Before Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off home run to seal a 6-5 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in the 18th inning of Game 3 of the World Series, 25-year-old reliever Will Klein turned in the performance of a lifetime for the Boys in Blue.
Despite only pitching in 14 regular-season contests and not being on the NL Wild Card, NLDS or NLCS rosters, Klein tossed a career-high 72 pitches en route to four scoreless innings. The righty had come in after Edgardo Henriquez, who was not on the NLCS roster, delivered two scoreless innings of work.
“In the postseason, people talk about the superstars, but a lot of times it’s these unsung heroes that you just can’t expect,” Roberts told Cary Osborne of Dodger Insider. “Tonight was Will Klein’s night, and obviously, what Edgardo did was just as paramount.”
Klein used his high-velocity fastball and biting curveball to keep Toronto’s hitters at bay. The Bloomington native proved he could compete on the sport’s biggest stage and was not about to let his team down.
“We weren't losing that game,” Klein told AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “And so I had to keep going back out there. I was going to keep doing that — and doing all I could to put up a zero and sit back down and do it again.”
Klein had been traded twice this season by other teams and would have likely been left off the Dodgers’ World Series roster if not for a personal family matter that has kept reliever Alex Vesia away from the club.
The former fifth-round pick was not necessarily a part of Los Angeles’ bullpen plans, but he might have just turned in the most influential showing of their entire postseason thus far.
“You don't ever plan on playing 18 innings, and you just kind of ask more from the player,” Dodgers manager Roberts said. “He delivered. He threw probably three times as much as he's ever thrown before and — certainly with the adrenaline on this stage — what he did was incredible.”
