Alden GonzalezOct 25, 2025, 01:52 AM ETCloseESPN 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.Follow on X
‘We don’t need you!’ Blue Jays fans troll Ohtani (0:52)’We don’t need you!’ Blue Jays fans troll Ohtani (0:52)
TORONTO — The bases were loaded with none out, Game 1 of the World Series was still tied, and a sold-out Rogers Centre crowd was going berserk when Emmet Sheehan came out of the bullpen in Friday’s sixth inning.
Sheehan is a 25-year-old with fewer than 150 career innings in the major leagues. Before that moment, he had checked into the middle of an inning only once before, while following an opener Sept. 15. What followed — a nine-run barrage that propelled the Toronto Blue Jays to an 11-4 rout in their first World Series game in 32 years — highlighted a glaring weakness the Los Angeles Dodgers carry into this final round:
“Just a tough game,” Dodgers ace Blake Snell said after recording just 15 outs, “but a lot to learn.”
On the eve of this World Series, the Dodgers learned Alex Vesia, one of their best relievers, was dealing with what the team described as a “deeply personal family matter” that would force his removal from the roster. Vesia’s absence essentially whittled down the list of trusted high-leverage relievers to four: Sheehan, Anthony Banda, Blake Treinen and Roki Sasaki. Two of them, Sheehan and Sasaki, are converted starting pitchers.
“With the construct of our pen, we’re going to need them,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a long way to go, a lot of baseball, but they certainly got to make good pitches.”
The Dodgers’ pitching staff held the Milwaukee Brewers to four runs while sweeping them in the National League Championship Series, during which they deployed only their best pitchers. Sasaki, Vesia and the Dodgers’ four starters — Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani — accounted for all but nine of the Dodgers’ outs in that series, a byproduct of their rotation’s dominance.
In this series, though, they face a Blue Jays lineup that is every bit as patient but far more powerful than Milwaukee’s. Snell, lacking his typical fastball command and struggling to locate his changeup, needed 29 pitches to escape the first inning and ran his pitch count into the triple digits before recording his first out in the sixth. In five-plus innings, he allowed eight hits and issued three walks. When he exited, the bullpen was tasked with recording 12 outs.
“We’re confident,” Snell said of a Dodgers team that entered the World Series with a 9-1 record in these playoffs. “We know how good we are. That was a tough game, and then they came out swinging it and had a better game. It’s four games. You got to win four.”
With Vesia off the roster, Evan Phillips recovering from Tommy John surgery and Michael Kopech no longer considered viable, Banda and Treinen are the only remaining back-end relievers from last year’s bullpen-fueled championship run. The two relievers signed over the offseason to supplement that group, Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates, struggled throughout the year and were not deemed healthy enough to crack the World Series roster. It’s why Treinen and Banda are so critical, even during up-and-down seasons. It’s why Sheehan, a breakout starting pitcher who has allowed seven runs in 3⅔ innings this postseason, needs to pitch better.
‘We don’t need you!’ Blue Jays fans troll Ohtani (0:52)’We don’t need you!’ Blue Jays fans troll Ohtani (0:52)
If their starters don’t pitch deep into games, they’re in trouble.
“We just didn’t make pitches when we needed to to keep that game close,” Roberts said.
“I just didn’t do a very good job of executing,” Banda said.
Before the relievers recorded just three, the game was essentially over.
‘We don’t need you!’ Blue Jays fans troll Ohtani (0:52)
CloseESPN 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.Follow on X