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The Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers are taking part in within the forty first winner-take-all Sport 7 in World Collection historical past. The Blue Jays are attempting to win their third World Collection championship. The Dodgers are aiming to seize their ninth.
Observe our writers for information, updates and evaluation on each groups.
An unimaginable collection may have an unforgettable end.
That is the primary World Collection to go to a Sport 7 since 2019, when Washington Nationals reliever Daniel Hudson struck out the Houston Astros’ Michael Brantley and chucked his glove as celebration swept throughout the diamond. It’s the forty first winner-take-all Sport 7 in World Collection historical past. Simply seven different World Collection previously 25 years have gone the space: 2001, 2002, 2011, 2016, 2017 and 2019.
The Dodgers are 2-5 in Sport 7 of the World Collection, a sport they’ve appeared in additional than any franchise besides the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals.
A Blue Jays win would proceed the game’s 25-year streak with out a repeat World Collection champion, the longest of its variety within the historical past of the 4 main American sports activities — MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL.
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The Athletic has reside protection of Dodgers vs. Blue Jays in Sport 7 of the 2025 World Series.
TORONTO — This was the way it needed to finish. This was the story the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays needed to write. They wanted a Sport 7. We wanted a Sport 7. For baseball’s sake. For historical past’s sake. So that is good. We’ll see you Saturday evening.
Sure, coming proper up, on an electrical Saturday night at Rogers Centre, the Dodgers and Blue Jays will give us the eighth World Collection Sport 7 of the twenty first century. Each one of many different seven was a sport to file away within the reminiscence banks, from the Luis Gonzalez Sport (in 2001) to the Howie Kendrick Sport (in 2019). So why would we expect this can be any totally different?
Dodgers LF Kiké Hernández
Hernández was a negative-WAR participant this 12 months. He has a profession .707 OPS, which statheads will appropriately level out is 9 p.c worse than league common. He’s beginning within the outfield day-after-day as a result of the Michael Conforto signing flopped. What I’m attempting to say is, Kiké can’t hold getting away with this! And but he’s. His profession postseason OPS is .833. That’s not the path it’s alleged to go. In Sport 6, Hernández went 0-for-4 but saved the Dodgers with a game-ending double play. He manages to conjure October miracles time after time.
Blue Jays RF Addison Barger
Earlier than this collection, I selected Barger as the important thing Blue Jays batter in opposition to the Dodgers. Even after it was his baserunning blunder that value the Jays an opportunity at a walk-off win on Friday evening, I’m extra certain than ever that Barger is the Sport 7 lynchpin. Barger has collected a number of hits in every of the previous 4 video games, and in six of the previous eight (even in Sport 1 when he solely obtained two plate appearances). Barger performs an necessary function in the course of the Blue Jays lineup, as a slugging lefty sandwiched between righties Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk. He’ll get favorable platoon matchups, and he destroys right-handed pitching.
The Athletic has reside protection of Dodgers vs. Blue Jays in Sport 7 of the 2025 World Series.
TORONTO — Shohei Ohtani has spent his whole profession testing limits and establishing new requirements for what a baseball participant can obtain. He relishes challenges, the larger, the higher. And the one he faces Saturday evening, in some methods, could be his largest but.
Ohtani will begin Sport 7 of the World Collection on three days relaxation. He additionally will fill his customary function because the Dodgers’ leadoff batter and designated hitter. And, if all goes properly, he’ll assist the Dodgers turn out to be the primary back-to-back World Collection champions for the reason that 1998 to 2000 New York Yankees.
The Blue Jays are, in some methods, proper on schedule. When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette debuted in 2019, their arrival was alleged to sign the rise of a homegrown core that may carry the franchise again to the World Collection. The Jays have, in truth, gotten to the World Collection and will win it tonight, however the touted homegrown core hasn’t been impactful past Guerrero, Bichette and Alejandro Kirk, they usually’ve as a substitute gotten contributions from less-touted guys like Addison Barger and Mason Fluharty (and the speedy rise of Trey Yesavage). We requested The Athletic’s Keith Legislation what precisely occurred within the Blue Jays system in recent times. Right here’s Keith:
They haven’t actually hit on a first-round decide since Marcus Stroman again in 2012, though they get partial credit score on Alek Manoah, who was excellent till he broke. Bo Bichette, a second rounder, has outproduced each Blue Jays first-round decide within the final 20 years apart from Stroman by bWAR.
The Jays have additionally had some fairly vital flameouts from past the highest two rounds of the draft. Orelvis Martinez was a high 100 prospect till he examined constructive for a PED, which successfully ended his profession as a Jay; Ricky Tiedemann danced round arm accidents for years earlier than present process Tommy John in July 2024. Since Stroman, Manoah is the one actually homegrown starter they’ve developed who was higher than a No. 5.
The Dodgers want a win to remain alive, however they’re within the World Collection for the second 12 months in a row, they usually’ve been to the playoffs yearly since 2013. We requested The Athletic’s Keith Legislation whether or not the staff’s farm system is able to maintain this success into the long run. Right here’s Keith:
The Dodgers nonetheless have one of many strongest farm programs in baseball, a lot in order that they’re going to battle to seek out at-bats for all of their outfield prospects in 2026. They’ve obtained a number of guys who mission a minimum of as potential stars, together with Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Eduardo Quintero, and Emil Morales; and substantial depth to permit them to make an enormous commerce if want be.
The one place the place they’re weaker than ordinary is in pitching, as they’ve promoted a few of their higher arms but additionally have seen their fair proportion of accidents to high guys, notably River Ryan.
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All that issues, ultimately. Who completed the job? Earlier than this collection, any baseball fan would have instructed you the Jays can be lucky to have compelled a Sport 7 in opposition to the massive, unhealthy Dodgers. Now we all know they really had the Dodgers getting ready to elimination earlier than Sport 7.
The Jays have performed a exceptional collection. They haven’t performed the a part of underdog. They’ve pitched properly and been, by far, the higher offensive staff. In Sport 7, they want the pitching employees to carry collectively for 27 outs and the bats to catch fireplace one final time.
Shohei Ohtani has pitched three video games this postseason. Every sport, he has pitched into the seventh inning. Every sport, he has didn’t document an out within the seventh inning. Dave Roberts doesn’t belief his bullpen, and with good cause. He’ll have starters on standby in Sport 7, so he’ll even have higher choices out there than ordinary.
However he has been liable to leaving starters in too lengthy on this collection. If Roberts leaves the leash a bit too free, permitting Ohtani to see the highest of the lineup one too many instances, the Jays should pounce.
Forward of Sport 7 of the World Collection, Toronto Blue Jays slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. paid homage to a Canadian sporting legend. He wore a Crew Canada jersey of ladies's hockey celebrity Marie-Philip Poulin, who has scored the gold-medal successful aim in three Olympic gold medal video games. Right here is our ladies’s hockey author Hailey Salvian with extra on Poulin.
💬: “Poulin, Canada’s captain since 2015, reposted an image of Guerrero Jr.’s walk-up on Instagram, saying, “Wow. Let’s go Blue Jays.” She and the remainder of the Canadian ladies’s nationwide hockey staff have been on the Rogers Middle for Sport 6 on Friday evening because the Blue Jays misplaced 3-1 to the Los Angeles Dodgers.”
Learn extra beneath.
GO FURTHER
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wears Marie-Philip Poulin Crew Canada jersey forward of World Collection Sport 7
In Video games 1 via 6, there are a number of tiers of cheap, accountable methods to deal with one’s pitching employees. John Schneider has achieved that. 4 starters. A mixture of relievers, none overworked (Louis Varland, apparently, is incapable of tiring).
However in Sport 7, the extra unhinged the pitching plan, the higher. Max Scherzer will take the ball first. Each different Jays pitcher can be on name to comply with him. Schneider should not lose whereas holstering his high arms. Let it eat. Trey Yesavage. Jeff Hoffman. Seranthony Domínguez. Varland. Shane Bieber, in a pinch. You suppose Kevin Gausman gained’t be prepared to offer what’s left in his proper arm after firing 93 pitches in Sport 6? Ship him in, in case you should, to rain splitters.
Let’s check out what it’s going to take for the Blue Jays to win Sport 7 tonight …
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This World Collection had a lot already. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani delivered elite performances. Will Klein and Trey Yesavage have been unlikely heroes. The Dodgers wanted just one pitcher in Sport 2 then used 10 in Sport 3. The Blue Jays misplaced George Springer and obtained him again once more.
Sport 6 gave the collection one factor it had been lacking: an out-of-this-world end that noticed momentum swing wildly in a single path, earlier than slamming right into a brick wall within the form of a 7-4 double play.
The Blue Jays one out and the tying run at second base. From there, we’ll let Katie Woo set the scene:
📝 “Andrés Giménez lofted a broken-bat flare to the other area, and in got here Kiké Hernández, charging towards shallow left area. Off the bat, it appeared the ball would fall, a pivotal run would rating and the Blue Jays would have a preventing probability to increase what might have been probably the most enthralling ninth-inning rallies in current World Collection reminiscence.
“As an alternative, Toronto ended up on the unsuitable aspect of the historical past books.”
Hernández’s catch and throw to second base accomplished the primary game-ending 7-4 double play in postseason historical past. It was simply as stunning because it sounds.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Kevin Gausman had been locked in a pitchers’ duel via the primary six innings, with Mookie Betts — who had been stone chilly — delivering the decisive blow with a two-out, two-run single within the third. From there, the Dodgers managed to hold on by the pores and skin of their enamel, forcing tonight’s Sport 7.
When Trey Yesavage opened this season, he was with Low-A Dunedin and threw the primary official pitch of his skilled profession. He was drafted simply final summer time and didn’t pitch final season, so April 8 was his debut, 4 ranges beneath the foremost leagues.
However he climbed shortly. One promotion in Might, one other in June, once more in August, and eventually on Sept. 15, he reached the massive leagues. If he thought that was the top, he was mistaken.
On Wednesday evening, Yesavage delivered one of the most dominant starts in World Collection historical past, placing out 12 via seven innings and placing the Blue Jays one win away from a championship. It was a efficiency so elite, Jayson Stark in contrast him to Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Justin Verlander and extra.
“This shouldn’t be a factor that’s taking place to an actual 22-year-old particular person, in actual life,” Stark wrote. “However right here we’re.”
By the best way, the child remains to be taking faculty lessons! The perfect younger starter within the World Collection has precise homework. Wonderful. The story simply retains getting higher.
After the draining marathon of Sport 3, the Dodgers have been poised to take full management of the collection in Sport 4. However earlier than first pitch on Tuesday evening, the Blue Jays have been calm within the clubhouse, taking part in video video games and treating a close to must-win World Collection sport prefer it was simply one other mid-summer matchup.
Then they went out and won the thing.
The Blue Jays tied the collection with their ordinary model of relentless, contact-oriented offense and a capability to get simply what they wanted from their pitching employees. Right here is Ken Rosenthal on the Blue Jays’ win:
It’s tempting to name Toronto’s 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Sport 4 of the Collection on Tuesday evening probably the most Jays factor ever, besides these guys principally simply seen it as Sport No. 177, and wore their baseball caps as blinders.
Nice groups in all sports activities take satisfaction of their resiliency. The Jays, nonetheless, appear to relish their potential to carry out with their heads in a figurative vise. And in Sport 4, that vise couldn’t have been squeezed any tighter.
Not that the Jays confirmed it.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reached base thrice, together with a go-ahead dwelling run. Shane Bieber pitched into the sixth inning. Nathan Lukes, Addison Barger and Ernie Clement had two hits apiece. The drained bullpen pitched out of a jam and had sufficient to get via the ultimate 3 1/3 innings. Only a typical Blue Jays victory, proper after they desperately wanted it.
As we so typically do, let’s simply pull some phrases from Andy McCullough to set the scene and capture the moment.
On an evening when Shohei Ohtani couldn’t be subdued, on an evening when considered one of baseball’s cathedrals provided its entrants a baptism within the sport’s capability for agony and ecstasy, on an evening when the disgrace that the sport needed to finish morphed into the concern that it by no means would, the Los Angeles Dodgers captured management of the World Collection in a 6-5 Sport 3 victory in 18 innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.
It began as a reasonably regular back-and-forth that settled right into a late-night stalemate. A few dwelling runs gave the Dodgers an early lead, then the Blue Jays got here again with a four-run inning. Ohtani and Freddie Freeman mixed to tie the sport, then Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sprinted across the bases to place the Blue Jays again in entrance. Ohtani tied it once more together with his second dwelling run of the evening.
And that was simply the primary eight innings. The sport went 10 extra till Freeman’s walk-off homer within the 18th. A real World Collection epic.
The Dodgers simply flipped their lineup, switching the place Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernández are hitting within the lineup.
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Two issues the Dodgers wanted to enhance in Sport 1: They needed to reduce the publicity of their short-handed bullpen whereas containing the contact-heavy Blue Jays lineup. They checked both boxes with one man.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto fired the primary World Collection full sport since 2015, and he grew to become the primary pitcher to throw consecutive postseason full video games since Curt Schilling in 2001.
“His emotional heartbeat, nonetheless you wish to say it, doesn’t appear fazed,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior stated. “Given the state of affairs, given the magnitude of those video games, given what we have been coming off final evening, it’s exceptional.”
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman was additionally wonderful and retired 17 straight at one level, however Dodgers catcher Will Smith had three RBIs, together with a go-ahead dwelling run within the seventh inning.
After being knocked again on their heels in Sport 1, the Dodgers pulled even in Sport 2 earlier than taking home-field benefit into Sport 3.
A lot for the narrative that the Dodgers have been going to run away with this factor. I beloved the primary line of Andy McCollough’s excellent Game 1 game story.
The plot to spoil baseball hit a snag on Friday evening.
Certainly, the Blue Jays weren’t solely outmatched by the high-spending Dodgers, however they really destroyed the Dodgers in an 11-4 blowout that included a nine-run sixth inning, exposing the Dodgers’ bullpen vulnerability and highlighting the depth of the Blue Jays’ lineup.
What’s that? You’d by no means heard of Addison Barger or Nathan Lukes and have been solely vaguely conscious that Alejandro Kirk can hit a bit? Nicely, overlook them now not, as a result of the Blue Jays spend some cash, too, they usually got here to play.
Sooner or later on Friday evening, the long run grew to become apparent. After all, this World Collection was heading for Sport 7. It took a shocking Sport 6 end to get there, however looking back, a winner-take-all finale appears inevitable.
It’s been that type of collection.
And what a strategy to finish it. Barring a shock, it appears the Sport 7 pitching matchup will characteristic a singular expertise within the historical past of the sport in opposition to a 41-year-old shoo-in Corridor of Famer seeking to cap his profession with one final second of greatness. Shohei Ohtani vs. Max Scherzer, with Blake Snell and rookie sensation Trey Yesavage prospects out of the bullpen. George Springer and Bo Bichette are again from accidents. Mookie Betts might need damaged out of his hunch. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is having an incredible postseason.
And now it comes right down to Sport 7.
As at all times, The Athletic may have reside protection all evening with reporters on-site in Toronto and gamers and umpires serving to us out with in-game perception and evaluation.
It’s already a World Collection to recollect. Now we get to see the way it ends.
