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The World Series is headed to a final Game 7 after the Dodgers kept alive their title defense hopes intact Friday night with a 3–1 win over the Blue Jays in Game 6.

The defending champions ended Toronto’s late-game comeback with a dramatic final twin killing, stunning a home crowd that had come ready to cheer the city’s championship in 32 years.

Game 6 Recap

Los Angeles produced all of their scoring in the third inning. With two away, Ohtani was purposely passed before Will Smith hit a two-bagger to left field to score Edman. Freeman drew a walk to load the bases, and Mookie Betts came through with a two-run single to the opposite field, handing the Dodgers a three-run advantage.

That key hit snapped a postseason slump and revived the defending champions’ hopes of being the first repeat championship winners since the New York Yankees won three straight from 1998 through 2000.

Pitching Battle

Kevin Gausman had been nearly unhittable to that point, striking out half a dozen of the initial seven Dodgers he faced. He fanned eight through three innings, matching a Fall Classic mark, but the third-frame rally proved costly. The Toronto ace ended with eight strikeouts over six frames, yielding three earned runs on three hits and two free passes.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in contrast, was steady again under pressure. The 27-year-old right-hander outdueled Gausman for the second time in a seven days, giving up a single run on five hits over six innings with six strikeouts. He improved to 4–1 this postseason with a 1.56 ERA.

The lone score against him resulted from George Springer two-out single in the third inning, driving in Barger, who had doubled earlier in the inning. Springer’s hit offered a brief spark in his return to the starting nine after sitting out a pair of contests with an oblique injury.

Relief Heroics

From there, the Los Angeles relievers carried the load. First-year pitcher Wrobleski got out of a tight spot in the seventh inning, and another rookie Rōki Sasaki pitched into the ninth before plunking Alejandro Kirk to open the inning. Addison Barger then hit a two-base hit that got stuck under the outfield wall, obliging base runners to stay at second and third base.

Tyler Glasnow, Los Angeles’ Game 3 starting pitcher, came on in relief and induced a pop fly before Giménez hit a line drive to left. Hernández made the catch and fired to second base to retire Barger, clinching the victory and giving the pitcher his first career save.

Next Up: Seventh Game

The best-of-seven now boils down to one game. Scherzer will start for Toronto, becoming the sole active hurler to start more than one seventh games of the World Series after doing so in the 2019 season with Washington. The veteran inked a single-season contract to chase another championship and has been a vocal leader throughout this playoff run.

The Los Angeles squad, looking to be baseball’s first back-to-back title winners in almost 25 years, are projected to rely on Shohei Ohtani for a short outing.