TORONTO — When you line up to play the defending World Series champions in a best-of-seven series, there’s an ominous air about it. The 2025 Toronto Blue Jays were both touted and doubted as they entered the Fall Classic, a new experience for most of their players while veteran manager John Schneider prepared to make his first trip to the big stage since 1993. They promptly shook up that narrative and cranked up the volume at Rogers Centre with an 11-4 victory over Los Angeles in Game 1. Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam in the sixth inning against lefty Blake Snell sent the crowd into bedlam and buried the Dodgers, who managed just three runs in their final seven innings.
BUYING TIME
The first four games were all close calls. Freddie Freeman’s walk-off 10th-inning homer blew up what looked to be a Yankee stranglehold in Game 2, but a pair of rallies — the second keyed by a trio of Yankee misplays, including a muffed fly ball and a botched pickoff attempt — gave the Dodgers a chance to tie it up in the bottom of the ninth. But a flurry of late-inning homers by Giancarlo Stanton and Teoscar Hernandez restored order for the Yankees, whose relief pitcher, Brusdar Graterol, was responsible for allowing five unearned runs in the fifth. With the lead back in their hands, the Yankees kept rolling to a 5-2 lead by the top of the sixth.