World Series 2025: Game 7 will be determined by the arms of Shohei Ohtani, Max Scherzer, Tyler Glasnow and Shane Bieber: 'Everyone will be available' Jake MintzNovember 1, 2025 at 12:11 PM 0 TORONTO — The four men whose right arms will decide the fate of this baseball season experienced World Series Game 6, a dramatic 31 Dodgers win, from four entirely different vantage points.
- - World Series 2025: Game 7 will be determined by the arms of Shohei Ohtani, Max Scherzer, Tyler Glasnow and Shane Bieber: 'Everyone will be available'
Jake MintzNovember 1, 2025 at 12:11 PM
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TORONTO — The four men whose right arms will decide the fate of this baseball season experienced World Series Game 6, a dramatic 3-1 Dodgers win, from four entirely different vantage points.
Shohei Ohtani, Shane Bieber, Tyler Glasnow and Max Scherzer — a star-studded quartet that has amassed 16 combined All-Star appearances, four Cy Young Awards, three MVPs (all Ohtani's), 6,434 career strikeouts and more than $1 billion in contract value — are set to cover the majority of the innings in Saturday's epic Game 7 showdown.
"I'm not sure [our] pitching situation, but Glasnow will be available. Everyone will be available," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team held on to force one more game in this Fall Classic.
Scherzer will start Game 7 for Toronto, that much is known. Bieber, who got the ball in Game 4, will be available out of the bullpen. Things are hazier for the Dodgers, but all signs point to Ohtani starting on the mound with Glasnow available for bulk responsibilities out of the bullpen.
Roberts did not reveal anything of substance during his postgame news conference, instead opting to lean on the word "possibility" like a steel cane.
Will Ohtani start Saturday?
"It's a possibility," he said.
Is he more likely to start than appear in relief?
"We are not certain, but it's a possibility."
Will Glasnow start Saturday?
"They are all possibilities."
Glasnow, in the immediate aftermath of Game 6's dramatic ending, was similarly unsure of the Game 7 plan.
"I don't know. We'll find out. I don't know yet," the long-haired righty replied when a reporter inquired about his role for Saturday.
Amid the fog, one thing is certain: Scherzer will throw the first pitch of Game 7.
The future Hall of Famer spent most of Friday in the home dugout, pacing back and forth, unable to sit for long periods of time, a lurking shark hopped up on Mountain Dew. Between innings, Scherzer, who threw well in that marathon Game 3 before it devolved into madness, fidgeted with a ball, flipping it between his hands, bouncing it up and down on the rubber dugout floor. He was a man preparing himself for a game he didn't want to have to throw.
"Max has been getting ready for Game 7 when he knew he was pitching Game 3," Jays manager John Schneider said postgame Friday.
Bieber had a much more straightforward evening. He watched most of the game from Toronto's bullpen in left field. Like Glasnow, the lifelong starter was ready to relieve if the game called upon him. Unlike Glasnow, Bieber did not even need to peel off his sweatshirt. Instead, he finished the night in the dugout alongside Scherzer. The 2020 Cy Young has made just two relief appearances in his career: one during his rookie year in 2018, the other during the first week of 2019. He is a near lock to appear Saturday night.
[Get more Toronto news: Blue Jays team feed]
So is Glasnow, who recorded the final three outs of Game 6 on just three pitches. He began Friday in the home dugout but trotted to the 'pen in the second inning. There he waited, sweatshirt on, not entirely expecting to pitch. But when Roki Sasaki got into a jam in the ninth inning, Glasnow snapped into action. He got hot in a jiffy before joining the proceedings with runners on second and third and nobody out. After getting Ernie Clement on a weak popout to second base with the first pitch, Glasnow watched with bated breath — like 44,710 others at Rogers Centre — as Kiké Hernández doubled off Addison Barger to end the game.
Asked afterward whether he'd ever pitched on back-to-back days, Glasnow said he didn't think so — he did, once, back in 2018 — but it didn't matter either way.
"I threw, like, barely any pitches," he said. " I didn't really warm up a ton, either. And I threw three pitches."
Ohtani, given the circumstance, is likely more worn than Glasnow. He went 1-for-3 with an intentional walk and a run scored in Game 6. The two-way superstar last pitched in Game 4, just hours after he went 4-for-4 with five walks in The Forever Game. In that first career World Series start, Ohtani was good, not great. He coughed up an early, two-run laser to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., then settled in. But he tired in the seventh, letting two Jays reach before Roberts came out to get him. Both would score, leaving Ohtani with a final line of 6 innings pitched, 4 earned runs, 6 hits, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts.
He is now the favorite to start Saturday, even though he'll be on shorter rest than Glasnow. That's almost entirely due to the rules surrounding his status as a two-status player. If Ohtani starts on the mound, as he has done 17 times this season, he is permitted to remain in the game as the designated hitter once his night as a pitcher is over.
Crucially, that is not the case if he enters as a reliever. If Ohtani goes from the DH spot to the mound during a game, the Dodgers would lose the DH once Ohtani is finished throwing. In that scenario, either a pitcher or a pinch hitter would need to hit in that spot for the rest of the game, akin to pre-DH National League rules.
The Dodgers could call on Ohtani to close out the game, as Team Japan did during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, but that would require Ohtani to conduct his extended warm-up routine during the game while acting as a hitter. Another unlikely option involves Ohtani going from pitcher to outfield, a position he has played in 14 games as a big leaguer, to keep him in the lineup. But while that would allow Ohtani to continue hitting, Los Angeles would still be faced with a pitcher in the DH spot.
[Get more L.A. news: Dodgers team feed]
And so, Ohtani will probably start Game 7 of the World Series. That's a preposterous sentence, equally impossible and inevitable. It will be the second time in Ohtani's career that he has started a game on three days' rest. Back in 2023, after an April start was cut short by rain, the Angels sent Ohtani back out three days later. He threw 102 pitches in that second start, after throwing 31 three days prior. His WBC heroics were flipped. Ohtani tossed 71 pitches in Japan's quarterfinal game, then 15 in that dramatic ninth inning after four days' rest.
Saturday will be an entirely different beast. Ohtani tossed 93 pitches and went six-plus innings in Game 4. In the days since, he appeared twice as the leadoff batter and flew across the continent. It's difficult to qualify any of that as rest. All year and all month, the Dodgers have been extremely cautious with Ohtani, the pitcher — his three playoff starts have all come on at least 10 days' rest.
So somehow, the ballplayer who has seemingly experienced it all will be undertaking a completely new challenge for World Series Game 7.
On Saturday, Ohtani will probably precede Glasnow. It's difficult to imagine Ohtani topping 75 pitches, at most. He probably goes one, maybe two times through the order. After that, it's Glasnow and all hands on deck. Sasaki, despite his rocky ninth Friday, will throw. So could Blake Snell, who threw 6 2/3 uneven innings in Game 5 on Wednesday. The only unavailable Dodger will be Game 6 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto; Roberts confirmed as much afterward.
Toronto's bullpen will be similarly ready. The Jays avoided using closer Jeff Hoffman on Friday, increasing the likelihood that their top relief arm goes multiple innings in Game 7. Four other Jays worked in Game 6: Louis Varland, Mason Fluharty, Seranthony Domínguez and Chris Bassitt. Varland, if he pitches in Game 7, will break the record for most appearances in a single postseason. Given how his past month has unfurled, that feels likely. The Game 5 hero, rookie Trey Yesavage, could also throw in relief. Even Kevin Gausman, Toronto's Game 6 starter, told reporters that he'll do whatever possible to make himself available.
That might seem extreme, desperate even. But such are the stakes for Game 7.
Source: "AOL Sports"
Source: Sports
Published: November 01, 2025 at 03:27PM on Source: KOS MAG
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