The Toronto Blue Jays are preparing to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6 at Rogers Centre on Friday night with a chance to win their first World Series title in more than three decades.<\/p>\n
Game 6 will feature the same starters as Game 2. The Blue Jays will be giving the ball to Kevin Gausman, while the Dodgers will send Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the mound.<\/p>\n
Both pitchers were dealing for seven innings until Gausman gave up home runs to break the tie. Yamamoto threw a complete game, only giving up one run on four hits.<\/p>\n
Thursday is an off day for the two teams, who are now back in Toronto to close out the World Series.<\/p>\n
With a 3-2 series lead, Toronto has two chances to bring back the Commissioner\u2019s Trophy north of the border.<\/p>\n
Blue Jays manager John Schneider held a media availability this afternoon ahead of Game 6. Here\u2019s what he said.<\/p>\n
Yamamoto vs Gausman<\/p>\n
Schneider anticipates a fun rematch tomorrow between the two pitchers. He reiterated that the team is confident in sending Gausman to the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Kev\u2019s outing kind of got overlooked because Yamamoto was so good in Game 2. Kev kind of matched him pitch for pitch there until the seventh,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou kind of think of it as an old-school pitcher\u2019s duel about to happen, but you never know how it\u2019s going to unfold.\u201d <\/p>\n
Schneider called Gausman \u201cour guy,\u201d pitching during important games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got all the confidence in the world in Kev,\u201d the Jays manager said. \u201cHe\u2019s pitched in big games before, postseason, regular season. He\u2019s always consistent. I love handing him the ball tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schneider on game plan vs. Yamamoto<\/p>\n
The Jays manager called the Japanese pitcher \u201cunique\u201d for throwing different kinds of pitches to get outs.<\/p>\n
Schneider said his players have to be stubborn when facing Yamamoto tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be ready to hit, and you have to be stubborn with what kind of swings you\u2019re taking, that\u2019s what it comes down to. He\u2019s not a guy you can kind of wait out. He\u2019s going to pound the zone, so sometimes you got to force some action on him, if he\u2019s going really well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Jays manager shared that the staff would get feedback from the players and formulate a plan to attack Yamamoto. He is hopeful that after facing Yamamoto in Game 2, the players will have a better approach tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s always easier when you actually see a guy and kind of feel what his stuff is playing like, and kind of what it does in comparison to other guys you\u2019ve faced. The delivery is a little unique, obviously, and there\u2019s some deception there, but that\u2019s about it,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n
Schneider on Blake Snell\u2019s post-game comments<\/p>\n
When asked if he wanted to respond to Blake Snell\u2019s comments following Game 5, Schneider said, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Snell said the Blue Jays \u201cdidn\u2019t really get to me.\u201d He added that he was just unlucky that his first pitch against Schneider left the ballpark. As for the home run he gave up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Snell said it was a bad pitch. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not the one to make excuses or anything close to that, but it\u2019s pretty unlucky,\u201d Snell said.<\/p>\n
Schneider pointed out that the Blue Jays led the league in hitting this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we really made him work. He\u2019s a great pitcher, and I\u2019m worried about tomorrow. Game six here. Yamamoto\u2019s an even tougher task,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Schneider on Springer\u2019s availability for Game 6<\/p>\n
The Jays manager says he is glad that he did not have to use George Springer in Game 5 to give him more days to recover after being injured in Game 3.<\/p>\n
Asked what Springer needs to do so he could be in the lineup tomorrow, Schneider said, \u201cnot many.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just making sure he feels comfortable and confident tomorrow. Not just for one at-bat — to go in and compete and kind of get locked into a game,\u201d he said, \u201cSo, he\u2019s kind of checked every box physically so far. So see how tomorrow goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schneider looking forward to see Rogers Centre crowd<\/p>\n
Schneider says he is looking forward to seeing the Blue Jays faithful at the Rogers Centre tomorrow. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to be back here, you know what I mean, and sleep in your own bed. But I can\u2019t wait to see what this place is like tomorrow,\u201d the manager said.<\/p>\n
He added that the team has seen videos of the watch parties at the dome for the past three games.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever seen anything like that. Never seen a watch party like that. I\u2019m just, I\u2019m excited as hell to see what this place is like tomorrow. The guys are, too. They\u2019re talking about it as well. We can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Vibe is good\u2019<\/p>\n
When asked about what was the vibe in the clubhouse with the team up 3-2 in the World Series, Schneider said, \u201c I was impressed with just kind of the back and forth that was happening and not getting too high and kind of getting ready to get on the bus and get on a plane and come back here and get ready to play. So, the vibe was good, but it was nothing different than what it usually has been this season.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shared that he told his wife that he is calm after everything that happened the past three days, including the 18-inning game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just like, all right, put on your headphones, watch a movie, have a beer, and kind of just chill. So it was a normal plane ride,\u201d Schneider said. As for what he watched, it was \u201cDen of Thieves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Blue Jays are preparing to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6 at Rogers Centre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[712,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-251032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251032","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=251032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}