If you pitch four shutout innings for the Los Angeles Dodgers deep into extras of a World Series game and earn the win in the process, it's a safe bet that you're going to hear from a few friends after.
Or, in Will Klein's case, a few hundred.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday before Game 4 of the World Series, Klein said he had more than 500 text messages on Monday night and woke up to 500 more this morning, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.
“I heard from every coach I ever had,” he said.
Nightengale added that includes t-ball coaches.
With Game 4 against the Toronto Blue Jays starting only about 18 hours after Game 3 — an 18-inning marathon that the Dodgers won 6-5 on a walk-off home run from Freddie Freeman — Klein was also asked how many innings he could go on Tuesday.
“As many as they need,” he said, per The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya. “Hopefully zero.”
Klein threw the final four innings of the game, giving up no runs on one hit with a pair of walks and five strikeouts. He threw 72 pitches in the process.
In a series that has had plenty of heroes, from George Springer for the Blue Jays to Shohei Ohtani and Freeman for the Dodgers, Klein was been the most unlikely. He was not on the Dodgers' roster for any of the first three rounds of the postseason and threw a grand total of 15.1 regular season innings.
After the game, the second-year reliever spoke like a seasoned pro.
“We weren't losing that game,” he said, via 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.”
“I never dreamed that anything like this would happen,” he added. “So just having the guys like [Clayton Kershaw], Freddie, Shohei, Mookie [Betts], all those guys kind of celebrating me for a second there was just insane. I don't think I could have dreamt a dream that good.”
