inning

The road to becoming the first repeat World Series champion in 25 years was not a smooth one for the Dodgers, who captured their ninth championship in franchise history when they knocked off the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in 11 innings of a Game 7 for the ages.

After winning nine of their first 10 postseason contests, the Dodgers had to slog through a seven-game World Series that included two extra-inning wins — one in 18 innings — and consecutive losses at home that put their season on the brink.

But in the end, the Dodgers emerged with their second consecutive championship and third in six seasons. How did they make it happen? Here are some moments that galvanized the Dodgers’ run to another World Series triumph.

A great escape, with a wheel man

Mookie Betts broached the idea of running the wheel play as the Dodgers tried to hang on for dear life in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Ballpark. In a tribute to executing the fundamentals, Max Muncy pounced on a bunt and Betts tagged out the lead runner at third base to help the Dodgers survive the ninth inning and grab a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series.

Ohtani’s iconic performance

A look at the three home runs Shohei Ohtani hit in Game 4 of the NLCS.

Based on the first inning alone, Shohei Ohtani would’ve produced an unforgettable performance in Game 4 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers, striking out three in a row following a leadoff walk as the Dodgers’ starting pitcher and then homering as his team’s leadoff batter to stake himself to an early lead. But Ohtani homered twice more — including a 469-foot blast over the right-field pavilion — and went on to strike out 10 in six innings to help the Dodgers secure their second consecutive NL pennant.

Another complete game by Yamamoto

Yoshinobu Yamamoto had already thrown a complete game in Game 2 of the NLCS, the first one by a Dodgers pitcher since José Lima in 2004. But Yamamoto went into more rarefied air when he threw another one in Game 2 of the World Series in a 5-1 win over the Blue Jays — becoming the first Dodger to throw consecutive postseason complete games since Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Kershaw’s moment

The anguish and heartbreak of Clayton Kershaw‘s postseason history is well known, and the Dodger Stadium crowd braced itself when he entered Game 3 of the World Series with the bases loaded and two outs in the 12th inning. In an eight-pitch battle with the Jays’ Nathan Lukes, Kershaw induced a soft grounder to second baseman Tommy Edman that he had to charge and scoop over with his glove to first baseman Freddie Freeman to escape the jam.

The Will Klein Game

As Game 3 of the World Series dragged into the 15th inning, the Dodgers turned to Will Klein, the last reliever in their bullpen — though Yamamoto was later warming for a potential 19th inning. Klein, acquired by the Dodgers in a minor trade on June 2, threw 72 pitches — the most he’s thrown as a professional — over four scoreless innings to keep the Dodgers in it.

Freeman, the walkoff sequel

In a World Series Game 3 that featured 19 pitchers, 25 position players, 609 pitches thrown and 153 trips to the plate, it was something familiar that won it for the Dodgers in the 18th inning: a Freeman walk-off home run. One year and two days after his iconic walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series, Freeman smashed a solo shot to center field to lift the Dodgers to a 6-5 win and a 2-1 series lead.

Kiké Hernández, October hero

Left fielder Kiké Hernández added another chapter to his October legacy in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6 with the Dodgers trying to hang on to a 3-1 lead and keep their season alive. With runners on second and third and one out, Hernández played shallow and was in good position to catch a sinking line drive by Andrés Giménez before firing a throw to second baseman Miguel Rojas, who caught it on a bounce to double off the runner at second and force a Game 7.

Miguel Rojas ninth-inning hero

Rojas became the ninth-inning focal point in Game 7 as he came up to bat with the Dodgers trailing 4-3 and two outs away from losing the World Series. Rojas, who had one homer since the All-Star break, worked the count full before hammering a game-tying shot to left. In the bottom of the inning, with the bases loaded and the infield in with one out, Rojas fielded a grounder cleanly and came up firing to force the runner out at home and preserve the tie.

The Catch

One batter later and with the bases still loaded, it was Andy Pages’ turn to be the defensive hero. Inserted mid-inning at center field for his strong arm, Pages found himself using his legs to cover a lot of ground on a deep fly ball to left-center that Hernández was trying to catch over his shoulder before colliding with Pages as the center fielder secured the ball to carry the game into extra innings.

Will Smith, home run hero

As Game 7 entered the 11th inning, it was catcher Will Smith who was in the right place at the right time. Smith, who’d worked his way back into the lineup after suffering a hairline fracture in his right hand in September, turned on a 2-0 slider for his second home run of the series to put the Dodgers in front for the first time in the game.

Yamamoto with the exclamation point

Entering Game 7 during that ninth-inning jam that Rojas and Pages helped him escape, Yamamoto retired the Jays in order in the 10th and then worked around a leadoff double in the 11th, fiedling a sacrifice bunt and then walking a batter before inducing a double play to seal the Dodgers’ repeat championship. For Yamamoto in the World Series, the final tally was three wins, the last coming in relief after throwing 96 pitches the night before in Game 6, and the MVP award.

TORONTO — Shortly after the Dodgers won Game 6 of the World Series, Yoshinobu Yamamoto approached his longtime personal trainer.

Lowering his head, Yamamoto said to Osamu Yada, “Thank you for everything this year.”

Yamamoto figured his season was over. He’d thrown 96 pitches over six innings, and he half-joked in the postgame news conference that he wanted to cheer on his team rather than pitch again the next day. Manager Dave Roberts had the same thought, saying Yamamoto would be the only pitcher unavailable in Game 7.

The trainer had other ideas.

“Let’s see if you can throw in the bullpen tomorrow,” Yada said.

By just being in the bullpen, Yada said, Yamamoto could provide the Dodgers a psychological edge over the Toronto Blue Jays.

“That’s how I got tricked,” Yamamoto said in Japanese with a laugh.

Yada’s guiding hand transformed Yamamoto into a legend on Saturday night.

Pitching the final 2 ⅔ innings of an 11-inning, championship-clinching 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, Yamamoto won his third game of the World Series.

When he forced Alejando Kirk to ground into a game-ending double play, Yamamoto removed his cap and raised his arms toward the heavens. Catcher Will Smith rushed the mound and picked him up from the waist.

“I felt a joy I never felt before,” Yamamoto said.

Dodgers catcher Will Smith picks up Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto after the final out of a 5-4 win in 11 innings over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Yamamoto pitched a complete game in Game 2. He pitched six more in Game 6. His contributions in Game 7 increased his series total to 17 ⅔ innings, over which he allowed only two runs.

The throwback performance earned him the series’ most valuable player award, as well as universal admiration.

“I really think he’s the No. 1 pitcher in the world,” Shohei Ohtani said in Japanese. “Everyone on the team thinks that, too.”

Freddie Freeman marveled at the workload shouldered by the 5-foot-10 Yamamoto, who was sidelined for three months last year with shoulder problems.

“I mean, he pitched last night, started,” Freeman said. “He threw the most innings out of our pitchers tonight.”

Freeman pointed out that in addition to pitching in three games, Yamamoto also warmed up to pitch in a fourth. Two days after his complete game in Game 2, he prepared in the bullpen to pitch a potential 19th inning in Game 3. The Dodgers won that game in the 18th inning.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Freeman said.

President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of Yamamoto’s Game 7 performance, “For him to have the same stuff that he had the night before is really the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever seen on a major league baseball field.”

Did Friedman think any other pitcher could have done what Yamamoto did in this series?

“No, I don’t,” Friedman said. “In fact, yesterday morning I didn’t necessarily think Yama could either.”

Friedman said he didn’t think much of it when he was notified after Game 6 that Yamamoto was receiving treatment from Yada at the team hotel with the intention of perhaps pitching in Game 7. Friedman was told the next morning that Yamamoto received another round of treatment.

The possibility of Yamamoto pitching in Game 7 became real to Friedman after he performed his trademark javelin-throwing routine and played catch at Rogers Centre. Yamamoto still wasn’t convinced.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, left, celebrates with Shohei Ohtani and teammates after a 5-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series at Rogers Centre on Saturday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“I didn’t think I would pitch,” Yamamoto said. “But I felt good when I practiced, and the next thing I knew, I was on the mound (in the game).”

Yamamoto’s interpreter, Yoshihiro Sonoda, was prepared.

The superstitious Sonoda wears the same pair of lucky underwear on days Yamamoto pitches. He wore the rabbit-themed boxers for Game 6. Sensing Yamamoto might pitch again, Sonoda wore the same boxers for Game 7.

“Just in case,” Sonoda admitted, “I didn’t wash them.”

Yamamoto had never pitched on consecutive days as a professional, in either the United States or Japan. When was called on to relieve Blake Snell in the ninth inning, he was uncertain of how he would perform.

Inheriting two baserunners from Snell with one out, Yamamoto loaded the bases by plunking Kirk. He forced Dalton Varsho to ground into a force out at home, only to throw a curveball to Ernie Clement that was driven to the wall in left field. Defensive replacement Andy Pages crashed into Kiké Hernández on the warning track but held on to the ball, preventing the Blue Jays from scoring the walk-off run.

Yamamoto pitched a 1-2-3 10th inning and went into the bottom of the 11th with a 5-4 lead, courtesy of a homer by Smith in the top of the inning.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. started the inning by pulling a 96.9-mph fastball for a double and advanced to third base on a sacrifice bunt by Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Yamamoto walked Addison Barger to place runners on the corners, setting up the game-ending double play by Kirk.

“I really couldn’t believe it,” Yamamoto said. “I was so excited I couldn’t even recall what kind of pitch I threw at the end. When my teammates ran to me, I felt the greatest joy I’ve felt up to this point.”

Clayton Kershaw, whom Yamamoto wanted to send into retirement with another championship, embraced him harder than he’d ever embraced him. Roberts swallowed him an embrace.

Yamamoto was moved to tears.

Overwhelmed by the moment, Yamamoto didn’t sound as if he grasped the magnitude of what he’d just done. In time, he will.

On the night the Dodgers solidified their dynasty, Yamamoto made this World Series his.

TORONTO — The Dodgers have forced a Game 7 in the World Series.

And Shohei Ohtani is expected to be their starting pitcher.

In what will be just four days removed from his six-plus-inning, 93-pitch start in Game 4 of this World Series, Ohtani will likely serve as the team’s opener in Saturday’s winner-take-all contest, according to a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly.

While Ohtani almost certainly won’t make a full-length start, he should be able to get through at least two or three innings (depending on how laborious his outing is). Four or five innings might not be out of the question, either, even in what will be only his second career MLB outing pitching on three days’ rest.

The only time Ohtani did so was in 2023, when he followed a rain-shortened two-inning start at Fenway Park against the Red Sox with a seven-inning outing four days later.

Saturday, of course, will come under entirely different circumstances, in what will be the first seventh game in a World Series since 2019.

By starting Ohtani, the Dodgers would ensure they wouldn’t lose his bat for the rest of the game, thanks to MLB’s two-way rules. If he were to enter in relief during the game, the only way he could stay in afterward is if he shifted to the outfield (since MLB’s rules stipulate that a team would lose the DH spot under such circumstances). Starting him also eliminates any complications that would come with trying to find him time to warm up if his spot in the batting order arose the inning prior — something that would have made it potentially more difficult for him to be able to close out the game.

Ohtani has completed six innings in each of his three previous pitching appearances this postseason, with a 3.50 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 18 innings.

The Dodgers should have options behind Ohtani. Tyler Glasnow will likely be available after needing just three pitches to get the save in Friday’s wild finish. Blake Snell also said he would be available after his Game 5 start on Wednesday.

In the bullpen, Roki Sasaki figures to be at manager Dave Roberts’ disposal, as well, despite throwing 33 pitches in one-plus inning of work on Friday.

Roberts said everyone short of Game 6 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto would be available.

Shohei Ohtani wore the same mask of calm that he always wears.

He spoke with detachment, as he often does.

By the time Ohtani walked into the interview room at Dodger Stadium after his team’s 6-2 defeat in Game 4 of the World Series, however, he was already devising his redemption.

“Of course, I’d like to prepare to be available for every game in case I’m needed,” Ohtani said in Japanese.

Ohtani wants to pitch again in this World Series.

He wants to pitch again, even after he was saddled with the loss on Tuesday night by the Toronto Blue Jays.

He wants to pitch again, even after the physical demands of reaching base nine times in an 18-inning victory the previous night clearly diminished him on the mound.

If Ohtani pitches, he would almost certainly pitch in relief.

Pitching in middle relief doesn’t make sense for Ohtani, considering that when he departs the game as a pitcher, rules would require the Dodgers to play him in the outfield or lose him as a hitter for the remainder of the game.

They might as well use him as a closer, and they might as well use him in a World Series clincher, either in Game 6 or 7.

This is who Ohtani is. This is what he does.

He won’t let the disappointment of his World Series pitching debut scare him away from pursuing another dream. He isn’t afraid of failure.

Game 4 was a failure.

The six-hour 39-minute game the Dodgers played the night before offered Ohtani cover. He reached base a record nine times. He homered twice and doubled twice. His leg cramped at some point. He went to sleep at 2 a.m.

But Ohtani didn’t take any of the excuses that were offered to him.

“I have no plans of saying the game yesterday was this or that,” he said.

The truth was revealed in his play.

Ohtani looked exhausted. He sweated profusely and looked as if he might be dehydrated. He looked, well, human.

His fastball uncharacteristically never touched 100 mph, but he pitched well for the most part. His only notable mistake was an elevated sweeper he threw in the third inning to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that was deposited over the left-field wall for a two-run home run.

Ohtani struck out the side in the fourth inning, as well as the first batter he faced in the fifth. Manager Dave Roberts said that pitching coach Mark Prior approached Ohtani in the sixth innings and asked him how much he had left.

“He said he had three more innings,” Roberts said.

Ohtani couldn’t make it out of the seventh inning. In fact, he couldn’t even record an out in the seventh, starting the inning by giving up a single to Daulton Varsho and a double to Ernie Clement. With Ohtani clearly gassed, Roberts called in Anthony Banda, who allowed the two inherited runners to score.

Ohtani’s final line: Six innings, four runs, six hits, a walk and six strikeouts.

He said his goal was to pitch seven innings.

Ohtani didn’t have the game he wanted in the batter’s box, either. It didn’t help that he didn’t have any form of lineup protection. No. 9 hitter Andy Pages, who batted in front of him, was 0 for two and is now batting .080 this postseason. Mookie Betts, who batted behind him, was hitless until the eighth inning when the game was already out of reach. Betts is batting .158 in this World Series.

Ohtani walked in the first inning but was hitless in the three at-bats that followed. Not one of the 14 pitches he saw from Blue Jays starter Shane Bieber was near the middle quadrant of the plate.

Being a starting pitcher and leadoff hitter in the same game was hard enough. Being a starting pitcher and a leadoff hitter in the same game after an 18-inning battle was revealed to be downright impossible. Because if Ohtani couldn’t do it, nobody could.

Instead of moping over the setback, Ohtani has started eyeing his next boundary-pushing maneuver: To be a leadoff hitter and high-leverage reliever in the same game.

The World Series is now tied, two games apiece. The fixation Ohtani has with finding new methods to win games could be why the Dodgers finish as champions again.

You’d be forgiven for not remembering the trade.

On June 2 this year, the Dodgers were in need of pitching help. At the time, their rotation had been ravaged by injuries, and their bullpen was overworked and running low on depth. Thus, the morning after their relievers had been further taxed following a short start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto against the New York Yankees, the Dodgers went out and added a little-known pitcher in a deal with the Seattle Mariners.

Will Klein’s origin story had quietly begun.

Almost five months before becoming a World Series hero for the Dodgers, pitching four miraculously scoreless innings in their 18-inning Game 3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night, Klein joined the organization as a largely anonymous face, acquired in exchange for fellow reliever Joe Jacques in the kind of depth transaction the Dodgers make dozens of over the course of each season.

At that point, even Klein couldn’t have foreseen the star turn in his future.

He had a career ERA over 5.00 in the minor leagues. He had struggled in limited big-league action in 2024, battling poor command while giving up nine runs in eight outings. He had already changed organizations three times, and been designated for assignment by the Mariners the day before.

“I woke up to a 9 a.m. missed phone call and a text,” Klein recalled Tuesday. “Found out I was DFA’d. Really low then.”

Now, in the kind of serendipitous turn only October can create, Klein has etched his name into World Series lore.

“I don’t think that will set in for a long time,” he said.

As the last man standing in the Dodgers’ bullpen in Game 3, Klein pitched more than he ever has as a professional, tossing 72 pitches to save the team from putting a position player on the mound.

Afterward, he was mobbed by his teammates following Freddie Freeman’s walk-off home run, then greeted in the clubhouse with a handshake and an accomplished “good job” from Dodgers pitching icon Sandy Koufax.

He had 500 missed messages on his phone when the game ended. He got 500 more as he tried responding to everyone Tuesday morning. His middle school in Indiana, he said, had even hung a picture of him up in a hallway.

“I woke up this morning still not feeling like last night had happened,” he said in a pre-Game 4 news conference. “It was an out-of-body experience.”

A thickly bearded 25-year-old right-hander originally from Bloomington, Ind., Klein’s path to Monday’s extra-inning marathon could hardly have been more circuitous.

In high school, he was primarily a catcher, until a broken thumb prompted him to focus on pitching. When he was recruited to Eastern Illinois for college, his ACT scores (he got a 34) helped almost as much as his natural arm talent.

Dodgers pitcher Will Klein also pitched in the eighth inning of Game 1 in Toronto, allowing no runs.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“I’m big into academics,” Eastern Illinois coach Jason Anderson said by phone Tuesday. “If you can figure out science class, you can figure out how to throw a slider.”

Anderson wasn’t wrong. Though Klein was initially raw on the mound, posting a 5.74 ERA in his first two collegiate seasons, he worked tirelessly on improving his velocity, learning how to leverage the power he generated with his long-limbed, 6-foot-5 frame.

As his fastball crept toward triple digits, he started garnering the attention of MLB scouts. Though Klein’s junior season in 2020 was cut short after four outings by the COVID-19 pandemic, he’d shown enough promise in collegiate summer leagues beforehand to get drafted in that year’s fifth and final round by the Kansas City Royals.

Klein’s rise to the major leagues from there was not linear. His poor command (he averaged nearly seven walks per nine innings in his first three minor-league years) hampered him even as he climbed the Royals’ organizational ladder.

Klein reached the big leagues last year, but made only four appearances before being included in a trade deadline deal to the Oakland Athletics. This past winter, after finishing the 2024 campaign with an 11.05 ERA, he was dealt again to the Mariners.

The return in that package? “Other considerations,” according to MLB’s transaction log.

“His whole career has been [full of] challenges,” Anderson said. “He really just needed some time and somebody to believe in him.”

With the Dodgers, that’s exactly what he found.

Long before his arrival, Klein had admirers in the organization. The club’s director of pitching, Rob Hill, was immediately struck by his high-riding heater and mid-80s mph curveball when he first saw Klein pitch in minor-league back-field games during spring training in 2021 and 2022.

“I vividly remember his outings against us in spring training,” Hill said. “I was walking around, asking people, ‘Who is this guy?’ That was my first introduction to him.”

After being traded to the Dodgers, Klein was optioned to triple-A Oklahoma City to work under the tutelage of minor-league pitching coaches Ryan Dennick and David Anderson. There, he started to refine his approach and trust his high-octane arsenal in the zone more. In 22 ⅔ innings, he struck out a whopping 44 batters.

“[He was] never short for stuff,” Anderson told OKC’s team broadcaster at the end of the season. “It was just accessing the zone and forcing action.”

During four stints on the MLB roster over the second half of the year — during which he posted a 2.35 ERA in 14 outings — Klein also worked with big-league pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness on developing a sweeper to give him an all-important third pitch.

“I think our coaches have done a fantastic job of cleaning up the delivery, challenging him to be in the hitting zone, working on a slider,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s a great young man. And it’s one of those things that you don’t really know until you throw somebody in the fire.”

The Dodgers didn’t do that initially this October, sending Klein to so-called “stay hot” camp in Arizona for the first three rounds of the playoffs.

But while Klein was there, Hill said it “was very notable how locked in he was” during bi-weekly sessions of live batting practice, with the pitcher “consistently asking for feedback and trying to continue to make sure his stuff was ready.”

During the team’s off week before the World Series, Klein was sent to Los Angeles to throw more live at-bats against their big-league hitters. He promptly impressed once again, helping thrust himself further into Fall Classic roster consideration as the team contemplated ways to shuffle the bullpen.

Still, when Klein learned he would actually be active for the World Series, he acknowledged it came as a surprise.

“I’m just going to go out there,” he told himself, “and do what I can to help all these guys that have worked their butts off.”

After holding his own in a scoreless inning of mop-duty in a Game 1 blowout loss to the Blue Jays, Klein started sensing another opportunity coming as Monday’s game stretched deep into the night.

“I realized that, when I looked around in the bullpen and my name was the only one still there, I was just going to [keep pitching] until I couldn’t,” he laughed.

Every time he returned to the dugout between innings, he told the coaching staff he was good to keep going.

“No one else is going to care that my legs are tired right now,” he said. “Just finding it in me to throw one more pitch, and then throw another one after that.”

Back in Illinois, Anderson was like everyone else from Klein’s past. Awed by how deep he managed to dig on the mound. Moved by a moment they, just like him, could have never foreseen or possibly imagined.

“Everything about him — his mentality, his work ethic, his obstacles, his path — it was like he was destined to be on that field at that time,” Anderson said. “That’s one of the greatest baseball games in history.”

And, against all odds, it was Klein who left perhaps its most heroic mark.

There was probably no Dodgers fan more grateful to see the Blue Crew lose badly in the opening game of the World Series than Conrado Contreras. See, the 75-year-old was happy to enjoy any Fall Classic at all.

A year ago tomorrow , the Zacatecas native suffered a heart attack and mild stroke in the moments after seeing his Dodgers win Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Yankees. He spent three days in a medically induced coma at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and regained consciousness to news from jubilant nurses that the Dodgers had won the championship.

The lifelong baseball fan had no idea what they were talking about. His passion for the sport was lost along with his memory.

When family members put on highlights from the 2024 championship during his rehabilitation at a clinic in Gardena throughout the end of the year, the former carpenter would shrug and change the channel. When someone told him that legendary Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela had died, Contreras swore that he had just seen his fellow Mexican pitch at the stadium.

It wasn’t until the 2025 baseball season came along that Contreras’ mind began to truly rebound. He watched games from his longtime home in the unincorporated Florence-Graham neighborhood and learned to love the Dodgers anew. But he didn’t cheer like before. Contreras followed doctor’s orders to stay calm when the Dodgers were losing instead of cursing like the past and quietly applaud when the team was winning when he would’ve previously roared.

He’s the father-in-law of my sister Alejandrina. And I wanted to hang out with Don Conrado for Game 1 of this year’s World Series to experience fandom in all its mortality.

Wearing a flat-brimmed fedora and a blue Dodgers 2024 World Series champion, I caught Contreras just as he was entering my sister’s Norwalk home holding on to his walker with the help of Alejandrina’s husband, Conrad. His father talks slower than he used to and can’t drive anymore, but Contreras is once again the same man his family knows: witty, observant and baseball-crazy.

A schoolyard pitcher in his hometown of Monte Escobedo, Contreras fell in with the Dodgers almost as soon as he migrated to the United States in 1970 to join a brother in Highland Park. He used to attend games every week “when $10 got two people into the stadium and you could also eat a hot dog,” Contreras told me in Spanish before Game 1 began.

His stories from those years were immaculate. Don Sutton throwing a shutout. The Cincinnati Reds always “ready to play to the death.” Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Willie Stargell hitting a home run out of Dodger Stadium in 1973 “and all of us just staring above our heads in awe.”

Contreras was such a fan that he took his pregnant wife Mary to watch Valenzuela pitch on the day in 1983 that Conrad was due because they were giving out “I (Heart) Fernando” T-shirts, an anecdote that left their son flabbergasted.

“What happened to the shirt?” Conrad asked his mom in Spanish.

“I threw it away,” replied the 61-year-old Mary.

“They’d cost a lot of money now!” he groaned.

“They were cheap! The color really faded fast.”

Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani hits a two-run home run during the seventh inning of Game 1 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays at Roger Centre on Friday in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays won, 11-4.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The family continued to attend games through Conrad’s teenage years but stopped “when even the birds couldn’t afford to attend,” Mary said. Conrad, 42, thinks the last time he went to a game with his dad was “at least” 20 years ago. But they regularly watched games on television. It was he who administered the CPR a year ago that saved his dad’s life.

“He was walking around the house angry all that game,” Conrad said.

“No, well, Roberto was making me mad,” Conrado replied, his nickname for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “But I can’t get mad anymore.”

I asked how he thought this year’s series would go. He mentioned Shohei Ohtani, whom he kept calling el japonés in a respectful tone because, well, his memory can be fuzzy.

“He strikes out too much, but when he hits it, he hits it. If he plays like that, they win the series. But if Toronto hits, forget it.”

One more question before game time, the one too many liberal Latino Dodgers fans are belly-aching over right now: is it ethical to root for the team considering they haven’t been too vocal in opposing Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and owner Mark Walter has investments in companies that are profiting from it?

“Sports shouldn’t get into politics, but all sports owners are with Trompas,” he said, using a nickname I’ve heard more than a few rancho libertarians use for Trump. He shrugged.

“So what’s one to do? They kept la migra out of the stadium,” referring to an unsuccessful June attempt by federal agents to enter the stadium parking lot. “If the team had allowed that, then there’d be a huge problem.”

Mary wasn’t as sympathetic. “Latinos shouldn’t let the Dodgers off so easy. But when Latinos surrender, they surrender.”

It was game time.

Conrad slipped into a gray Dodgers away jersey to match his black team cap. My sister, an Angels follower for some reason, wore a Kiké Hernández T-shirt “because he stands with immigrants.”

“The only good thing about the Dodgers is that they aren’t winning with a gringo,” said Mary, who actually doesn’t care much about baseball because she finds it boring. “It’s someone [Ohtani] who doesn’t want to speak English who’s winning it for them.”

Her husband smiled.

“Let’s see if Mary gets into baseball.”

“That’ll be the real miracle,” she snapped back.

Contreras rubbed his hands in glee as the Dodgers went up 2-0 in the top of the third and merely frowned when the Blue Jays tied it in the bottom of the fourth while we were enjoying takeout from Taco Nazo. “His anger comes in waves, it’s a trip,” Conrad said. “He’s calmer but se enoja.”

“Who?” Conrado deadpanned.

When Dodger starting pitcher Blake Snell left the game with the bases loaded and no one out in the bottom of the sixth, Contreras shook his head in disgust but kept his voice calm.

“This is what gets me mad. They should’ve taken him out long ago, but Roberto didn’t. This is what I was afraid of. When Toronto get on, they get on. They won’t stop until they destroy.”

Sure enough, the Blue Jays erupted for nine runs that inning, including a two-run blast by catcher Alejandro Kirk, who had sparked the Jays’ initial rally a few innings earlier.

Earlier in the game, Alejandrina had told Conrado that Kirk was a Tijuana native. The pride in shared roots, albeit generations apart, took a little bit of sting off his home run, which made the score a humiliating 11-2.

“Thank goodness he’s Mexican,” Conrado told his son, patting his knee. “That’s what’s left for us” to be happy about the game.

An inning later, Contreras began to feel woozy. His sugar level was elevated. Mary took off his jacket to fix his insulin device. My sister’s corgi, Penny, jumped onto the couch and lay on his lap.

“They do know when someone someone’s ill, right?” he said to no one before scratching Penny’s tummy and cooing, “You know I’m ill, right? I’m ill!”

When the “massacre” finally ended, Contreras remained philosophical.

“It’s incredible that I’m able to see this. But I’m still malo. My feet hurt, my memory isn’t what it used to be, my sense of balance isn’t there. But there’s the Dodgers. But they need to win.”

Conrad went to the bedroom to grab his father’s walker.

“Do you want a Toronto shirt now?” he joked.

His dad stared silently. “No, that would give me another heart attack.”

TORONTO — The Dodgers played 162 games in 193 days during the regular season. Then they played 10 more times in 18 days in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

It was a grind that gave way to a routine as comfortable as an old shoe.

That routine was upended when the Dodgers swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, giving them a week off before the start of the World Series, the team’s longest break since February. And the Dodgers looked anything but rested and refreshed in Friday’s 11-4 shellacking by the Toronto Blue Jays, which left them trailing a postseason series for the first time since last fall’s NLDS.

“I’m pretty sure the guys kind of felt the velocity a little bit more,” said Miguel Rojas, one of just a handful of Dodgers who spoke to the media after the loss. “But there’s nothing that we can do. That’s not going to be an excuse for us to underperform.”

It may not be an excuse. But it could be an omen.

This World Series is the fifth in which a team that swept its best-of-seven LCS, as the Dodgers did, faced a team that needed to go seven games to win its series, as Toronto did. The team that swept and got the break lost each of the four previous World Series, winning just two of 18 games.

Dodger manager Dave Roberts dismissed that history Friday.

“I really don’t think the week layoff had anything to do with tonight,” he said. “We were rested. I thought we were in a good spot. We had a 2-0 lead. So I don’t think that had anything to do with it.”

Blake Snell, the pitcher who gave up that lead, brushed off the break as well.

“There’s no excuses. I need to be better,” said Snell, who went 10 days between starts, his longest break since coming off the injured list in August. “I don’t care if it’s a month off. Find a way to be ready.”

He wasn’t against the Blue Jays. After averaging 16 pitches an inning in 14 previous starts, he needed 29 to get through the first inning Friday. And after giving up two runs and six hits in 21 innings this postseason, he gave up five runs and eight hits in just five-plus innings in Toronto, with two of those runs coming on Dalton Varsho’s fourth-inning home run, the only homer Snell has conceded to a left-handed hitter this year.

Emmet Sheehan, who followed Snell to the mound, hadn’t pitched in two weeks. He had his worst outing of the year, facing four batters and watching three of them score.

“I felt good going into the game. I felt the same as I have been,” he said. “I thought I made some good pitches, and they made some really good swings.

“It’s not a good feeling.”

A prolonged break can affect pitchers more than hitters because after throwing with a slightly fatigued arm all season, they suddenly feel fresh and strong and their pitches lose some of their movement.

“You don’t want to feel too good. You feel too good, you try to throw too hard because you feel good. And it doesn’t go where you want it,” said Will Klein, who mopped up for the Dodgers, pitching a scoreless eighth inning. “[The ball] doesn’t go where you want it to because you’re used to pitching a little down, like 90 or 95%. You’re never really at 100.

‘There’s such a thing [as] too fresh.”

Klein’s last appearance in a big-league game was a month ago; since then he’s been working out at the Dodgers’ facility in Arizona. He said the team tried to keep the rest of their pitchers in their familiar routine with bullpen sessions or simulated games, but it’s not the same as throwing in high-leverage situations against opposing hitters in a World Series game before 44,353 fans, as Snell, Sheehan and Klein had to do Friday.

And the history shows the Dodgers aren’t the first team who have been broken by the break.

But they had less than 24 hours to wait for Game 2, which means they’re back into the comfortable — if exhausting — routine that got them to the World Series in the first place.

“There’s another one tomorrow,” Klein said. “We can’t go and unlose today, as much as we’d like to. Thinking about today isn’t going to help you win tomorrow.”