LOS ANGELES — In so many ways, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the standard, and while one series in August is mostly just that, there sure was some October-calibre-test energy for the Toronto Blue Jays over the weekend at Chavez Ravine.
They fell short in the riveting Max Scherzer-Clayton Kershaw duel in the opener before getting skunked in the second game. Then, they found their level in Sunday’s wildly compelling finale, when Ernie Clement’s solo shot in the ninth inning and Mason Fluharty’s gutsy escape in the bottom half capped a haywire late-game sequence.
Jeff Hoffman, having allowed one lead to slip away in the eighth by issuing consecutive full-count walks to Will Smith and Freddie Freeman, walked the bases loaded with one out before giving way to the rookie lefty. He rallied to strike out Shohei Ohtani before getting Mookie Betts on a fielder’s choice to close out a 5-4 win that averted a sweep and finished off a 4-2 road trip.
That the Blue Jays (69-50) were in position to take one from the Dodgers (68-50) at all is a result of plenty of tightrope walking by their pitchers, who issued 13 walks — two intentional to Ohtani — while bending but not breaking.
Starter Eric Lauer issued four of them, along with six hits, but managed to limit the damage to three runs in three innings of work. Home runs by Ohtani, extending his hitting streak to nine games, and Freddie Freeman in the first inning accounted for most of the damage, with Freeman adding a bases-loaded walk in the second before Teoscar Hernandez struck out to end the threat.
The Dodgers led 3-1 until the sixth, when Ty France dunked a base hit to right that scored Bo Bichette, and the Blue Jays then took the lead in the eighth, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Addison Barger hit back-to-back homers off Blake Treinen.
Freeman’s second bases-loaded walk of the game tied in the bottom half before Clement took Alex Vesia’s first pitch of the ninth over the wall to restore the lead.
