TORONTO — As Kevin Gausman walked off the baseball field on Saturday night, six and two-thirds innings into Game 2 of the World Series, more than 40,000 fans gave the Toronto Blue Jays ace a standing ovation.
The veteran right-hander had completed his World Series debut in his 13th MLB season, giving up just four hits against the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
“It was definitely cool,” Gausman said later of the fan reaction, as he stood in the Blue Jays Clubhouse, team ball cap still on his head. “But I’m not necessarily kind of tipping my cap.
“I gave up the lead and I was losing pitcher, so as well as I did from the second to the seventh, you know, I didn’t do my job.”
Gausman gave the Blue Jays a chance to win, retiring 17 straight batters and walking none, but he was outduelled by Dodgers all-star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who pitched his second straight complete game of this post-season to seal a 5-1 Dodgers victory, knotting this World Series at a game apiece as it shifts to L.A.
“Oh man, Kev was really good,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “I thought Kev matched him pitch for pitch, really. They both had low pitch counts. It was kind of a classic pitchers’ duel and they made a couple more swings.”
A couple of those Dodgers swings came in the first inning, when Gausman gave up a pair of hits and an early run. But after that, the 34-year-old locked in and recorded those 17 straight outs from the end of the first through to the seventh.
“It felt good, obviously. I got in a good rhythm,” said Gausman, who held both Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts to zero hits. “I thought Kirky [Alejandro Kirk] called a great game. We executed pitches up in the zone, down in the zone when we needed to. And tried to keep them off balance. You know, really, two pitches to two really good hitters. That was the difference.”
Those two pitches to two really good hitters came in the seventh, the first solo shot off Will Smith’s bat, and the second off Max Muncy’s to make it 3-1 and chase Gausman from the game. After both home run swings, Gausman spun around on the mound to watch the ball carry over the left-field wall.
“Just looking back at the home run to Smith, he’s trying to go down and away and it leaked back up and in,” Schneider said. “Then same thing to Max.”
Those were the first hits Gausman had given up since the first inning.
“He was lights out,” Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes said. “He was unbelievable. There were a couple pitches that didn’t go his way, but he pitched really well.”
The thing is, Yamamoto pitched really, really, really well. The 27-year-old gave up just four hits, walked nobody and struck out eight.
It was Louis Varland who came in to relieve Gausman with the Dodgers up 3-1, and in the eighth Varland loaded the deck and had one out before closer Jeff Hoffman replaced him on the mound. Hoffman managed to limit the damage, but Yamamoto shut down any chance of a Blue Jays’ comeback, something this team did more than any other during the regular season, 49 times in all. Game 2 of the World Series was not one of those times.
Yamamoto struck out the side — Andres Gimenez, George Springer and Lukes in the eighth. The ninth was another three up, three down for the Blue Jays, and just like that, it was game over. No. 2 of the World Series took just over two and a half hours.
Gausman was locked in while he was in the game, but he could tell Yamamoto was pitching a gem. “I could just tell because we were pretty quick back and forth. It felt like we didn’t really give ourselves much of a break,” Gausman said. “It was constantly back and forth, but in a pitchers’ duel that’s kind of what it feels like.”
Despite the loss, Gausman took some positives out of Saturday night’s game, which he’d been waiting a long time for.
“First World Series, I’m 34, so it was fun,” he said. “It was electric out there, and wish I would have thrown up a zero in the first, for sure, but I got out of it, and like I said, got on the roll. But it was just a fun place to pitch. And the fans definitely let me know before the game how excited they are.”
Not that you’d know Gausman noticed the fans whatsoever. When he strode out of the bullpen ahead of Game 2, he had a Gatorade towel around his neck and he was straight-faced as he locked his brown eyes on the Dodgers’ dugout. Gausman barely blinked as he walked and stared, looking like a fighter who was about to destroy his opponent.
“That’s something I’ve found that helps me kind of lock in,” Gausman said of that pre-game focus as he heads to the mound. “I call it my ‘win walk.’”
Gausman didn’t get a win in his long-awaited World Series debut on Saturday, but he did give his team a shot at one.
“Could have pitched better,” he said. “Obviously the guy on the other side did.”
