Win or Go Home

With the Dodgers down 3 games to 1 in the best-of-seven 2025 World Series, never before have the words “Win or Go Home” been truer – figuratively and literally.

Figuratively: If Dave Roberts‘ Dodgers do not win Game-6 of the 2025 World Series at Rogers Centre in downtown Toronto, Canada over John Schneider‘s Blue Jays on Friday, his team will forever be remembered as the other team.

Literally: If the Dodgers lose on Friday, they will board their charter to go home and “Wait ’til next year,” as they say.

It goes without saying (but I will anyway) that the Dodgers will not enjoy the warmth and support they received at Dodger Stadium for Games 3, 4 and 5 when they take the field at Rogers Centre on Friday (and hopefully Saturday).

Here’s what former MLB right-hander AJ Ramos had to say about the Dodgers and Game-5 on MLB Network Radio on Thursday:

“When I watch the Dodgers hit right now, even Freddie Freeman, the guy that has great bat to ball skills, he is taking hacks, like daddy hacks, you know. Those are A-swing hacks like, you better watch out, you’re gonna hurt his back-type hacks. And so, you know, it’s not… it’s a different type of swing that I’ve seen Freddie take.

“And then Mookie, it looks like Mookie’s bat, he’s using Babe Ruth’s bat, it’s really heavy or something. Like, it looks really heavy, really heavy on him. He’s in between pitches, it could be the 18 innings they played or whatever it is, but he’s struggling, his timing is all off right now, you know.

“So, it’s been tough. It’s been tough for the Dodgers lineup. They have different ways of going about it and they just seem like they’re pressing, they’re trying to make things happen, and as we talked about before, when you’re trying to do something, you’re putting more pressure on yourself.

“So, I think they really needed this day off. Hopefully, that gets ‘em back into… more rest, so they can get back in that groove and understand like, alright, we got a day away from it, let’s simplify things, because, when you get in those modes, you tend to overcomplicate things and overthink things.

“So, when you get back to just playing the game – see ball, hit ball – the game becomes a little bit more, just simpler, so then you can go out there and play like you know you can.”

Not much more one can add to that – other than:

Play Ball

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