After a few days of mental regrouping, baseball is back, as the Blue Jays and Dodgers kicked off the 2025 World Series at the Rogers Centre up north of the border. It was a tense and tight start to Game 1 of the Fall Classic, but once they found their footing, the Blue Jays took full control of this one, and will head into Game 2 with the advantage.
World Series Game 1
Toronto Blue Jays 11
, Los Angeles Dodgers 4(Blue Jays lead series, 1-0)
The series’ opening game saw 22-year-old Trey Yesavage for the Jays taking on
two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell for the Dodgers. The Los Angeles starter looked every bit of the part early on, working his way out of a bases loaded jam in the first inning, which included a single from Bo Bichette, playing in his first game since September 6th. Snell followed in the second with a mostly clean inning, which could have proven troublesome if not for a baserunning blunder by Ernie Clement, and a third inning that saw him open the inning with a K and finishing it with a well-timed double-play ball.
While Snell was making it happen on the bump, the Dodger offense got off to a quick start. They began the scoring in the second with an Enrique Hernández RBI single, and struck again in the third inning, when Will Smith cashed in on back-to-back walks to open the inning with a run-scoring knock of his own. After three innings, LA held a 2-0 lead.
It was already feeling like the Jays couldn’t let this game get any further away from them, but they promptly began their charge in the bottom half of the fourth. After Alejandro Kirk led off with a single, Daulton Varsho turned this game around, and cranked the volume in Rogers Centre to the max with a game-tying two run blast into center field.
It was now a clean slate on both sides, and neither Snell nor Yesavage would record an out past the fifth inning. So it would fall on the bullpens to keep things in check the rest of the way for Game 1. After a quiet fifth inning, the sixth would be anything but quiet.
After Bichette walked and Kirk singled to begin the inning, Varsho was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no one out. Clement broke the seal when he singled up the middle to give the Jays a 3-2 lead, but the dam hadn’t yet burst. Nathan Lukes followed with a walk, as the crack grew, and Andrés Giménez pitched in with a single to put Toronto up 5-2. The big blow was still to come however, and Addison Barger was due up as a pinch-hitter with one out and the bases still juiced. On a 2-1 pitch, in an unfavorable lefty-lefty matchup, Barger sent the Toronto faithful into a frenzy with a booming grand slam into the seats in left-center.
The first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history was the decisive moment in Game 1, as the Jays left the sixth inning by a commanding 11-2 score, with Kirk pitching in once again with a two-run shot of his own to pour salt in the wound later in the inning.
It’s difficult to overcome a nine-run inning at any point in a ballgame, and the Dodgers were no exception. Despite their early lead, and Shohei Ohtani’s two-run home run in the seventh, the Dodgers simply couldn’t keep up with Toronto’s major offensive output in Game 1.
Chris Bassitt, working out of the ‘pen in the postseason, came out for the eighth and struck out a pair in an easy frame for the Jays, before Eric Lauer was given the chance to close things out. Things remained quiet, and Lauer brought Game 1 to a close with a swinging strikeout of Mookie Betts.
In their first World Series game in over three decades, the Jays made a major statement, putting up double-digit runs against Blake Snell and the mighty Dodgers. This is shaping up to be far from a David and Goliath story, and the Jays will head into Game 2 with all the momentum in the world.
