After a slog of a Game 1—three hours and 52 minutes, officially, but it felt longer—Boston has an 8-4 win over the Dodgers to its credit and a 1-0 World Series lead. Three thoughts off the Fall Classic opener:
These playoffs have been characterized by short starts throughout—only seven of the 28 games played before the World Series featured a start longer than six innings—but it was nonetheless jarring to see neither Clayton Kershaw nor Chris Sale, with 14 all-star appearances between them, record an out in the fifth. In Sale’s case, he had racked up a high pitch count (91) by the time he finished walking Brian Dozier to lead off the inning.