TORONTO — The Dodgers left Alex Vesia off the World Series roster they submitted on Friday morning and Manager Dave Roberts said Vesia “most likely” will miss the entire series.
Vesia did not travel to Toronto with the team. He and his wife, Kayla, are dealing with a “deeply personal family matter,” the Dodgers announced on Thursday.
“It’s certainly on our hearts and we miss him, and we’ll be thinking about him,” Roberts said Friday.
The Dodgers could have put Vesia on family bereavement leave and activated him at some point during the series. But that would have put a three-to-seven day limit on his absence. Now Vesia could only be added to the roster as a replacement for an injured player.
“We just didn’t want to have any potential for any kind of pressure,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of the decision. “This is so much bigger than baseball. For us, it was doing whatever small part we could to just a hundred percent be supportive.”
Vesia’s subtraction from the bullpen adds further uncertainty to the Dodgers’ most vulnerable area. Right-hander Ben Casparius was also dropped from the World Series roster. Instead, right-handers Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein were added.
The Toronto Blue Jays’ most dangerous hitters are right-handed – Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer and Bo Bichette (who was included on their World Series roster after being sidelined since Sept. 6 with a knee injury) – prompting the additions of Klein and Henriquez.
Henriquez was on the roster for the Wild Card Series and made one appearance against the Cincinnati Reds, failing to retire any of the three batters he faced. Klein made 14 appearances for the Dodgers with a 2.35 ERA and finished the regular season on the roster but has not been active for any of the previous postseason series.
“We feel really good about our relievers in terms of the righty-lefty, the different looks, the stuff that we’ll bring out,” Friedman said. “Obviously, it comes down to execution, and those guys feeling confident to go in the lanes that Doc, Mark (Prior), Danny (Lehmann) kind of figure out and for them to just trust to flood the (strike) zone. If we’re able to do that, I think then we’ll be really successful.
“Edgardo and Will, for us, just their pitch mix, how it matched up against their hitters, it felt like gave us more margin for error in different ways and different ways to match up that we felt like fit our group really well.”
The Dodgers did not add left-hander Tanner Scott to the roster. Signed for four years and $72 million as a free agent last winter, Scott was dropped from the roster during the National League Division Series after undergoing a minor medical procedure and was not eligible for the NL Championship Series. Roberts indicated Scott was not added to the roster for medical reasons.
“The medical (staff) has not allowed for him to have the ramp-up,” Roberts said. “He’s thrown a couple bullpens. It just wasn’t quite there. … I think ultimately it’s just bad timing, unfortunately.”
KERSHAW FAREWELL
Also included on the roster for the World Series is veteran left-hander Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw has announced he will retire following this season, making it possible his career will end with a final appearance during this World Series.
“I would love to get Clayton in there at some point,” Roberts said. “But I’m going to pitch the best players I feel are the best in that particular moment. So if it happens, that would be great.”
Kershaw has pitched just once in this postseason, allowing five runs in two innings of the Dodgers’ lone postseason loss (Game 3 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies).
GIFT GIVING
False reports memorably had Shohei Ohtani on a plane to Toronto, ready to end his free agency by signing with the Blue Jays two years ago. He chose the Dodgers but the Blue Jays did make a solid run at him, meeting with him at the team’s training complex in Florida.
“When we met with him, you felt good about it, and you felt good about the feedback he was giving about our organization and an opportunity here,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider, who was part of those meetings. “But you never really know what a player’s feeling in free agency, and there’s a lot of things that have to line up for them personally, too. You can’t really think about what if. You think about the 26 that we have.
“I think things worked out the way they were meant to work out.”
Schneider went on to joke about the gifts the Blue Jays presented him with at those meetings.
“I hope he brought his hat, the Blue Jays hat that he took from us in our meeting, I hope he brought it back finally – and the jacket for Decoy,” Schneider joked of Ohtani’s dog. “It’s like, give us our stuff back already.”
When the Dodgers played in Toronto during the 2024 season, Ohtani was booed loudly by Blue Jays fans for jilting them. Ohtani was reminded of that this week.
“It’s an unfortunate reality as a free agent that you only get to really pick one team,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “I’m sure as a player you want to play with different kinds of teams, different circumstances, but the decision had to be made.”
As for Decoy’s Blue Jays gear, Ohtani isn’t returning it.
“I plan to keep it because it was something that was a gift,” he said when asked Thursday.
UP NEXT
Game 2 – Dodgers (RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 2-1, 1.83 ERA in 2025 postseason) at Blue Jays (RHP Kevin Gausman, 2-1, 2.00 ERA), Saturday, 5 p.m., FOX (Ch. 11), 570 AM