Good morning. I’d be a wreck if I were a Dodgers or Blue Jays fan, but as a neutral, this has been a terrific World Series.
- I’ll get to Game 3 in a minute. But let’s start with AJ Cassavell and Martin Gallegos offering their takes on Game 4, where the Blue Jays rebounded to tie the World Series at two games apiece.
- Updates and analysis of Game 4.
- Andy McCullough notes that the Blue Jays made Shohei Ohtani seem mortal in Game 4 . (The Athletic sub. req.)
- Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he may make some changes to the Dodgers lineup in Game 5. Dayn Perry with the story.
- Now back to Game 3. Jeff Passan has a recap of the 18-inning game for the ages.
- Sarah Langs has 11 “astonishing” facts from Game 3.
- Jayson Stark has all the weird and wild facts from Game 3. (The Athletic sub. req.)
- Here’s Jayson Stark’s scorecard from Game 3.
- R.J. Anderson has three factors that turned Game 3 into an 18-inning marathon.
- Anderson forgot to mention that country star Brad Paisley sang the National Anthem at the game.
- Tyler Kepner profiles the hero of Game 3, reliever Will Klein who threw four scoreless innings. (The Athletic sub. req.)
- Klein offers his thoughts on his outing, including the (to him) surreal experience of being personally congratulated by Sandy Koufax after the game. Sonja Chen with the story.
- Bob Nightengale recounts how Klein went from an unknown journeyman to a World Series legend in Game 3.
- Manny Randhawa has all six outs made on the bases in Game 3. Can we call Game 3 TOOTBLANPALOOZA?
- Davy Andrews analyzes all the baserunning misadventures of Game 3.
- One of those baserunning misadventures was because of what Michael Baumann calls the “Bridge Troll Autostrike,” when home plate umpire Mark Wegner called a strike on Daulton Varsho on a high pitch because Varsho didn’t wait for Wegner to call it a ball before walking to first.
- Gabe Zaldivar collects all the broadcast calls of Freddie Freeman’s walk-off home run.
- Martin Gallegos tracks down the freelance photographer who caught Freeman’s historic home run.
- Freeman is the first player with multiple walkoff World Series home runs.
- The craziest finishes to World Series games in history.
- Mitch Bannon reports that while the Blue Jays have faced a lot of adversity this year, Game 3 was a punch in the gut. (The Athletic sub. req.)
- Ben Clemens points out how silly it was to intentionally walk Shohei Ohtani all those times.
- Keegan Matheson explains how Ernie Clement became a folk hero in Toronto.
- Jorge Castillo has what you need to know about five unsung heroes on the Blue Jays, including Clement.
- Dodgers manager Dave Roberts apologized for complaining about the delays the team had going through customs coming back from Toronto.
- Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts was named the 2025 Roberto Clemente Award winner.
- Kailyn Brown stops Dodgers fans to ask them how much they paid to attend a World Series Game. I guess if it was Game 3, they got their money’s worth. Notice that almost no one at Dodger Stadium left that game early.
- Good news and bad news on the TV ratings front. MLB would like you to know that the first two games of the 2025 World Series had the most viewers since Game 7 in 2016. Of course, MLB is counting Canadian viewers in those totals. When you take out Canada, ratings in the US are down 14 percent from last year. Which makes sense because last year had the Dodgers and Yankees—the two biggest US teams.
- Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer says he has no intention of retiring after this season. Dayn Perry with the story.
- Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman said he’d retire before playing for the Yankees again.
- The Orioles are reportedly set to hire former Guardians associate manager Craig Albernaz as their new manager.
- After not coming to an agreement with the Angels, Albert Pujols is now a “serious” candidate for the Padres managerial job.
- Adam Berry looks at some roster decisions the Rays have to make this winter.
- And Bryan Hoch looks at similar roster decisions for the Yankees.
- Commissioner Rob Manfred said he’s “optimistic” that MLB players will be able to compete in the 2028 Olympics.
- Kevin Baxter looks at the post-playing career of former Dodger Mike Davis, who wants to be known for more than just drawing a walk before Kirk Gibson hit his famous home run in 1988.
- Davy Andrews writes a tongue-in-cheek explanation from the Jonas Brothers for whatever that was in Game 2 of the World Series.
- And finally, are the Dodgers and Blue Jays the same shade of blue? NO! Almost, but not quite.
