Blue Jays stomp Dodgers in Game 1 with 9 runs in 6th inning

TORONTO — It was a 12-batter onslaught, a beatdown that started with a leadoff walk, accelerated with a grand slam that made World Series history and ended with a pile-on two-run homer from the player who perhaps best exemplifies just how suffocating these Toronto Blue Jays are.

And now the Los Angeles Dodgers will be playing uphill in the World Series for the first time in their quest to produce back-to-back championships.

Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam, the first of its kind in World Series history, highlighted the sixth-inning barrage by the Blue Jays as they defeated the Dodgers, 11-4, before a supercharged crowd of 44,357 at Rogers Centre.

The locals waited 32 years for a Fall Classic contest, and though it’s perhaps short-sighted to say the wait was worth it, for a few frenzied minutes Friday night, a case could be made.

Alejandro Kirk, the Blue Jays’ beloved 5-foot-8 catcher, recorded the first hit of the inning — a single to put two runners on against Dodgers starter Blake Snell.

And by the time he provided the capper — a two-run home run off reliever Anthony Banda — it was already garbage time.

In between, the Blue Jays dipped into their bench three times — a pinch-runner for Bo Bichette, who drew a leadoff walk playing in his first game since Sept. 6 after recovering from a knee injury, pinch-hitter Nathan Lukes coming off the bench and drawing a bases-loaded walk to make it 4-2 and, three batters later, Barger.

He’d started this season in the minor leagues, was recalled April 15 to give a flagging Blue Jays club a boost and went on to hit 21 homers.

In the postseason, he added a pivotal three-run homer in ALCS Game 6 as the Blue Jays rallied from the brink of elimination.

And then, in his first career World Series plate appearance, history.

With the bases still loaded, he pinch hit for Davis Schneider, who started because Snell was on the mound. With the Dodgers missing lefty reliever Alex Vesia because of a family emergency, the reliable Banda was the choice.

And Barger greeted him by pouncing on a 2-1 slider, whistling it 413 feet to right-center field, six rows deep into the bobbing, thrilled masses.

It was a 9-2 score, soon to be 11-2, with the final tally resulting from Shohei Ohtani’s first career World Series home run. Yet it was a game the Blue Jays had to have, cracking the facade of the Dodgers’ heretofore impenetrable pitching.

Game 2, matching Yoshinobu Yamamoto against Toronto’s Kevin Gausman, should determine if this was a harbinger.