Bradford DoolittleOct 28, 2025, 08:00 AM ETCloseMLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013
LOS ANGELES — Even before Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had time to really process his team’s historic 6-5, 18-inning World Series Game 3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays, his mind was already starting to spin to a forward-looking reality.
“It’s one of the greatest World Series games of all time. Emotional. I’m spent emotionally,” Roberts said. “We’ve got a ballgame later tonight, which is crazy.”
“He’s spent,” Roberts said. “He was on base eight, nine times tonight, running the bases. But he’s taking the mound tomorrow. He’ll be ready.”
Will Klein, the newest unsung World Series folk hero who follows in a proud lineage of such emergent October heroes as Howard Ehmke and Brian Doyle, threw 72 pitches, exactly twice as many as he threw in any big league outing this season. He’s probably down, but the other relievers will likely have to suck it up.
That includes Clayton Kershaw, who faced and retired one batter to escape a bases-loaded jam in extra innings but warmed up for three innings before he got into the contest. For everyone who played, it was like “Survivor.”
“You don’t ever plan on playing 18 innings,” Roberts said. “You just kind of ask more from the player.”
After the 18-inning win over Boston in the 2018 World Series, Roberts faced a similar spot with the glaring exception that his starter the next night — Rich Hill — had not run the bases nine times the night before. Hill worked into the seventh inning, given L.A. desperately needed length. But Roberts called on six relievers from his gassed bullpen after Hill departed — and all six of them allowed at least one run.
Of course, everything the Dodgers dealt with Monday, so did the Blue Jays. Manager John Schneider used his entire bullpen, as did Roberts. The Blue Jays’ version of Klein was Eric Lauer, who threw 4⅔ innings of scoreless relief and threw 68 pitches. Perhaps more crucial to Game 4: Closer Jeff Hoffman worked two innings and threw 33 pitches.
Both managers also know there won’t be an off day until Thursday — if the series is still going after Wednesday’s Game 5. The end of the season is near, and soon a champion will be crowned. But the complications arising from Monday’s classic make all of that seen still so far away.
“Longest game in World Series history,” Schneider said. “They were in the right mindset and the right headspace the entire time. It sucks that it’s late right now, but we’ve got to come back and do it again tomorrow.”
That’s not a luxury that Dodgers catcher Will Smith had. In a performance that may have slipped under the radar with so much else going on, Smith caught the entire game — something neither starting catcher did in the 18-inning affair in 2018 — and in doing so, he handled all 10 pitchers the Dodgers used.
Toronto has some position-player questions beyond its catcher, though. Another Blue Jay removed for a pinch runner was Bo Bichette, who departed in the seventh inning and thus played less than the player who replaced him, Isiah Kiner-Falefa. But with Bichette still not at full strength after returning from a knee injury, he too is getting a head start in recovering.
The Dodgers have four players on their roster who played in that 2018 game against Boston — Kershaw, Max Muncy, Kiké Hernandez and Mookie Betts, who was with the Red Sox — but that experience is unlikely going to unlock any magic formula for bouncing back after such a contest. If you’re wiped out, you’re wiped out.
“It was just a whirlwind,” Muncy said. “You felt like you didn’t really get any sleep (in 2018). But since it’s the World Series, you’re going to find a way to get going.”
CloseMLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013
“The Dodgers didn’t win the World Series today,” Schneider said. “They won a game.”
Freeman walks it off with a HR in marathon 18-inning Game 3 (1:17)Freddie Freeman sends Los Angeles into a frenzy as he launches a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 18th inning. (1:17)