The Toronto Blue Jays spent the entire 2025 season growing into a bunch of tight-knit ballplayers who wouldn’t quit, and it was enough to get the comeback kids to their first World Series in 32 years.
But meeting them in the Fall Classic were the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team that was second to the Jays in come-from-behind victories during the regular season.
Something had to give.
Unfortunately for the Jays and their fans, the last reversal of the season went to the Dodgers, a cruel blow that ended what had been one of the team’s most remarkable seasons in memory.
Toronto’s 5-4 loss in Game 7 in extra innings was all the more painful and will be all the more difficult to get past because of how close they came to capturing that elusive third World Series championship.
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For a few innings, it looked like this Bo Bichette three-run homer would win the series for the Jays. Until it didn’t.
AP PHOTO/Ashley Landis
The Jays had a 3-0 lead after the third inning, courtesy of a moonshot of a home run from Bo Bichette, the infielder who missed seven weeks with an injury and could barely run.
The team had a 4-2 lead after the sixth inning, when Ernie Clement and Andres Gimenez hit consecutive doubles to score what might have been insurance.
Those scoring plays were a microcosm of Toronto’s heroic season.
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A big blast from a superstar, and a couple of hits from guys way down in the lineup. This was their formula for success: everybody eats.
Except the Dodgers, now back-to-back World Series champions, have a lot of players who can contribute, too.
A Max Muncy home run in the eighth inning trimmed the Toronto lead to one. A Miguel Rojas home run in the ninth inning, off of Toronto closer Jeff Hoffman, tied the game.
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This was the Dodgers doing the Blue Jays thing: clutch hits from guys who aren’t their big-name superstars.
One more solo home run, from Will Smith in the 11th inning, was the killer blow.
What will make the result that much harder to live with is the many Jays rallies that fizzled before the crucial blow could be struck.
They had a golden opportunity to win the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, with the bases loaded and one out.
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But Daulton Varsho hit a sharp ground ball that Rojas fielded and threw to home for a force out.
For a moment, it looked like pinch runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa might have been safe at home plate, but a video review let the call stand.
Clement then launched a fly ball to centre field, and a pair of Dodgers outfielders looked like they weren’t going to be able to get to it — until Andy Pages reached up and grabbed it just short of the fence.
How many different ways could the Blue Jays have won the World Series in that brief sequence?
A sacrifice fly, a wild pitch, a little bloop or a blast, it was all set up for the Jays to get that one swing that would send the Rogers Centre, and Jays fans across the country, into pandemonium.
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But that Series-winning swing wouldn’t come. A Jays team that had started to feel like it could always get the big hit when needed stopped being able to get those hits at the worst possible time.
There was one more gut-punch to come.
With runners on first and third and just one out in the bottom of the 11th inning, Alejandro Kirk hit a broken-bat ground ball that the Dodgers turned into a double play.
Game over. Series over. Baseball can break your heart.
And in the end, that was the story of the World Series. Other than a Game 2 loss in which they were befuddled by Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto for nine innings, they had three losses in which they largely outplayed and outhit Los Angeles, but let too many lit fuses turn into wet firecrackers.
The crushing end — and there really is no other way to put it — was a brutal finish to what had been a most improbable Blue Jays season, one in which the franchise rekindled dormant passion for baseball in Toronto, while also creating a whole new generation of fans.
This was a team that added a pile of moments to its lore before even getting to the World Series, from an ALDS pummelling of the New York Yankees to George Springer’s Game 7 blast in the ALCS win over the Seattle Mariners.
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Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., had a postseason that proved he could be one of the game’s elite hitters for a long time. Addison Barger played like he might be the team’s next superstar. Trey Yesavage, who is so new to the team that he is probably still trying to find his way around the Rogers Centre, looked like he could be the ace of the staff next season, at just 23 years old.
One of the things that those around the team often said of the Jays this season was that they had short memories. It’s a trait that could be useful next year, given the way this one ended.
In time, people will think of the Blue Jays of 2025 quite fondly. But in the aftermath of a Game 7 loss that came when victory was so plainly there for the taking? There is not much for a team, or its fans, to do but hurt.
