LOS ANGELES — The game that had it all ends Monday at 11:50 p.m. PT. Over the course of 6 hours, 39 minutes, Game 3 of the World Series played out like a fantasy baseball dream scenario, filled with tension, drama and madness, with events the likes of which the game had never seen before and will never see again. It was fun, and even then, when the 18th inning ended and los angeles dodgers had beaten toronto blue jays 6-5, which was a relief in a way, because holding your breath for hours is not a sustainable way to live.
That’s the price we pay for a case like Game 3. The Dodgers and Blue Jays competed at an extraordinary level in the second-longest game in World Series history. They punched and counterattacked, emptying their benches and bullpens. He magically completed the task and found pieces of himself that he didn’t know existed. And in the 18th inning, it was freddy freemanAlready the hero of last year’s World Series, who submitted a center-cut sinker Brendan Little 406 feet over the center-field fence.
703 games have been played in the World Series’ 121-year history. And while certainly competitive, it launched itself into the upper echelon, undoubtedly elite, and left the 52,654 fans at Dodger Stadium as giddy as they were nearly seven years ago, when the only other 18-inning game in World Series history ended the same way: with a Dodgers walk-off homer.
Game 3 of the World Series featured…
609 pitches (LAD: 312, TOR: 297)
37 runners left on base
25 position players were used
19 pitchers were used pic.twitter.com/MBHReOJ16x– ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) 28 October 2025
Braves were in abundance. Will KleinThe last man out of the Dodgers bullpen, a reliever who had topped out at two innings and 30 pitches this year, threw four innings of one-hit ball and struck out five on 72 pitches. The last of those, an 86 mph curveball, induced a swing and missed. tyler heineman And the scream of Klein, who understood what was asked of him and knew he had accomplished it.
Games would not have become classics without efforts like Klein’s. He made it to the finals by striking out Toronto’s last two batters. yoshinobu yamamoto — who had thrown a 105-pitch complete game two days earlier — was warming up in the bullpen. That scene alone reflected the chaos of Game 3, a funhouse mirror of a ballgame in which everything was in disarray.
except for the supernatural talent of shohei ohtaniOhtani reached base nine times, something that had been done only twice in big league history – never in the postseason and not since 1942 – and his greatness dominated the game from start to finish. He led off the game for the Dodgers with a double. He did home up next time. He doubled again. He once again scored a home goal, his second of the game, his eighth of the postseason, to tie the score at 5 and set up the ensuing chaos.
At the time, Blue Jays manager John Schneider had seen a lot. In the ninth inning, Ohtani became the first hitter to intentionally walk with the bases empty in the ninth inning or later in a postseason game. The next three times he came to the plate – twice with the bases empty – Schneider raised four fingers and happily gave Ohtani a free pass. In the 17th, with a runner on first, the Blue Jays opted to pitch to him – and Brandon Little promptly fielded four balls around the strike zone as well.
Schneider’s decision-making early in the game, in which he tried to score runs by substituting in a cadre of pinch runners, crippled the Blue Jays’ lineup for most of the second half of the game. Against a Dodgers bullpen that had been sputtering for most of the postseason, Toronto managed only one run in 13.1 innings. Los Angeles used 10 pitchers – including clayton kershawFuture Hall of Famer. Kershaw came in with the bases loaded in the 13th, grounded out through a nine-pitch at-bat. Nathan Lukes And drove a dribbler to second base tommy adman Caught Freeman with his glove.
Moments like these were abundant in a game that included 615 pitches, the most ever in the postseason since MLB began tracking pitches in 1988. In the 14th, Will Smith Hit a fly ball to center field and dropped his bat, thinking it was the game winner. The ball died on the warning track. Teoscar Hernandez, who, like Ohtani, had four hits, did the same in the 16th. It also came wrapped in a glove.
Freeman did not. He struggled significantly in the postseason, entering the game with only one RBI. His first two games looked a far cry from his World Series run last year, when, despite multiple injuries, he hit a walk-off grand slam in Game 1 and won Series MVP. It was not just lack of production. He wasn’t hitting the ball particularly hard.
On the final pitch, he finally did it. It’s the kind of thing that happens in 18-inning games. They are uncomfortable and scary and can end with bat cracks. This is horrifying. It is beautiful. This is everything.
Those who were lucky enough to witness it will never forget it. They were writhing and staggering and closing their eyes and praying and screaming and crying and in the end, there were 31 hits and 37 runners on base and 19 pitchers left and one particularly majestic swing that, 10 minutes before Monday turned into Tuesday, ended one of the best World Series games of all time — and gave the Dodgers a 2-1 advantage in this year’s series.
They will return to the stadium on Tuesday – less than 18 hours later – and do it again. It won’t be the same, because baseball games never happen – but that’s totally OK. Game 3 had it all.
