TORONTO — They were inevitable. Indomitable. And now indisputably historic.
These Dodgers were pestered by the Padres in the NL West. Pushed hardest by the Phillies in the NL playoffs. And spent 48 hours on the brink of elimination in Toronto. They went nearly as far as you could go Saturday night toward not defending their title.
In the end, though, the Dodgers responded like champions and, thus, for the first time since the 1998-2000 three-peat Yankees, MLB had a team go back-to-back. They beat the Blue Jays 5-4 in 11 innings Saturday night because, on a record $400 million-plus payroll, veteran utility man Miguel Rojas took the biggest swing of their season. Because Yoshinobu Yamamoto, after pitching six innings as a starter Friday night in a Dodger elimination game, returned to throw 2 ²/₃ innings of shutout relief.
And because Will Smith homered with two outs in the 11th so that the Dodgers could finally shake the relentless Blue Jays, who pushed Los Angeles in a way that the Yankees did not come close to last October. But now the Dodgers have pushed themselves firmly into dynasty conversations with a third championship in six years.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
