To quote the late great Lee Corse from ESPN's College Gameday, 'not so fast, my friend'. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost two straight games at their home ballpark — the legendary Dodger Stadium, which has hosted oh so many iconic postseason moments — and now face a 3-2 deficit in the World Series. Two games in Toronto await them, and while they have a favorable pitching matchup with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound for Game 6, winning back-to-back contests in front of THAT crowd will not be easy.
To their credit, the Dodgers are not making excuses. When asked about the trip to the great white north after a Game 5 defeat, manager Dave Roberts did not sound distressed.
"I think there's more in there. I know there's more in there," Roberts said. "We've won two games in a row, but again, it just comes down to one game. I think that we have been in a lot of elimination games, and we found a way to get to the other side."
Blake Snell also took blame for his poor performance on Wednesday, in which he gave up back-to-back first inning home runs to Davis Schneider and then Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Will Smith and Kiké Hernandez discussed a likely response with their backs up against the wall. This Dodgers team is too talented to fade silently into the night, even in front of a Rogers Centre crowd desperate to watch their demise in-person.
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Baseball media is carrying water for the Dodgers
While the Dodgers themselves handles defeat with class, some in the media were willing to carry water for them. ESPN's Buster Olney, who quoted a rival talent evaluator (that could mean many things), pinned LA's back-to-back losses on age, and playing an 18-inning marathon on Monday.
"Seems to me that the 18-inning game took a lot more out of the Dodgers than the Blue Jays. Dodgers are the older team, so to be expected," that source told Olney.
On paper, the Dodgers have the oldest roster in baseball, at 30.5 years old on average. Players like Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman are all well over the age of 30 and have played a long season. There's no denying the mental toll that two straight long postseasons can have on a player's body. Ohtani, Betts and Freeman in particular have played over 180 games apiece this season, with Ohtani and Freeman doing so the last two years. Olney and his source are not wrong in that regard, but they instead pinned the Dodgers failures in the last two games on Monday's 18-inning classic instead. That argument has a few flaws, which we'll get to in detail.
The Blue Jays and Dodgers faced the same disadvantage in LA
Alright, let's debunk this myth once and for all. Yes, the Dodgers were forced to play a quick turnaround after throwing 10 pitchers on Monday. That included notable arms like Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw, among others. The same can be said about the Blue Jays, however, which blitzed through their entire bullpen in a losing effort. Toronto needed nine pitches to get through their 18 innings of play, and left that marathon facing a 2-1 deficit. Had they lost the next two games, this series would be over, and we'd be writing a far different story.
Most importantly, though, the Dodgers' average age cannot be used as an excuse in this instance. The Blue Jays, with an average roster age of 29.5 years old, have the second-oldest roster in all of baseball — just a half-year younger than the Dodgers. The one benefit the Jays have is that their core, led by Vlad Jr., Bo Bichette, and postseason folk hero Trey Yesavage are all younger than the Dodgers stars I previously mentioned.
But still, let's take the Dodgers pitching staff into account. Los Angeles turned to Ohtani in Game 4, who threw six innings of four-run ball. The baserunners Anthony Banda inherited from Ohtani all scored, and he gave up two more runs to boot. In Game 5, the Dodgers started the two-time Cy Young winner Snell, who on paper had a substantial edge of a rookie in Yesavage. Los Angeles signed Snell to a five-year, $182 million deal this past winter for moments like these, and he didn't deliver.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays received contributions from unlikely heroes like Yesavage, Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes, Davis Schneider and more. These are games the Dodgers should've won, or at the very least split, to take a 3-2 lead heading back to Toronto.
The Dodgers have the most-talented roster in baseball, top to bottom. While they have their fair share of weakness, such as a shoddy bullpen, there's no excuse for their failure to perform in their home ballpark on the game's greatest stage. With that in mind, let's hold off on their swan song.