LOS ANGELES — A World Series game tied for the longest in history had just wrapped up and Brendon Little, who’d thrown the final pitch of the marathon contest, was confident he could quickly move past what had just happened at Dodger Stadium.
“I feel that for most baseball players, that’s kind of the whole mindset: be pissed until you leave the clubhouse, and then be ready for another day,” the Toronto Blue Jays reliever said, standing in front of his locker in the visitor’s clubhouse. “Personally, I feel like I do a good job of flushing it.”
That’s what all the Blue Jays will have to do after a heartbreaking 18-inning loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night that ended with a Freddie Freeman walk-off homer and a 6-5 decision that gives the defending champions a 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven.
Little was Toronto’s ninth pitcher of the night, and in the sixth hour and 39th minute of play, he fired a 92.4 m.p.h. sinker that Freeman sent 406 feet, up and over the centre-field wall, while the more than 50,000 Dodgers fans who’d hung in there until just shy of midnight were at last rewarded and went absolutely berserk.
After he watched the ball clear the fence and a jumping Daulton Varsho, Little took off his hat and walked off the mound and straight into the dugout.
“Really, I thought Freddie, to lay off those two cutters, especially the first one, just great plate discipline there,” Little said of that final at-bat. “The pitches kind of seemed to flatten a little bit after that.”
Little fired in a sinker for a called strike to move to a full count, but Freeman got ahold of the next pitch Little threw, and it was game over.
“It’s baseball,” said starter Kevin Gausman, who was one of just three players the Blue Jays didn’t use on Monday, since he started Game 2 (Trey Yesavage, who started Game 1, and Game 4 starter Shane Bieber were the other two who didn’t play).
“At some point there’s going to be a break in the ice and everybody did great, you know, one pitch,” Gausman added of Little. “It’s tough, but he also got some huge outs.”
In the 17th, Little came in to relieve Eric Lauer, who pitched a sparkling 4.2 innings and gave up just two hits.
“The biggest thing is just trying to obviously put up a zero to get the guys another chance to swing, but really just throw strikes for the most part, limit as much traffic on the bases as you can,” Little said of his mindset. “You don’t want to give them really any momentum.”
The 29-year-old felt he’d gained some momentum himself after the 17th inning, which saw him strike out the first batter he faced and get a quick ground out after that.
“I felt like I was locating the pitches, sinker was diving, felt like I had good command of the cutter,” Little said.
After a single, up came Shohei Ohtani, who’d hit a pair of homers and two doubles before the Blue Jays chose to intentionally walk him four straight times.
Little would get Mookie Betts to pop out to end the 17th inning, though not before he pitched to Ohtani, who he ended up walking.
“I figured he’d be kind of itching to swing the bat,” Little explained of his approach to Ohtani. “I kind of wanted to gauge that with the first curveball. He looked like he was wanting to pull the trigger, and then the two (pitches) after that weren’t competitive, really.
“In that situation, just definitely didn’t want to give up the damage that obviously I ended up giving up.”
Little did give up the final damage an inning later, but in a game that featured two seventh-inning stretches (the second one came in the 14th) and was actually two games long, there were many moments that could’ve, should’ve, would’ve ended it before that in the Blue Jays’ favour, but didn’t.
In the 10th inning, Nathan Lukes ripped a rope to right field and Davis Schneider tried to score from first, and he would’ve if he wasn’t gunned down thanks to a spectacular Dodgers relay. In the 12th, Lukes had the bases loaded with two out, and L.A. brought in three-time Cy Young winner and 11-time all-star Clayton Kershaw, the grizzled veteran who provided the biggest out of the game to that point as Lukes grounded out to second.
“I mean, we had our chances,” said third baseman Ernie Clement. “We were a couple bounces from winning that game, I think.”
“We just weren’t able to get the big hit at the end,” added second baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
Freeman was at the plate for L.A. in the 13th inning with the bases loaded and two outs, and the nine-time all-star couldn’t convert then. But he ended it five innings later in walk-off fashion, after 44 players had been in action and a total of 37 runners were left on base.
After Freeman gleefully ran the bases and was mobbed by teammates at home plate, the video boards at the ballpark flashed: “2 wins to go!” The next chance for one of those comes Tuesday in Game 4 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+).
This Blue Jays team is well versed in coming back, though this time around, they won’t have a ton of time between outings.
“We’ll probably be on the bus back here in 10 hours,” Little said just after midnight on Tuesday. “So we’ll be back here really soon.”
Monday’s Game 3 will be long flushed by then, and the focus for Little and the Blue Jays will be on evening the World Series and forcing it back home to Toronto.