LOS ANGELES \u2014 The best way for the Los Angeles Dodgers to win this World Series, the thinking went, was to use their bullpen as little as possible. They would lean on starters and use relievers as a last resort.<\/p>\n
In the 12th inning of Game 3 on Monday, only the last resort remained. Seven relievers had already handled the Toronto Blue Jays, leaving two rookie right-handers, Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein. They had collected a combined zero outs in the National League playoffs and were the final names added to the World Series roster.<\/p>\n
So as Clayton Kershaw sliced his way through a bases-loaded jam in the 12th, using seven sliders and one 92-mph fastball, his hardest of the season \u2014 \u201cI throw gas now,\u201d Kershaw said, smiling \u2014 it was time for a pep talk from the bullpen support staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of pulled everybody together and said, \u2018Hey, no matter what happens, what it\u2019s going to look like, in whatever situation you\u2019re going to go in, we trust you guys,\u2019\u2009\u201d said Evan Phillips, the injured Dodgers reliever who spent most of the game in the bullpen.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust making sure that message was clear and giving them some confidence before they went out there, I think, was huge. They were more than ready for this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henriquez worked two shutout innings, and then Klein followed with four more. The Blue Jays managed one infield single off Klein, who had never thrown more than two innings or 36 pitches. He doubled both figures in one of the most unlikely star turns in World Series history, leading the Dodgers to a 6-5 victory in 18 innings and a 2-1 series lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill went four innings tonight, filled up the strike zone, competed his tail off,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said. \u201cAnd in the postseason, people talk about the superstars, but a lot of times it\u2019s these unsung heroes that you just can\u2019t expect, and guys come to pass and pop. Tonight was Will Klein\u2019s night, and what Edgardo did was just as paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least, Henriquez had a bit more of a profile. He pitched in three games last October and another in the wild-card round against the Cincinnati Reds. He was the hardest thrower of the 19 pitchers in Game 3, firing nine pitches over 100 mph.<\/p>\n
Klein has struggled to establish himself. He pitched eight games last season for the Kansas City Royals and Oakland A\u2019s, with an 11.05 ERA, and spent most of this season in Triple A, first for the Seattle Mariners before a trade to Los Angeles. He was solid in 14 games with the Dodgers but mostly followed his usual pattern: lots of strikeouts and lots of walks.<\/p>\n
In Game 3, he was another kind of pitcher altogether, pouring in strikes, challenging the hitters, even snagging a pop-up and line drive. When he lost the strike zone in the 18th inning \u2014 walking two, throwing a wild pitch and falling behind Tyler Heineman with two outs \u2014 he found a way to escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started to feel it,\u201d Klein said. \u201cThere were times when you\u2019re starting to feel down and you feel your legs aren\u2019t there or your arm\u2019s not there, and you\u2019ve just got to be like, \u2018Well, who else is going to come save me, you know?\u2019 So I had to dig deep, do it myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd hearing our guys in the dugout and the fans kind of come behind me, especially with Will (Smith) calling that last curveball, I was like, \u2018All right, cool, let\u2019s do it.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n
The curveball finished off Heineman and ended Klein\u2019s night. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who went the distance to win Game 2 on Sunday, was warming up and Roberts said he would have pitched the 19th. Instead, Freddie Freeman connected in the 399th minute of the game to win it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill Klein,\u201d Freeman said later, admiringly. \u201cMVP of this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dodgers set a record for most pitchers in a World Series game, with 10. The nine relievers combined to allow one run (off Blake Treinen) in 13 \u2153 innings. Anthony Banda, Justin Wrobleski, Jack Dreyer, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, Kershaw, Henriquez and Klein all blanked the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
The way the Dodgers had designed it, a different cast was supposed to get those outs. However, Alex Vesia, a trusted lefty, was dropped from the roster to deal with a serious personal issue. Lockdown veterans like Phillips, Michael Kopech, Kirby Yates and Tanner Scott are all injured.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bullpen kind of ends up being the island of misfit toys at times,\u201d said Phillips, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery. \u201cIt\u2019s a long season. Things can happen that are unpredictable. The Vesia situation is weighing on our hearts heavily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without Vesia, Roberts called for Banda and Wrobleski as the first lefties out of the bullpen on Monday, after Tyler Glasnow left in the fifth. As the night wore on, their work was erased \u2013 literally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pitched the game and then I look up at the scoreboard and the innings that I pitched are no longer on the scoreboard,\u201d Wrobleski said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the craziest thing: when you look up and those innings aren\u2019t there anymore, it\u2019s a little weird.\u201d<\/p>\n
The night was more than a little weird for the relievers, who are not used to having so much game remaining after they finish up. They did whatever they could to bend karma their way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had, like, a whole game after I came out,\u201d said Dreyer, who got an out in the eighth. \u201cI did some recovery stuff, but then me and the rest of the guys on the bench were trying to figure out how to get rallies going. I ate a steak in (the clubhouse) at some point. We changed jerseys, we changed shirts, we did all kinds of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nothing worked as well as the last man in the bullpen doing double the work he had ever done in the majors. Klein guessed that he hadn\u2019t pitched four innings since his junior year at Eastern Illinois in 2020. He was tired, clearly, but couldn\u2019t quantify how much.<\/p>\n
His mind made his moment possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust pure adrenaline,\u201d Klein said. \u201cI (just) had that thought in my mind that we weren\u2019t going to lose that game. So each time I went out and I felt my legs were tired, I\u2019m like, \u2018Well, who cares? No one else is going to care that my legs are tired right now. The hitter doesn\u2019t care, so why should I?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd just finding it in me to throw one more pitch, and then throw another one after that. And then sitting down and getting back up, the same thought going back out there for the next one: putting up a zero, we\u2019re not losing this game.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s kind of what got me through it \u2014 and then, yeah, Freddie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Freeman, a superstar, sent them all home. That is what he does. But 72 pitches and four pristine innings? That is not what Klein does. However, he did it in the World Series, and his teammates know what that means.<\/p>\n
Said Yates: \u201cWill Klein cemented himself here forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Additional reporting by The Athletic\u2019s Fabian Ardaya and Ken Rosenthal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The best way for the Los Angeles Dodgers to win this World Series, the thinking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,487,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-245693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}