Dodgers - 000 101 011 01 - 5 11 0
Blue Jays - 003 001 000 00 - 4 14 0It was only the sixth World Series Game 7 to need extra innings. And it ended up being one of the most memorable Game 7s of all time.
How the Los Angeles Dodgers, down by two runs with only eight outs remaining, rallied to tie and eventually win the game (and the World Series) in eleven innings, while also snuffing out three harrowing potential rallies in the final four innings, any one of which could have given the Toronto Blue Jays its first World Series championship in 32 years, was improbable, astonishing, and anxiety-producing and exhausting even for fans with no serious stake in the outcome.
After wishing dearly that all the hopes and dreams of Blue Jays fans would be crushed into dust before their disbelieving eyes, by the time the tenth inning began tonight, I no longer felt that way. I felt truly bad for Blue Jays fans, maybe even had some compassion. To witness the unprecedented ending of Game 6, when the ultimate victory seemed so close, they could almost surround it with their arms and never let it go, and then have to go home and gear up for yet another game, that was bad enough. But the torture was only beginning. Forgetting the Dodgers pulverizing hopes and dreams. The Blue Jays ground up their own fan base, forcing them to witness events so brutal, they should qualify as extreme emotional abuse. A few of those fans will never recover.
While the Dodgers enjoyed their on-field celebration, as their families ran onto the field to join them, Sportsnet showed many shots of stunned Blue Jays fans, who had watched Mookie Betts glove Alejandro Kirk's ground ball, step on second base, and throw to Freddie Freeman at first to end the game, and simply collapsed into their seats, staring blankly out at the field. I saw one young person with his mouth open in apparent astonishment 15 minutes after the game had ended.
One picture will stay with me for a long time. (I'm tearing up right now, as I type this.) A young boy with red-orange hair was sitting in his seat, with his head face down on the dugout. He wasn't moving. His father stood beside him, his hand gently on his son's back. How long had he been in that position, forehead resting on the top of the dugout? The camera lingered; the boy never even twitched. Sportsnet finally cut away. How old was this kid? We never saw his face, even when the camera returned a few minutes later. Now he's being hugged by his father, who seems to be speaking softly and consolingly to him. At some point, he had lifted his head and buried in his father's Blue Jays shirt, and I know -- I know -- he never opened his eyes.
He could be ten years old. He's just old enough to care -- to really care about the Blue Jays for the first time -- and this is what happens. This is what fuckin happens to an innocent child when, for perhaps the first time in his life, he puts his tender, untested emotions on the line. He didn't decide to do that, of course; it simply happened at some point; an investment was made. He has unknowingly given himself over to something very powerful that he has no control over. He understands nothing of the depth of his investment or the range of possible consequences. I didn't fully understand it when it hit me like a battering ram at the age of 40. You never see the emotional cost coming. Your team lost many games throughout the season -- 75, by the time Game 7 began -- but this one will be unlike all of the others. This is pain of a magnitude that will shock you. You probably told yourself they might lose tonight, but that's no protection. There is no barrier against any of the worst pains of life. . . . Sorry, kid. You'll never see it coming -- and you'll be utterly defenseless.
[I found the second picture online (there are a few variations), but not the first. No identifications. After trying 15 or so different search strings, I took a picture of my computer screen. Rewatching it, I would have sworn the camera was more elevated and seemingly further away.]
Let's start in the eighth inning. Both teams had scored a run in the sixth, the Dodgers cutting Toronto's lead to 3-2 and the Blue Jays restablishing their two-run cushion in the bottom half.
Shohei Ohtani had been a bust on the mound (2.1-5-3-2-3, 51). After throwing 43 pitches in two innings and leaving the bases loaded in the second, should he have come out for the third? A Dodgers fan messaging with my partner Laura throughout the World Series said, in real time, no fuckin way. Dave Roberts didn't listen. Springer single, Lukes sac bunt, Guerrero BBI, Bichette three-run homer (442 feet to dead center).
The Dodgers' ability to string together hits for a multi-run rally had vanished several games ago. And it was absent from this game, too. LA got a run when Smith doubled to start the third. Scherzer had given up a single to Ohtani to start the game but retired the next nine batters. I thought Smith's double had hit the wall in left-center above Varsho's glove, but the replay showed the ball landed inside his glove and caromed out. Freeman singled and Smith played it safe, stopping at third. Betts popped to right and Muncy walked, loading the bases. Teoscar H. lined a ball to center and Varsho made a sterling catch diving forward towards the infield. Smith tagged and scored. Edman then lined a shot down towards first, heading for the right field line, but Guerrero dove to his left, snaring the ball and sliding across the foul line chalk. It was one of several exceptional plays for Guerrero in this game.
LA scored another run on a sacrifice fly in the sixth. Betts walked and took second on Muncy's liner to right. Teoscar forced Muncy at second and Betts scored from third on Edman's fly to center. As mentioned, Toronto matched that run in the home half. Clement singled to left, setting a record with 29 hits this postseason (usual caveats about the numerous rounds of the postseason). He stole second without a throw and came home on Gimenez's double to right-center.
T8: The Dodgers got one run closer on Max Muncy's one-out home run to right. The Blue Jays now led 4-3.
B8: That pesky fucker Clement doubled to left-center, his 30th hit of this postseason, off Sheehan. Snell entered the game (and was the third LA starter to pitch in this game, after Ohtani and Glasnow (both went 2.1 innings); there would be one more). After some mound grooming by the grounds crew, Snell got to work. Gimenez, after trying to bunt the runner to third, smoked a liner right at Muncy who was on the infield grass and made the catch. Springer fanned on three pitches and pinch-hitter Schneider also went down swinging.
T9: It's 11:10 in Toronto, the Blue Jays are three outs from a championship, Jeff Hoffman is on the mound, and Skydome is rockin'. Kike Hernandez lunges after a 1-2 slider out of the zone and strikes out. Those splitters and sliders must be extraordinarily enticing because none of the Dodgers hitters have been able to stop chasing them all night. Two outs to go. Miguel Rojas, the man who recorded the final out of Game 6 at second base, battles Hoffman: swing/miss, ball, ball, foul, foul, ball -- and then a drive to left that carries over the fence (387 feet) for a game-tying home run! Ohtani has been hacking at everything all night and he drives the first pitch to the edge of the track in left for the second out. Smith looks at two strikes, then watched four balls sail outside -- Wait! Plate umpire Jordan Baker blows the final call, ringing Smith up and ending the inning. One of many shitty calls by Baker, whose incompetence is altering the course of the ninth inning of Game 7, for fuck's sake. Manfred allows this to happen year after year after year after year . . . but, hey, teams will be allowed to challenge two pitch calls per game next year. TWO! Thank you, oh benevolent commissioner.
B9: Snell returns to the mound and goes to 3-0 on Guerrero. Vlad swings at the next one and drives it to deep center, where Edman catches it just in front of the warning track. (I attended many games at Skydome and Jays fans are notorious for truping themselves on anything hit in the air. A pop-up to short right is greeted off the bat with the same excitement as a 450-foot blast. The fans never learned to either wait a second before reacting or to simply watch the outfielder. They got fooled soooooo many times in Games 6 and 7.) Bichette lines a single to left and after hobbling to first, leaves for pinch-runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Umpire Baker blows a 2-1 call to Barger, putting the count at 2-2 instead of 3-1. Barger ends up walking on nine pitches. And here comes last night's starter: Yamamoto! After throwing 96 pitches to 23 batters in Game 6, what will he have here? How long will he go? No one has even an inkling of a clue.
Yamamoto's second pitch to Kirk comes inside and drills Kirk on the right arm. The Dodgers challenge the call, but the replay makes the HBP obvious. (The benches and bullpens emptied in the fourth when Gimenez was hit with the third pitch thrown up around his melon by Wrobleski. Some players were pissed off at opposing players, but it appeared to have nothing to do with the HBP. Anyway, that incident seems like it was many hours ago, not five innings.) With only one out, Toronto has the bases loaded and the WS-winning run at third. The Dodgers pull Edman and put Andy Pages in center. All of the outfielders are extremely shallow and the infielders are on the grass of the infield. There was a mound meeting, but the infielders all know the only play on a ground ball is a force at the plate. Varsho grounds a 1-2 splitter to second baseman Rojas. The ball is hit fairly hard and Rojas staggers back a step, but has time to set himself and fire the ball to Smith at the plate, retiring IKF for the second out. Clement is next.
Yamamoto throws a low curveball and Clement clocks it to deep left-center. The fans are certain this game is over. The outfielders were not playing at a normal depth, so Kike is sprinting from left and Pages is coming hard from center. For a brief moment, it looks like Kike might try to catch the ball over his shoulder on the warning track (which would be an eye-popping play). Instead, Pages (listed at 6-1) leaps and appears to slightly hip-check Kike (5-11) out of the way before making a great catch and crashing into the wall. Kike is laying in the dirt at the base of the wall. Pages knows it's the third out, so he checks on his teammate. I imagine Kike asking, "Did you catch it?", knowing that if the answer is "No", then he plans to stay here for a while. But the answer is "Yes!", and we see Kike turn his face to the field, he's smiling, and he starts getting to his feet. Skydome is as silent as a tomb. The tenth inning cometh.
T10: I've already deduced, from my experience watching the "one-game doubleheader" in Los Angeles (so is this really Game 8?) that I'll be hoping the Dodgers score in the top half and if they don't, I'll be terrified at the possibility the Jays might win it all in the bottom. What I really want, of course, is lots of scoreless innings (no trick-or-treaters tonight and it's not even 8:30 PT), when both managers will be forced to finally call in their actual relievers to get outs. Maybe it will get so late Mookie will pitch. (If any player could be considered as a likely candidate to play all nine positions in a game, it's Mookie.)
I recall some games that have a furious amount of activity in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, but once they go into extras, both teams relax and the game's rhythm slows to a calm cruising speed for a few innings before everyone re-engages with the game. Maybe this game will be like that. (It won't, of course.)
The Blue Jays bring in Hoffman to face the middle of the Dodgers order. Freeman flies to left. Betts walks on five pitches. Muncy singles up the middle on a 2-2 fastball. Teoscar sees seven pitches (bcsbfbb) and walks. Bases loaded. This threat ends in a much calmer fashion than the Jays' in the previous half-inning. Pages grounds into a 6-2 force. Kike grounds the ball to Guerrero's right. He dives to grab it, then spins arounds quickly and tosses the ball to Sir Anthony, who does a little stutter-step with his feet at the bag. An out call is made, and the Dodgers challenge it. I found it impossible to tell if the call was right as the play happened. The first two replays leave me in the dark. The call is upheld and I finally see Dominguez first put his right foot forward to the bag, but it did not quite reach, so he quickly pushed his left foot forward to get the out.
B10: Yamamoto has a clean inning. It's an absolute rarity in this game. It's the only frame in which the Blue Jays are retired in order; the Dodgers had only two: the second and third against Scherzer. Out of what will be 22 half innings, in 19 of them someone bats with someone on base. Over 13 pitches, Gimenez grounds to second, Springer strikes out, and Straw flies to right.
T11: Game 4 starter Shane Bieber is Toronto's seventh pitcher of the game, ready to face LA's 9-1-2 hitters. Rojas grounds to third. Clement charges onto the grass and makes a superb run-and-gun for the first out. Ohtani hacks at the first pitch (again!) and hits a routine ground ball to IKF at second for Out #2. Two outs on three pitches; the Jays fans like it. (Ohtani saw only 15 pitches in his six plate appearances: 4-1-3-5-1-1. Interestingly, the 4 and 3 were singles, the 5 a walk. The three 1s were outs.) Weird Factoid: The last six WS champs have each had a Will Smith on the roster. Not the same Will Smith, of course. There are two: a pitcher and a catcher.) Here, the catcher clubs a 2-0 slider that's down the heart of the plate over the wall in left for the first extra-inning home run in a winner-take-all World Series game. The Dodgers have hit three solo home runs in the last four innings and have their first lead of the night, 5-4. Freeman grounds out to shortstop.
B11: When the Blue Jays were two outs away from a World Series trophy back in the ninth, their win probability was 91.3%. As they prepared to bat in the bottom of the eleventh, that probability was down to 19.4%, producing in the Toronto fans the queasing feeling of a rollercoaster or being on an airplane that suddenly starts plummeting to the ground. The Dodgers made a couple of substitutions, bringing in better gloves at second and in center. Yamamoto began his third inning on the mound. Guerrero led off, and although his bat had cooled off a bit, I could certainly imagine him cranking one here. Vlad took two balls down and away and two strikes at the belt. Yamamoto missed with a splitter inside (full count,) and then went back to the same spot with a fastball. Guerrero lined it into the left field corner for a double. Kiner-Falefa dropped a bunt on the third base side. It did not roll far. Yamamoto made a nice play, getting to the ball and then firing a seed to first to nip the runner. The Jays were back in what was becoming a common situation: an important runner at third and only one out. Yamamoto proceeded to walk Barger on four pitches, with only the first one being close (just off the outside black). Now a double play was a possibility. It was now up to the chubby, fire-hydrant-shaped Kirk, who stands at 5-8 and was 8-for-25 in the World Series, .320. The always placid Yamamoto threw three pitches well within the zone: a cutter (fouled off), a curveball (called strike), and a splitter (a broken-bat grounder to shortstop). Betts moved to his left to get the ball, chose to keep on running to the bag rather than flip the ball to Hyeseong Kim, stepped on the bag and fired to first. Freeman recorded the out well before Kirk crossed the bag -- and for the Blue Jays, the end comes at 12:18 a.m. in Toronto.
The Dodgers are the 2025 World Series Champions, and their journey to the trophy over the last few days was the most improbable and treacherous path possible. They are the first major American sports team to repeat as champions in a quarter-century (the 2000 MFY). It's the longest span without a repeat champ in MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL history.
The Blue Jays gave themselves so many chances to score runs, so many baserunners (14 hits, 5 walks, and 2 HBP in this game alone), put themselves in numerous great positions to score, yet they failed over and over and over, to a ridiculous degree.
In Game 7, they left 14 men on base and managed only three hits in 17 (!) chances with runners on second and/or third. In the final four innings, the Jays had five chances to bring home a runner from second and four chances with a runner on third -- and they failed all nine times.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto -- the man who started Game 6 and finished Game 7 -- was named the Most Valuable Player of the series.
Yamamoto:
. . . is the ninth pitcher to pitch in a postseason game the day after pitching at least six innings.
Art Nehf WS 1924 G6-7 0.2 IP, 4 BF
Grover Alexander WS 1926 G6-7 2.1 IP, 7 BF (Save)
Lefty Grove WS 1930 G4-5 2.0 IP, 8 BF (Win)
Schoolboy Rowe WS 1934 G6-7 0.1 IP, 3 BF
Max Lanier WS 1943 G4-5 1.1 IP, 7 BF
Vic Raschi WS 1952 G6-7 0.1 IP, 4 BF (Hold)
Orel Hershiser NLCS 1988 G3-4 0.1 IP, 1 BF (Save)
Randy Johnson WS 2001 G6-7 1.1 IP, 4 BF (Win)
Yoshinobu Yamamoto WS 2025 G6-7 2.2 IP, 10 BF (Win)
. . . faced the most batters and recorded the most outs of that select group.
. . . is the first pitcher to win three games in a single WS since Randy Johnson did it against the Yankees in 2001.
. . . is the first pitcher in major league history to record three wins on the road in a World Series.
. . . is the fourth pitcher to record a win in both Games 6 and 7 of a World Series (Ray Kremer 1925, Harry Brecheen 1946, Randy Johnson 2001), but he is the first to get both of those wins on the road.
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