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Alden GonzalezNov 1, 2025, 01:41 AM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.<\/p>\n TORONTO — With everything on the line Saturday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> plan to start Shohei Ohtani<\/a> on short rest in Game 7. A final decision had not been made as of late Friday night, but the team is leaning in that direction.<\/p>\n Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said in a news conference after his team’s 3-1, season-saving win in Game 6<\/a> that every pitcher except Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> will be available.<\/p>\n That includes Tyler Glasnow<\/a>, who was lined up to start Game 7 but came out of the bullpen to record the final three outs in Friday’s Game 6. It includes Roki Sasaki<\/a>, who faced seven batters. And it includes Ohtani, whose easiest path to pitching has always been to open the game, rather than coming out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Ohtani pitched six innings and threw 93 pitches in Game 4 and would be taking the mound on three days’ rest. Ohtani has previously made one start on three days’ rest, but that was after completing only two innings in a prior start in 2023. Every other major league start for Ohtani has come on five or six days’ rest.<\/p>\n Because of the two-way rule, though, starting Ohtani ensures he can remain in the game as the designated hitter after he exits as a pitcher. If he were to come in as a reliever and then exit with the game ongoing, Ohtani would have to play in the outfield to bat again. Closing the game — like he did to finish the 2023 World Baseball Classic for his native Japan — is also an option, but it is further complicated by having to juggle warming up while batting or running the bases.<\/p>\n The Blue Jays will start Max Scherzer<\/a> in Game 7 and, to some extent, have every pitcher available other than Kevin Gausman<\/a>. That includes 22-year-old phenom Trey Yesavage<\/a>, who dominated the Dodgers in Wednesday’s Game 5, striking out 12 while throwing seven innings of one-run ball. Saturday would have qualified as Yesavage’s bullpen day. Instead, he could pitch the decisive game of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n “If the people who make the decision think it’s a good idea for the team,” Yesavage said, “then I’m all for it.”<\/p>\n ESPN’s Jeff Passan contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alden GonzalezNov 1, 2025, 01:41 AM ET CloseESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-254010","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-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254010","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=254010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}