Game 3 of the 2025 World Series is going to be one of those that we tell our grandkids about. We'll certainly be telling anyone who'll listen once we wake up in the morning. This game tied the World Series record by lasting 18 thrilling, excruciating innings, and though there were many heroes who got the game to that point, the man of the (very late) hour was a familiar one as Freddie Freeman walked it off with a homer to dead center.
This game had it all. Multiple runners were thrown out at both third and home. Tommy Edman made a costly error early, then transformed into prime Ozzie Smith from that point forward. Both bullpens, maligned as the weak points of their respective teams, sparkled as they posted matching zeroes from the 8th inning until the game finally ended in the 18th. Clayton Kershaw came in with the bases loaded and two outs in the 12th and got what has to be the biggest out of his career, and yet his name will be thought of only after Freeman and previously unknown Will Klein is mentioned.
It was a record-setting kind of night. The Dodgers used 10 different pitchers, more than any team in history, and they had Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who had just pitched his second consecutive complete game two days ago, warming up to pitch the 19th. Shohei Ohtani reached base nine times.
The story of the first seven innings was Ohtani, who at this point couldn't surprise us if he knocked the cover off the ball like Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez in The Sandlot. The two-way superstar is rewriting the record books every time he takes the field. He hit three home runs and struck out 10 batters just 11 days ago, and in this game he hit two more homers and two doubles in his first four at-bats.
I can't imagine a batter has ever been intentionally walked to lead off a game, let alone a World Series game, so I'll give Blue Jays manager John Schneider and starting pitcher Max Scherzer a pass for going after him in the 1st inning. After that, I can't comprehend what would possess anyone to challenge this man. This is like handing a knife to Michael Myers, when instead you should be getting the hell out of Haddonfield.
The Blue Jays lost Game 3 long before Freddie Freeman's 18th inning walk-off
The Dodgers produced one run and five hits that didn't involve Ohtani through the game's first nine innings, yet they forced extras thanks to the damage Ohtani did in those first four at-bats. From where I'm standing, that's unforgivable. Long gone are his struggles from the Phillies series when he went just 1-18. From the moment he cracked a Scherzer curveball, the second pitch he saw, for a ground rule double, Schneider should have realized that he was in a fight that he couldn't hope to win unless he walked the one man capable of taking over this series, and walked him every single time. Instead, Ohtani flexed all over his team.
Schneider finally wised up in the 9th inning, but by then it was too late, we just didn't know it yet. Ohtani is undoubtedly the best player on the Dodgers, and in the history of the known universe, come to think of it, but the Dodgers are a juggernaut because they also have at least two future Hall of Famers hitting right after him. Mookie Betts has been one of the best players in baseball for the past decade. Freeman has been incredible for even longer than that, and he showed his clutchness with his walk-off Game 1 grand slam against the Yankees last year and his matching walk-off tonight. You still have to take your chances with them instead of a red-hot, world-destroying monster like Ohtani.
In extra innings, it always felt like the Dodgers would find a way to win, even though the Jays were smart to never let Ohtani swing the bat in his final five plate appearances. Toronto's lineup was running on fumes by that point, as George Springer had exited with an oblique injury in the 7th and Alejandro Kirk had been taken out for a pinch runner in the 12th. Kirk could have been the hero thanks to his three-run, go-ahead homer in the 4th, but Ohtani ruined that by driving in a run with his second double of the game and then scoring the tying run in the 5th, then mashing his second homer, an oppo bomb off of Seranthony Dominguez, to even the score again in the 7th.
In every sport, you do what you can to take away your opponent's strengths. Football coaches double-team the opposing team's star receiver. Boxers did whatever they could to avoid Joe Frazier's left hook. Smart basketball teams put Shaquille O'Neal on the free throw line rather than let him dunk all over them.
Ohtani is dunking all over the Blue Jays, and Toronto keeps letting him get in the paint. Now they're down 2-1 and need Shane Bieber to pitch the game of his life on Tuesday night. Ohtani will be taking the ball for the Dodgers, because why not? The man is inevitable.
The Blue Jays very well may lose Game 4 and eventually, the series, but if they want any chance at all to win their first ring since Joe Carter skipped around the bases in 1993, they'll follow the same strategy they employed from the 9th inning onward: Do not pitch to Shohei Ohtani under any circumstances.