There isn’t any query who’s David and who’s Goliath within the 2025 World Sequence.
Although the upstart Toronto Blue Jays completed with another regular-season win and thus possess home-field benefit on this Fall Traditional, they enter as huge underdogs to the loaded Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers boast 4 aces, three Cooperstown-bound hitters and the one and solely Shohei Ohtani.
They’ve the most costly group in MLB historical past.
They’re the defending champions.
Simply don’t inform that to the Blue Jays, who, too, have flexed their offensive would possibly and repeatedly risen to the event all through their October run.
“Every game is a challenge. Every series is a challenge,” stated Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. “I know they have great players. So do we.”
It should all be selected the sphere, starting with Recreation 1 on Friday night time at Toronto’s Rogers Centre.
Here’s what to observe for within the 121st version of the World Sequence.
SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE
In baseball’s equal of an unstoppable pressure assembly an immovable object, this World Sequence options the Dodgers’ dominant pitching towards Toronto’s red-hot hitting.
The Dodgers are recent off of an NLCS sweep wherein they held the MLB-best Milwaukee Brewers to precisely one run in every of the 4 video games.
Los Angeles’ rotation of Blake Snell (0.86 ERA), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1.83 ERA), Tyler Glasnow (0.68 ERA) and Ohtani (2.25 ERA) has been the catalyst. In all however one in every of their 10 playoff video games, the Dodgers have acquired a minimum of 5.2 innings from their starter. They’re 9-0 in these video games.
General, Los Angeles is permitting simply 2.8 runs per recreation within the playoffs.
However the Dodgers are but to face an offense like that of the Blue Jays, who’re averaging 6.5 runs per recreation and totaled 20 residence runs and solely 64 strikeouts by way of 11 playoff video games.
Guerrero has one of the best common (.442), probably the most residence runs (six) and the very best OPS (1.440) this postseason of anybody within the World Sequence, however he’s not doing it alone for Toronto.
Ernie Clement (1.063 OPS), George Springer (.930), Addison Barger (.889) and Dalton Varsho (.804) are all having robust postseasons, whereas All-Star shortstop Bo Bichette plans to return after lacking the ALDS and ALCS with a knee damage.
The steadiness and platoon-ability of the Jays’ lineup ought to create a bonus if it will possibly get a number of cracks on the Los Angeles bullpen, which stays the Dodgers’ largest weak point even with starter-by-trade Roki Sasaki excelling within the nearer function.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been baseball’s most harmful hitter this postseason. (Photograph by Mark Blinch/Getty Photographs)
ROOKIE RISING
The person tasked with setting the tone for Toronto is 22-year-old Trey Yesavage.
The rookie right-hander is the Blue Jays’ Recreation 1 starter in what will likely be solely his seventh MLB look.
Yesavage, who started the season at Single-A, has been a revelation within the playoffs, hanging out 22 in 15 innings over three begins.
He has a 4.20 ERA within the playoffs, however Yesavage’s disarmingly excessive launch level and devastating splitter may show difficult for Dodgers hitters going through the phenom for the primary time.
Snell is ready to start out Recreation 1 for Los Angeles, adopted by Yamamoto in Recreation 2.
Beginning pitching is the place the Dodgers have the clear edge, however past Yesavage, the Blue Jays’ workers is extremely battle-tested.
Kevin Gausman (2-1, 2.00 ERA) pitched an inning in reduction on Monday within the Blue Jays’ ALCS Recreation 7 win over Seattle however had began Recreation 1 within the Blue Jays’ earlier two collection.
Shane Bieber (4.38 ERA in three begins) and Max Scherzer (two earned runs in 5.2 innings in his solely begin) rounded out the ALCS rotation, although the 41-year-old Scherzer was left off of the ALDS roster because the Blue Jays deployed a bullpen recreation towards the Yankees.
The Dodgers, conversely, had been capable of set their rotation after clinching the NLCS final Friday.
“I do see it as a positive in terms of being able to rest, both as a position player and as a pitcher,” Ohtani stated. “We’ve had some off days, but we’ve played some very meaningful games that were very stressful. I think it’s going to be really important for us to be able to have that kind of game edge.”
SHO TIME
Whether or not you’re keen on or detest the Dodgers, there may be merely no denying Ohtani’s greatness.
He capped the NLCS with maybe probably the most spectacular single-game efficiency in playoff historical past, slugging three residence runs as a hitter whereas hurling six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts as a pitcher in Recreation 4.
Now, Ohtani returns to a World Sequence stage the place he struggled final yr, although he was hampered by a shoulder damage that he suffered in Recreation 2 and that in the end required surgical procedure.
Ohtani completed 2-for-19 with out a residence run in final yr’s World Sequence, and he didn’t pitch as he recovered from 2023 elbow surgical procedure. It’s arduous to think about an identical stat line this yr.
There’s additionally a serious “what could have been” component to this World Sequence.
The Blue Jays closely pursued Ohtani throughout his 2023 free company — a lot in order that faulty rumors claiming the slugger was on a flight to Toronto dominated headlines for a number of hours.
As a substitute, Ohtani signed a considerably deferred 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers, whereas the Blue Jays later prolonged Guerrero on a 14-year, $500 million pact.
BASEBALL’S VILLAIN
There’s been no scarcity of hand-wringing concerning the Dodgers’ unprecedented $350 million payroll; the spending sprees that introduced them Ohtani, Yamamoto and Snell; their deferral of greater than $1 billion owed to gamers; or how their superteam may be ruining baseball.
However nothing would elevate the Dodgers’ villain standing greater than profitable one other championship on high of all that.
After defeating the Yankees in 5 video games in final yr’s World Sequence, the Dodgers are attempting to turn into the primary MLB group to repeat as champions because the Yankees from 1998-2000.
Core gamers together with Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Yamamoto had been a part of final yr’s title group, however Snell and Sasaki weren’t, whereas Glasnow was injured for everything of the run.
“I don’t think what we did last year has any bearing on this year,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated. “There’s a lot of guys in that room that weren’t a part of last year’s team. We want to win this year. We want to win for the 2025 team and let people talk about all that other stuff afterward.”
A championship can be the Dodgers’ third in six years, as additionally they received the neutral-site World Sequence after the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
It could be the Dodgers’ ninth championship general.
“To get to where you want to go, you’ve got to beat the best. Whether it’s talent, payroll, whatever you want to call it, man, they’re a damn good team,” Blue Jays supervisor John Schneider stated.
“They’ve got a Hall of Famers … [at the] top of their lineup. And they got really, really good starting pitching and really good relievers. So I truly think that the best two teams are left standing for a variety of different reasons, and I’ll never count my guys out of any series.”
O CANADA
The Blue Jays, in the meantime, are chasing a really totally different sort of historical past.
They’re again within the World Sequence for the primary time since profitable all of it in 1993.
Again then, the Montreal Expos nonetheless existed. Now, the Blue Jays are Canada’s solely group and carry the hopes of a complete nation on their shoulders.
“When you know you represent a country, you want to give everything you have for your country,” stated Guerrero, a Canadian citizen who was born in Montreal throughout his father’s stint with Expos. “I mean, you feel proud of it. You feel very proud of it, and you want to continue.”
