A math problem even I could figure out: If Team A has an Elite Offense and Elite Pitching and Team B has an Elite Offense and Solid Pitching, which team has the advantage?
Don’t strain that brain too much: Obviously the team that’s doubly elite. Because Team A has the bats to take advantage of the area where Team B is not as strong.
So Team A better bat around, eh?
Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto might have fooled Team B with more of his complete-game mastery in the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday in Toronto, but don’t let that fool you: Team Blue Jays have not been subdued.
Their offensive engine, which otherwise has been firing on all cylinders, might have been reduced to a simmer for an evening, but now these professional hitmen are bringing their talents to unseasonably warm L.A.; the weather app on my phone is telling me temperatures here are supposed to reach into the high-80s this week.
And the show will be heating up at Dodger Stadium, which has been a notably hitter-friendly venue; an MLB-leading 254 home runs were launched there in the regular season.
Though, certainly, the Dodgers have more aces up their collective sleeve, including Monday’s Game 3 starter Tyler Glasnow.
The Santa Clarita Hart High grad has great stuff, and has shown comparable compete, but many in the Jays’ formidable order are familiar with the lanky right-hander who pitched for the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League for six seasons. Who’s to say how many times through Monday it could take for the Jays to tie him in a knot?
Especially the historic way Toronto’s order has been operating.
Going into Game 2, the Blue Jays were averaging 6.8 runs per game with a .900 OPS – tied with the 1999 Red Sox for second all-time among teams that played at least 10 games in one postseason.
It hasn’t been just a few guys doing the slugging; eight of Toronto’s hitters had driven in at least eight runs in these playoffs – a big-league record that should tell us there’s no skipping tracks here, everyone could be a big hit. (More Kendrick than Drake, let’s say.)
Some situations call for a remix of the old saying that the best offense being a good defense. This is one: The best defense here is good offense. Really good offense.
Just look at what the Jays did to Blake Snell in Game 1, when they tagged the Dodgers’ excellent left-hander for five runs in what devolved into an 11-4 blowout.
Against these Jays, it’s run, don’t walk. A matter of staying alive by staying ahead. Or close.
It’s about giving your pitchers – the star starters and those totally trusted guys in the bullpen who no one in L.A. is worrying about, no, not at all – some wiggle room, a bit of very necessary room to breathe.
The Dodgers’ starters might be getting a lot of warranted love and attention for how they’ve performed this postseason, but if Dave Roberts’ club is going to repeat as World Series champions, it’s going to take outscoring the other guys.
And that seems like a perfectly suitable assignment for a lineup led off by Shohei Ohtani, a back-to-back 50-home run hitter who can, on a seeming whim, wallop three home runs in a game leading off.
An order that then brings up with Mookie Betts, former batting champ; Freddie Freeman, quantifiably one of MLB’s most clutch hitters; and Max Muncy, who last year reached safely in 12 consecutive at-bats to set an all-time postseason record.
That is further bolstered by the capable and often-clutch bats of Kiké Hernández, Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernandez and Will Smith – the great-hitting catcher who was the offensive hero in Game 2, with his two-out, RBI single to get the scoring started in the first inning and his tie-breaking solo homer in the seventh.
That killer lineup will face 41-year-old Max Scherzer on Monday, when he’ll be making his 27th career postseason start – and his fifth in a World Series.
A three-time Cy Young winner, former Dodger and maniacal competitor, Scherzer was injured and struggled most of the season (5-5, 5.19 ERA). He was 0-3 with a 10.20 ERA in September and left off the AL Division Series postseason roster.
But he was back in the American League Championship Series, where he allowed only three hits and two runs in 5⅔ innings against the Mariners in an 8-2 victory.
And the Dodgers, if they’re going do to this repeat thing, better be able to bat around and bring home more than two runs.