TORONTO — Two players with ties to Canada had the big swings for the Dodgers early in a 14-2 win against the Blue Jays Monday, and the Dodgers piled on with a big boost from backup catcher Dalton Rushing.
Left fielder Teoscar Hernández, who escaped the boos during lineup introductions because of the six seasons he spent with the Blue Jays, and Freddie Freeman, who has played for the Canadian national team, both hit two-run home runs in the World Series rematch.
Rushing, giving 2025 World Series Game 7 hero Will Smith a day off behind the plate, recorded the first multi-homer, four-hit game of his major league career.
“Obviously a lot of great memories,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “I don’t feel as much anxiousness as I did the last time we were here, understandably. So to come back here, and the stakes aren’t as high as they were in October is different, but I’m sure the players will be ready to go and the fans are going to be pretty excited.”
Just five months ago, the Dodgers celebrated their World Series victory on the same field. Breaking Blue Jays fans’ hearts with an instant-classic Game 7.
On Monday, the fans in attendance showed they hadn’t forgotten. Their boos and cheers punctuated an action-packed first inning.
After Hernández’s home run gave the Dodgers a lead, Dodgers starting pitcher Justin Wrobleski came to be haunted by a leadoff walk. He retired the next two batters, with the help of a leaping catch against the wall by right fielder Kyle Tucker. But then all it took was a sharp single through the left side of the infield from Kazuma Okamoto and a blooper into shallow right from Ernie Clement to push a run across and cut the Dodgers’ lead in half.
Freeman’s two-run shot in the third brought the momentum back to the Dodgers. From there, they kept expanding their lead.
In the fourth, Tucker’s sacrifice fly added on another run. The next inning, Max Muncy and Andy Pages hit back-to-back singles, and Muncy scored when Alex Freeland grounded into a double play.
The Dodgers put together a three-run sixth inning, thanks to a solo homer from Shohei Ohtani and a two-run double from Pages.
In the seventh, Rushing hit the first of his two homers, giving him home runs in back-to-back games. The rally continued with Freeman and Hernández’s third and fourth RBIs of the night, respectively.
The game provided some flashbacks to the World Series. Wrobelski, who limited the Blue Jays to that one run through five innings in his first start of the season, and reliever Will Klein, who threw two scoreless frames, both returned to the Rogers Centre after cutting their teeth in the postseason last year.
In the bottom of the second inning, Pages and Hernández converged under a fly ball in left field. But they did not reenact Pages’ World Series Game 7 catch, which Pages pulled off then despite colliding with Kiké Hernández. On Monday, Pages called off Teoscar Hernández loud and clear, extending his arm as an extra precaution.
As the game turned into a blowout, however, it began to feel nothing like the 11-inning nail-biter these teams last played in last November.
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