TORONTO (AP) — Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman was solid in his World Series debut.
It wasn’t nearly good enough against Los Angeles ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Gausman struck out six and walked none over 6 2/3 innings in Game 2, retiring 17 straight batters during the longest postseason start of his career. Even so, he couldn’t match Dodgers counterpart Yamamoto, who threw a four-hitter for his second consecutive complete game and the first in the Series since 2015.
Gausman took the loss in Toronto’s 5-1 defeat, allowing three runs and four hits, including a pair of solo homers in the seventh inning.
“Four hits, two of them homers, so I’m not that happy about it,” Gausman said. “I could have pitched better. The guy on the other side did. That’s baseball. He’s on a good streak right now.”
Gausman had a pretty good streak, too. After Will Smith hit a two-out RBI single in the first inning, Gausman struck out former Blue Jays teammate Teoscar Hernández to end the rally, the first of 17 consecutive outs.
“He had us off balance, didn’t give up much hard contact at all,” Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts said. “He was really cruising for the most part.”
Gausman had excellent control of his splitter and fastball, keeping both near the bottom of the zone.
“Kev was really good,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “I thought he located the fastball down really well, which made the split kind of open up. He’s one of our best pitchers, and I thought he did a really good job navigating. It was anyone’s game for the taking and they just made a couple big swings there.”
His command wavered in the seventh. Smith snapped Gausman’s streak with a one-out homer on a belt-high fastball in the seventh. After Hernández fanned for a fourth time, Max Muncy chased Gausman with another homer on a similar heater.
“I don’t know that I solved him, I think he just made a mistake and I was able to take advantage of it,” Muncy said. “His splitter was really, really good today. He was leaving it right at the bottom of the zone, just below. When he’s executing the split at the bottom, that’s what makes the at-bat really challenging, because you can’t just say, ‘I’m going to wait for him to get it up.’ If he’s executing at the bottom, you have to get the swing off. Like I said, for me, he just made a mistake and I was able to get to it.”
Gausman made the playoffs for the first time with Baltimore in 2014. He returned with Atlanta in 2018 and with San Francisco in 2021.
This is his third trip to the postseason with Toronto since signing a five-year, $110 million contract in December of 2021. The Blue Jays lost in the Wild Card Series in 2022 and 2023.
Gausman, who’d be in line to start Game 6 if the World Series lasts that long, said he’s expecting to pitch one more time in 2025.
“I feel pretty good about our team,” Gausman said. “We all have confidence in each other to go to LA and play well and make this a fun series.”
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
By IAN HARRISON
Associated Press
