Blue Jays regain home field advantage with efficient Game 4 World Series win

The Toronto Blue Jays are just two wins away from their third World Series championship. A 6-2 win on Tuesday night in Game 4 against the Los Angeles Dodgers has evened the series at 2-2 and it was a much more efficient way to play a ball game than the way Game 3 turned out.

One night after an 18 inning marathon, the Blue Jays scored a couple of runs early and then put together a "Blue Jays" style inning in the seventh in a nine inning victory that was much tidier than the previous game.

Blue Jays regain home field advantage with efficient Game 4 World Series win

Game 3 on Monday night was a wild and wacky affair that lasted six hours and 39 minutes and featured 609 pitches thrown by 19 different pitchers. It came to an end on a Freddie Freeman solo home run in the bottom of the 18th inning.

It was a historic blast in the sense that it ended a game that was tied for the longest World Series game in MLB history. It was also historic since it was just the first time a player has ever hit two World Series walk off home runs in a career as Freeman walked off Game 1 of the 2024 World Series with a grand slam against the Yankees.

Tuesday night resembled a much more common box score with only eight pitchers combined and with the win the Blue Jays have guaranteed that the series will need to go at least six games, with that sixth game being played back in Toronto at Rogers Centre on Friday. The Blue Jays needed just one win in LA to regain home field advantage - now they have their sights set on going home with a series lead.

They got there thanks to the fact that they were unintimidated by two-way Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, who set a MLB playoff record the previous night by reaching base nine times. He took to the mound in Game 4 for his first World Series start and while he was effective for the first two innings, he got into trouble in the third.

That's when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stepped up to the plate with a man on base and he took Ohtani deep for his first career World Series home run. It gives Guerrero the Blue Jays career playoff record for home runs with his seventh - with all of those home runs being hit in the 2025 postseason.

The home run gave the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead, a lead starter Shane Bieber would hold on to during his 5.1 innings pitched. Bieber only allowed four hits while striking out three hitters and when he handed the ball over to Mason Fluharty in the bottom of the sixth, it was with the knowledge that he did what he could to set the Blue Jays up for a crucial Game 4 win.

The Blue Jays then strung together a five hit, four run inning in the top of the seventh in which not a single ball left the yard. Daulton Varsho led off with a single and Ernie Clement followed with a doubled. Andrés Giménez than singled to bring in Varsho.

The Blue Jays scored another run on a force out and then cashed in two more thanks to RBI singles from Bo Bichette and Addison Barger and ended the top half of the seventh with a 6-1 lead. It was once again the Blue Jays ability to keep making contact and grinding through at-bats that forced the Dodgers to go to their bullpen which was tired and weakened from having to cover so many innings the night before.

The Blue Jays and Dodgers now head into Game 5 with the series exactly where everyone thought it would be, all squared at 2-2.