Dodgers players buy into championship philosophy in winning back-to-back World Series

TORONTO

Hours after Mookie Betts scooped up Alejandro Kirk’s broken-bat grounder, signaled “nah, I got this myself’’ and triggered the double play that sent the Dodgers, giddy with disbelief, charging from the dugout as repeat champions, Clayton Kershaw still was standing shirtless at his locker.

Saturday night’s heart-stopping Game 7  was the pure baseball theater this World Series deserved, a Fall Classic that was among the very best — if not the greatest — we’ve ever witnessed. Regardless, it also officially marked the end of Kershaw’s 18-year, triple-Cy Young Award career that soon will shift from Hollywood mound to Cooperstown plaque.

Despite the Dodgers’ team-wide tenacity on display at Rogers Centre, and even going back to Friday’s great escape from what felt like near-certain doom in the ninth inning of Game 6, the lingering narrative around this year’s $395 million roster — the highest in the majors — will always include accusations of buying the Commissioner’s Trophy.

Kershaw, his flipped-around cap and matted hair soaked with champagne, understandably took exception to that.

“Tell you what, man,” he said. “You can’t buy the character and the heart and the willingness to do things that other people wouldn’t have done. All the way down our lineup, and it’s all our superstars, you know? There’s a lot of superstars in this game, but I don’t think they’re all like that. I don’t think they’re all willing to do whatever it takes for your team. And that’s what makes us special.”

Hard to argue after what went down in Game 7. And there was no better example than World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who not only was red-lining over those final eight outs but had the dashboard warning light blinking and smoke leaking from beneath the hood.

Just look at his World Series mileage. A 105-pitch complete-game victory that     evened the series in Game 2.  Four days later, a 93-pitch, six-inning effort that fiercely protected a 3-1 lead with the Dodgers facing elimination.

Then Saturday’s Game 7. The availability of Yamamoto felt like more a rumor than reality, as starters who brush up against the 100-pitch plateau don’t return the very next night for an extended, high-leverage relief role. Doesn’t happen. And one that cost $325 million? No way. But when Yamamoto told his manager that he’d be ready, what was Dave Roberts supposed to do? Tell him no?

All Yamamoto did was take over for two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell with one out and two on in the ninth and the Blue Jays on the brink of winning their first title since 1993. After hitting Kirk to load the bases, he still sidestepped that looming disaster, thanks to Miguel Rojas’ backhanded grab-and-throw for the forceout at the plate and centerfielder Andy Pages — just inserted as a defensive upgrade — making a circus catch at the warning track of Ernie Clement’s fly ball (despite colliding with Enrique Hernandez in the process).

Yamamoto already was up to 19 pitches once he got through the 10th, but with Kershaw and Roki Sasaki warming in the bullpen, Roberts made the decision to ride it out with his best. Even for that third up, Roberts said Yoshinobu told him “daijobu” — Japanese for OK — and that was what the manager needed to hear.

“So for me, I just trusted him,” Roberts said.

As for pitching coach Mark Prior, this was uncharted territory. When I later asked if he ever thought what Yamamoto did was actually going to be possible, Prior answered, “Not until today.”

The final toll for Yamamoto was 34 pitches. The 22/3 innings was the most of any Dodgers staffer that night, and that included the entire playoff rotation. Shohei Ohtani made the start on three days’ rest, followed by Tyler Glasnow — who earned a three-pitch save in Game 6 — and Snell. How appropriate that this October’s best rotation all took the mound to nail down Game 7.

“Pretty amazing, yeah, but it speaks to the group,” said Snell, who had to be feeling especially good about quickly signing that five-year, $136 million deal with the Dodgers last November. “We’re a really close group of starters that push each other to be the best. It’s just the standard that we hold each other to.”

As Kershaw said, scroll down the list of heroes. How could it be that Rojas, finally given the chance to start Friday in Roberts’ Game 6 lineup shuffle, would deliver the season’s biggest — and most improbable — home run the following night? Before that tying blast in the ninth inning off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman, Rojas had only one extra-base hit in 56 postseason plate appearances, another homer in 2020 with the Marlins.

This season? The 36-year-old infielder had only one home run since July 20, a span of 55 games and 173 PAs. Saturday’s Game 7 marked the second time Rojas went deep off a righthanded pitcher all year.

“Game 7 of the World Series, you always dream about this kind of stuff, being in this position,” Rojas told MLB Network. “Hitting a home run wasn’t on my Bingo card, to be honest with you.”

The Dodgers spent more money than anyone else in the sport to shrink the margin of error, to increase their odds of becoming the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees. But they returned to Toronto down 3-2 in this World Series and needed the luckiest of ninth innings, which included a line drive wedged under the outfield wall, to survive Game 6.

Then the Dodgers played uphill all night in Game 7 until Will Smith, a seemingly invincible catcher soldiering through with a broken hand, smacked a 2-and-0 slider into the Blue Jays’ bullpen to give the Dodgers their first lead — in the 11th inning!

And the clinching grounder going to Betts? He turned himself into an elite shortstop this season after winning an MVP and six Gold Gloves as an outfielder, mostly because of recognizing the Dodgers’ lineup hole at the position.

“We’ve created a culture that everyone that comes here knows, when you put on that Dodger uniform, you expect to hoist up that trophy,” Max Muncy said. “And it doesn’t matter about yourself. It’s all about the team.”

Ultimately, the Dodgers proved to be the best one, in a World Series that took every inning, every out and every pitch to deliver that verdict.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.