How Dodgers vs. Blue Jays Game 3 became second-longest World Series game ever

The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Toronto Blue Jays overnight in Game 3 of the 2025 World Series. Freddie Freeman launched a walk-off home run to secure a 6-5 victory in the bottom of the 18th inning. As a result, the Dodgers now lead the best-of-seven series by a 2-1 margin.

Monday night/Tuesday morning’s affair happened to tie the Dodgers’ marathon Game 3 against the Boston Red Sox in 2018 as the longest World Series contest in history, at least from an innings played perspective. That 2018 tilt still has the distinction of being the longest in terms of minutes played: lasting seven hours and 20 minutes, or roughly a half hour longer than this year’s Game 3. Those two games happen to be the only World Series contests on record to last 15 or more innings.

If you went to bed before Game 3 wrapped up, you might’ve woke up wondering what, precisely, led to the Dodgers and Blue Jays effectively playing two for the price of one. Here are three particular factors that help explain Game 3’s length.

1. Shaky Bullpens trade zeroes

Throughout October, the quality of these bullpens has been questioned. Both units finished in the bottom half of the majors in ERA during the regular season, and the Dodgers even tied for 29th in “meltdowns,” a FanGraphs-created statistic that gauges how much a given player contributes to a team’s chances of winning. Those reputations may have preceded them heading into Game 3, but they didn’t define or predict how they were going to perform amid some tough circumstances.

Mind you, not only did Game 3 stretch to two game’s worth of outs, it also saw each club’s starter depart during the fifth inning. That didn’t stop Blue Jays lefty Eric Lauer and Dodgers righty Will Klein — the final pitcher out of the Los Angeles bullpen — from trading zeroes for more than four innings.

Overall, the Blue Jays deployed eight relievers. The Dodgers nine. Four different Toronto relievers recorded at least four outs. Five different Dodgers did. Here’s a look at their cumulative efforts:

Afterwards, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was quick to acknowledge the unsung heroes of Game 3, including relievers Edgardo Henriquez, Justin Wrobleski, and the aforementioned Klein. 

“Yeah, there’s just a lot of heroes tonight,” Roberts said. “Obviously, Freddie put the exclamation mark on the game, but you see what Will Klein did, you know, saw what Edgardo, Wrobleski. Clayton comes in. He was up for three innings and comes in and gets a huge out for us. Just across the board everyone just had huge nights. Big nights, just kept kind of fighting, kept fighting.”

With two more games scheduled before the next day off, it’s to be seen how the heavy workload will impact both pitching staffs heading forward. Still, the Dodgers are win one closer to repeating as World Series champions because of how their most-criticized unit fared when they were called upon.

2. Diminished Blue Jays lineup

It’s only natural that the lineup that begins an 18-inning game is not going to be identical to the nine that takes the game to completion. Still, you have to give Blue Jays manager John Schneider this much: he exhausted his options. Schneider used every single position player available to him, some out of necessity and some out of strategy. 

In turn, four of Toronto’s nine starters were removed during the course of the contest, including DH and leadoff man George Springer, who injured his side on a swing in the seventh. Schneider would later pinch-run for Bo Bichette (recovering from a knee injury) in the seventh inning, outfielder Addison Barger in the eighth, and catcher Alejandro Kirk in the 12th inning, among other subs.

By the time Freeman launched off, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was no longer surrounded with Springer, Bichette, and Kirk, but batting in the middle of a group that included Ty France, Nathan Lukes, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. No disrespect to those gentlemen — clearly they’ve done something right to be playing in a World Series — but all those changes made the navigating the lineup a little easier. 

3. Intentional walks, missed opportunities

In the first half of Game 3, Shohei Ohtani made history by notching four extra-base hits, including a pair of home runs. In the second half, Schneider and the Blue Jays decided to force other Dodgers beat them. Freeman eventually did, but not before the Dodgers burned through their share of chances.

Here’s a quick summation of each Ohtani walk, intentional or semi-intentional, and what happened next.

• Intentional walk No. 1: The Blue Jays first walked Ohtani with one out and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth. Ohtani would be thrown out stealing before Mookie Betts fouled out.
• Intentional walk No. 2: The Blue Jays next walked Ohtani with two outs and nobody on in the 11th. Betts would single, but Freeman flied out to strand both.
• Intentional walk No. 3: With one out and a runner on in the 13th, the Blue Jays would intentionally walk both Ohtani and Betts. Freeman then flied out again without plating the winning run.
• Intentional walk No. 4: The Blue Jays put Ohtani on without struggle in the 15th, giving him the four-fingers treatment with one out and nobody on. Betts and Freeman would hit into outs.
• Semi-intentional walk: Ohtani’s final plate appearance, in the 17th, saw him walk on four pitches and with a runner aboard. Betts would foul out to extend the game.

Those are just the opportunities the Dodgers wasted that were created by Ohtani walks. They had at least one runner reach in six of their eight extra-inning frames heading into the 18th. Yet they were unable to convert any of them into that pivotal run.

Credit the Blue Jays’ pitching and defense, too, obviously. But if the Blue Jays are going to take the bat out of Ohtani’s hands, the way they did throughout the tail end of Game 3, the Dodgers are going to have to have their other stars step up to secure another World Series title.