayed the same, signaling strong faith in the core.
Production: Across 18 offensive half-innings, Toronto tallied 15 hits and 5 runs—not a light night. But they went 2-for-12 with RISP and stranded 19. That poor conversion kept them from stretching leads.
The top of the 4th was their model frame: one out, runners on the corners, Alejandro Kirk launched a 3-run HR to right, flipping 0–2 to 3–2. Addison Barger and Andrés Giménez followed with singles to set up first-and-third, then Giménez delivered a sac fly for run #4.
Top 7th: with two outs, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette singled. Bichette’s knock to the right side wasn’t deep, and Teoscar Hernández took a beat to gather—Guerrero Jr. scored from first to make it 5–4. Bichette, perhaps cautious on the leg, did not take second.
Quality of contact: Toronto’s Hard-Hit Rate was just 20.4%, far below LA’s 36.5% (19 hard-hit balls for LA vs 11 for Toronto). That quality gap limited sustained rallies.
The top four—Springer, Lukes, Guerrero Jr., Bichette—combined for only three hard-hit balls. George Springer struck out twice in three trips and later exited with an abdominal strain (recurrence). The next three each managed one hard-hit ball, but overall underdelivered given their PAs.
Standouts: Alejandro Kirk (batting 6th) was Toronto’s offensive MVP: the go-ahead 3-run blast, two hard-hit balls, two walks—discipline and impact. In the 12th, Toronto pinch-ran Heineman for Kirk to chase the go-ahead run; it didn’t cash, and it ended Kirk’s night—an unfortunate tradeoff.
Daulton Varsho (5th) also produced: 2-for-6 with 2 walks (on base 4 times in 8 trips). The 5–6 tandem of Varsho–Kirk was Toronto’s most reliable engine.
At the bottom, Addison Barger (7th) went 2-for-4 with a hard-hit ball, providing tail-end traffic. Myles Straw (late defense) went 0-for-4 with one well-struck ball—limited impact. Ernie Clement (8th) struggled: 1-for-8, a key weak link between the middle and the bottom.
Andrés Giménez (9th) was better than the line (1-for-6): he logged a sac fly RBI (4th) and two hard-hit balls (with 3 Ks), steadying the 9-spot while playing clean defense.
Dodgers — lineup & output
Starting order: The same nine as G1 and G2; only a subtle shuffle:
• 1–4 and 9 unchanged.
• 5–8 saw two swaps: Muncy/Teoscar and Edman/Kiké pairs flipped.
Even with a team slash of .185 / .622 OPS through two games (vs Toronto’s .277 / .764), the Dodgers kept their core intact—betting on structure, run prevention, and latent thump.
Production: LA racked up 16 hits and 6 runs, but like Toronto, the clutch wasn’t crisp: 2-for-14 with RISP (.143; Toronto .167) and 18 left on base. Plenty of traffic, not enough conversion.
Quality of contact: LA’s 36.5% hard-hit rate (19 hard-hit balls) dwarfed Toronto’s 20.4% (11). Even so, it didn’t translate efficiently because of situational execution and Toronto’s targeted avoidance tactics late (especially four IBBs to Ohtani).
Shohei Ohtani was otherworldly: 9 plate appearances, 9 times on base. In regulation alone he posted 4 XBH (2 HR, 2 2B) with 3 RBI—all scorched. He also drew 5 walks (4 intentional), a live demonstration of tactical gravity: sometimes the book says “don’t let him swing.”
The most explicit case came bottom 15th: with Eric Lauer in, Toronto back-to-back IBB’d Ohtani and Betts with one out to face the lefty Freeman—a high-wire choice that reflected supreme respect for the Ohtani–Betts tandem and confidence in the LHP/LHB edge.
In Ohtani’s 9th PA (vs Brendon Little, LHP), Toronto finally pitched to him rather than IBB, but the plan was still “avoid the nitro zone”—lots of chase-inducing shapes; Ohtani still walked for the fifth time.
Mookie Betts—hitting second—had a rough night, weakening the linkage behind Shohei. He went 1-for-8; the lone hit (15th-inning seeing-eye grounder) carried an xBA of .460—his only swing with normal-quality contact. His other seven balls in play all had xBA < .05, with only one hard-hit ball total. That slump empowered Toronto’s willingness to pitch around Shohei and challenge Mookie.
Even so, Freddie Freeman (3rd) and the lower half kept pressure on. Freeman went 2-for-7, including the 5th-inning game-tying ground-ball single (80.2 mph, not hard-hit) and the walk-off solo HR in the 18th—clutch over aesthetics.
Down-order support mattered: Teoscar Hernández (batting 6th) was one of the night’s stars—a solo HR (2nd inning) and four hard-hit balls. Tommy Edman (7th) and Kiké Hernández (8th) didn’t slug but each logged two hard-hit balls to keep innings alive.
On the downside, Will Smith (4th) had just one hard-hit ball after starring in G2; Max Muncy (5th) had none; Andy Pages (9th) had five balls in play, all of poor quality. Hence the paradox: 16 hits, 19 hard-hit balls, 18 LOB, 2-for-14 RISP—why it took 18 to win.

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7️⃣ Baserunning: hidden levers
An 18-inning game magnifies everything between the lines. Statcast “Spd” (speed score) had LA at 1.6 vs Toronto’s 0.6—a +1.0 edge reflecting more aggressive, successful movement—and the Jays’ miscues.
Early miscue (Top 2nd): With a 1–3 count, Bo Bichette at first got a premature jump anticipating ball four. Tyler Glasnow threw a high-outside sinker—off the plate—but HP ump Mark Wegner called it a strike. Bichette froze, didn’t scramble back, and was thrown out in a 2–6–3 rundown. Understandable shock, but ABS isn’t here until 2026; the play isn’t reviewable, and the game keeps moving. The out killed a budding frame.
Later miscue: With one out, Isiah Kiner-Falefa (IKF) on first and Daulton Varsho batting, Varsho lined one toward first. Freddie Freeman didn’t secure it cleanly, the ball popped out, and Tommy Edman scooped and fired to third. IKF had committed blindly to third without reading the play and was gunned down. A pause-and-see secondary lead might have saved the out.
Aggressive but right (Toronto): With two outs and Davis Schneider (running for Ty France) on first, Nathan Lukes singled to right. Schneider (Spd 3.4) chugged home for the go-ahead try, but Teoscar’s hose to the middle infield set up Edman, who fired a laser to the plate for the tag. Not a judgment blunder—just elite execution from LA’s OF-to-middle-to-home relay.
Dodgers plus play: Freddie Freeman’s stolen base in the 3rd (two outs, 1–2/2–2 count on Will Smith) against Scherzer/Kirk was textbook opportunism. Freeman’s Spd 3.7 isn’t burner territory, but he’s a skilled reader with a history (6-for-8 this year; 23 SB in 2023). Micro-edges still matter.
Dodgers miss (Bottom 6th): With two outs and Teoscar on first, Kiké Hernández hit a chopper deep in the six-hole. Andrés Giménez couldn’t get the out at first; Teoscar tried to take third after a mid-sprint hesitation and was thrown out on a sharp relay by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Aggressive, but the hesitation spiked the risk.
Shohei’s “toe-off” out: Bottom 9th in a 5–5 game, Ohtani stole second cleanly—but a slo-mo review showed his trailing foot lifted off the bag by a whisker as IKF kept the tag. In the replay era, that micro-pop-off is a live risk—costing LA a prime late chance.
Net: LA’s speed and detail were a quiet edge; Toronto’s lapses burned real win probability.

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8️⃣ Defense: timely execution and two costly LA errors
Both defenses repeatedly showed playoff-grade urgency—clean back-ups, quick/accurate throws, and key outs that blunted innings. Several sequences flipped run expectancy on their head—third-base kill shots, OF-to-home cuts, and tags between bags.
Dodgers’ two errors were the notable blemishes:
• Top 4th, no outs, man on first (Guerrero Jr.) — Tommy Edman misplayed a routine roller at second; the ball leaked to the outfield. The Jays cashed four in the inning; two were unearned against Glasnow.
• Top 8th — Mookie Betts, playing short, air-mailed a throw on Addison Barger’s grounder. The inning threatened to tilt but LA stitched it back together.
Overall, Toronto’s glove work had the slight edge. Even so, LA stabilized late and ultimately rode Freeman’s solo blast to break the deadlock and seal it.

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(Next up)
That wraps 2025 World Series G3 Postgame Breakdown — Part 2/3. We compared baserunning and defense and how tiny edges compounded over 18 innings.
Part 3/3 will turn to each staff’s managing logic, probable G4 starters and lineup tweaks, plus an updated series outlook.
Stay tuned—this World Series keeps evolving in real time.

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Sources
MLB.com · FanGraphs · Google · Wikipedia · Baseball Savant · Yahoo News · CNA (Central News Agency)