The Los Angeles Dodgers win in seven games against the Toronto Blue Jays
After a 162 game regular season and a four series postseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers became the World Series champions again, beating the Toronto Blue Jays in game seven. Dillan Nielsen ‘28 said, “It was the most entertaining World Series I’ve ever watched in my lifetime.” This is the first time a team has won the World Series back to back since the New York Yankees three-peated from 1998-2000. The Dodgers came back from being down three games to two, winning games six and seven to secure the team’s ninth World Series, and its eighth since the team came to Los Angeles in 1957 after leaving Brooklyn. This was the first time Toronto has made it to the World Series since they won back-to-back in 1992 and 1993.
The World Series MVP was given to Yoshinobu Yamamoto for pitching a total of 17 and two-thirds innings and having a 1.02 earned run average (ERA), leading him to a 3-0 record and making him the first player to win three away games in the World Series. Saylen Noren ‘28 said, “I think [Yoshinobu Yamamoto] was the MVP and he deserved it.”
The series started in Toronto with the Blue Jays winning game one 11-four with rookie Trey Yesavage pitching four innings, giving up four hits and two earned runs and Addison Barger hitting a pinch-hit home run. Game two was closer in score with the Dodgers winning five-one, Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez both hitting home runs and Yamamoto throwing his second complete game in a row, giving up four hits, one earned run and eight strikeouts. As the series moved to LA, game three saw the Dodgers winning by one. The game ended up going to 18 innings with Dodger’s Clayton Kershaw getting to pitch in the 12th inning with the bases loaded and two outs he was able to make Blue Jays left fielder Nathan Lukes hit a ground ball straight back to Kershaw getting him out of the jam.
Last year’s World Series MVP, Freedie Freeman, then hit a walk-off home run to end the game. The Blue Jays rallied back after the loss in game three and won game four with a score of 6-2. The Blue Jays were able to win game five after Yasavage set the rookie record for strikeouts in a single World Series game. With the Dodgers on the brink of elimination, down 3-2 in the series, they needed to win to keep their hopes of winning back-to-back World Series alive. They were able to do just that with Yamamoto getting his second win of the series and Dodger’s starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow coming in to earn his first save ever. With the series tied, both teams were willing to put who ever was going to get them the win on the mound the Blue Jays got out to an early lead keeping the lead until second baseman hit the game tying home run to left field sending the game into extra innings and in the 11th inning Will Smith hit a home run to give LA the lead going into the bottom of the 11th, Dodger’s starting pitcher Yamamoto came out to pitch his third inning on barely a day’s rest and was able to get the final three outs to secure the Dodger’s second World Series in a row.
There were a total of seven records broken in the World Series between the two teams. Ernie Clement broke the single postseason record for hits with 30. Barger became the first player to have a pinch-hit grand slam when he did it in game one. Blue Jays starting pitcher Max Scherzer became the oldest player to pitch in a game seven, Scherzer had three strikeouts, one walk and allowed four hits, pitching four and one-third innings. The Blue Jays also became the first team to hit back-to-back home runs to start the game when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Davis Schneider did it against Blake Snell on the first three pitches of the game. The two teams tied a World Series record playing in an 18 inning game three. This was the second time a game had gone to 18 innings; the first was in 2018, and both games were played at Dodger Stadium.
