If there was a team that looked like it had a hangover from Monday night’s 18-inning World Series absurdity, it was the victors.
Behind a complete performance on both offense and defense, the Toronto Blue Jays won a one-sided Game 4 6-2 on Tuesday to tie the Fall Classic against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The series is now guaranteed to go back to Toronto for Game 6 on Friday.
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Before then, a pivotal Game 5 is scheduled for Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium, with Game 1 starters Blake Snell and Trey Yesavage on track to take the mound again.
[Get more Toronto news: Blue Jays team feed]
Where is the Dodgers’ offense?
Freddie Freeman’s walk-off homer to end Game 3 made it easy to forget that the Dodgers’ offense languished for nearly 12 innings against an iffy Blue Jays bullpen on Monday. That continued Tuesday against Jays starting pitcher Shane Bieber and the survivors of Game 3’s bullpen carnage. In Game 4, the Dodgers failed to string hits together so much that they had two total at-bats with runners in scoring position before the ninth inning.
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And Shohei Ohtani, who intimidated the Blue Jays into four intentional walks (arguably five) in Game 3, started making outs again.
Bieber struggled a bit early but ultimately turned in a start precisely the length the Blue Jays needed, given what they had available in the bullpen. Mason Fluharty, Chris Bassitt and Louis Varland were three of only four Toronto relievers to throw 20 pitches or fewer on Monday, and that trio took Toronto home Tuesday.
Fluharty escaped the jam Bieber left when he exited in the sixth, getting a flyout from Max Muncy and striking out Tommy Edman. Bassitt, making the first back-to-back appearance of his 11-year career, threw two scoreless innings. And Varland finished it off with a somewhat adventurous ninth inning.
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As a team, the Dodgers are hitting .213 in this series. They’ve managed to score first in all four games — only the fourth team in World Series history to do so, and the other three all won their series in four or five games — but the offense has been empty in the middle and later innings.
“We haven’t found our rhythm,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We haven’t. It sort of draws dead at certain parts of the lineup and different parts, different innings, different games. Guys are competing. Certainly, in the postseason, you’re seeing everyone’s best.”
[Get more L.A. news: Dodgers team feed]
Shane Bieber did what the Blue Jays needed
Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young winner, was acquired at the trade deadline as essentially the market’s mystery box. One possibility was the pitcher who once looked like a burgeoning ace for the Cleveland Guardians. But he hadn’t pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery in April 2024.
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It’s safe to say the Blue Jays are happy with how that trade has worked out.
“For a guy that got here at the deadline, he fits in really well,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, get traded from the only team you’ve been with and then just have your life kind of flipped upside down in a new country and things, with a family. But he just settled in really well, and these are the spots that we acquired him for.
“It’s asking a lot of him, based on what he’s been through with the recovery from the surgery and stuff. But he’s enjoying it, and he’s embracing it, and he’s been a huge part of us getting here.”
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Bieber was ready to pitch in Game 3 if called upon, and he likely would have had Freeman not ended the game against Brendon Little. Even without pitching, Bieber said the experience energized him and left him sleeping badly over night. It ended up not mattering.
“I was definitely amped up,” he said. “You have to get yourself ready to pitch in the 19th inning of a World Series game marathon, and potentially, I was thinking about my first big-league save, and in the World Series — that would have been very cool. But very happy with how things worked out.”
Bieber’s duties might not be over. Should this series go seven games — and it’s certainly tracking that way — he’d be a prime candidate for a Game 7 relief appearance. He said he’ll be ready if it comes to that.
“It’s the World Series,” Bieber said. “I think that’s not just me; I think that’s the identity of this team. Everybody’s ready to go, and we’ll make ourselves available.”
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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. breaks through Shohei Ohtani
There was no repeat performance of Ohtani’s previous start on the mound, one of the greatest games in MLB history. This time, he was mortal — or at least, as mortal as you can be when you’re still a two-way player.
The Toronto lineup scored its runs in two spurts. The first was the louder one, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his first home run of the World Series off Ohtani to give the Blue Jays a lead in the third.
“I was just looking for a pitch to do damage,” Guerrero said through an interpreter.
The homer was Guerrero’s seventh of this postseason, making him the franchise’s all-time playoffs home run leader. Toronto was hoping to read something resembling that sentence when it gave him a $500 million extension going into this season.
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The second spurt of runs was more productive. Daulton Varsho and Ernie Clement chased Ohtani in the seventh inning with back-to-back hits to open the frame, and then the hits just kept coming against the Dodgers’ bullpen.
Anthony Banda allowed two runs to come in but at least got two outs. Blake Treinen, basically the only non-gassed right-hander in the L.A. bullpen, was the one who allowed the game to get out of hand, surrendering RBI singles to Bo Bichette and Addison Barger on back-to-back pitches after an intentional walk of Guerrero.
“It was a Blue Jay inning,” Schneider said. “Varsh, Ernie, and then you kind of went to work.”
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Ohtani’s final line: 6-plus innings, 6 hits, 4 runs (all earned), 1 walk and 6 strikeouts, plus 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts at the plate. If he was exhausted from nine plate appearances and nine times on the basepaths Monday, he didn’t say so afterward.
“I was able to get on the mound in pretty good condition,” Ohtani said via interpreter when asked if he felt as he normally does before starts.
However Game 5 works out, the Blue Jays can look forward to ending this series in Toronto.
And even if the Dodgers take Game 5, well, this team knows a thing or two about overcoming a 3-2 deficit at home.
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World Series Game 4 live updatesLive coverage is over104 updatesTue, October 28, 2025 at 8:17 PM EDT
Jack Baer
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 11:09 PM EDT
Rogers Centre should be electric on Friday.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 11:06 PM EDT
Varland did not appear comfortable there at all, but he got it done.
Call flies out to left field, and that’s Game 4. This series is tied.
Game 5 begins at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday at Dodger Stadium. Game 6 is Friday in Toronto.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 11:05 PM EDT
Varland steps off too many times, and Muncy gets third base.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 11:03 PM EDT
The other Hernandez strikes out, and that’s two down in the ninth.
The Dodgers are down to their final out. It’ll be up to Alex Call.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 11:01 PM EDT
Edman grounds out to third base. Teoscar scores.
That’s one out down and one run in. It’s 6-2 Blue Jays with one on and one out.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:58 PM EDT
Louis Varland is pitching for Toronto now. He surrenders a walk to Teoscar Hernandez leading off.
Quickly followed by a double from Max Muncy. The Dodgers are making noise in the ninth.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:54 PM EDT
Varsho strikes out, and that’ll do it for the Jays.
The Dodgers are down to their last three outs to tie this game. The Jays are three outs away from tying the series and guaranteeing a Game 6 in Toronto.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:52 PM EDT
Addison Barger strikes out for out No. 2, and then Kirk is intentionally walked.
Two on, two outs for Dreyer.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:51 PM EDT
Bichette grounds out, moving Vlad to second.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:48 PM EDT
Vlad Jr. knocks a single for his 26th hit in this postseason, which ties Pablo Sandoval for second-most ever in a single postseason.
That was leading off the top of the ninth for the Jays.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:44 PM EDT
Will Smith grounds into a double play, and that’s the end of the eighth inning.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:43 PM EDT
Freeman strikes out, and the Jays need five more outs to tie this series.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:41 PM EDT
Mookie leads off the bottom of the eighth with a single off Bassitt, and the Dodger Stadium crowd is suddenly reenergized.
Tue, October 28, 2025 at 10:37 PM EDT
IKF grounds out, advancing the runners, but then Myles Straw strikes out to end the threat.
Jack Baer
Ernie Clement slides into first to beat Jack Dreyer to the bag after a diving play by Freddie Freeman, then Dreyer hits Andres Gimenez. The Blue Jays have two on with one out as Isiah Kiner-Falefa comes to the plate.
Jack Baer
Much more like his NLDS start than his NLCS start.
Jack Baer
Ohtani grounds out to end the seventh inning. Six more outs for the Blue Jays bullpen to protect a five-run lead.
Left-hander Jack Dreyer gets the eighth inning for the Dodgers.
Jack Baer
The story of this game is pretty simple so far. The Blue Jays strung together hits against the Dodgers bullpen (with a big fly against Shohei Ohtani) and the Dodgers didn’t against Shane Bieber and the survivors of last night’s bullpen carnage.
Here comes Ohtani with two outs.
Jack Baer
After a Kiké Hernández groundout, the Dodgers pinch hit Andy Pages for Alex Call, like they did last night.
Jack Baer
Chris Bassitt is in for the Blue Jays. This is his first appearance in back-to-back games of his 11-year career.