Blue Jays let WS Game 7 slip away as Dodgers go back-to-back

Blue Jays players acknowledge special season

After 162 regular season games and 18 more in the post-season, the Blue Jays found themselves within two outs of a World Series championship in Game 7, but it was not to be, eventually losing 5-4 in 11 innings. The Dodgers became the first team to win back-to-back titles since the 1998-2000 Yankees won three in a row at the end of the last century.

It seemed appropriate at Rogers Centre, the night after Halloween, with the World Series hanging in the balance and the Jays trick-or-treat closer on the mound desperately looking for outs, that the Blue Jays’ Cinderella season would watch its carriage turn into a pumpkin, somewhere after midnight. Midnight came and the October magic came to an end. It seems the fairy tale glass slipper didn’t fit, either.

Jeff Hoffman was within two outs of securing the victory, but Dodgers ninth hitter, Miguel Rojas, slashed a homer over the left-field wall, tying the do-or-die contest and sending it to extra innings. Stunning! World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto took over and logged the final eight outs. He had started Game 6 the night before.

The Jays, after that, had another chance to win in the ninth, with the bases loaded and one out, but Yamamoto stepped up and delivered a force play at the plate then a long flyball off the bat of Ernie Clement tracked by centre fielder Andy Pages.

In the 11^th, with Shane Bieber called into service, the Jays’ key trade deadline acquisition, Bieber, retired Rojas and Shohei Ohtani, but surrendered a solo blast to catcher Will Smith that just scraped the wall in left. Three outs later and that was enough to bring the World Series trophy back to Los Angeles.

But the Jays had another chance to tie it in the 11^th, with Vlad on third base and Addison Barger at first, one out. However, Alejandro Kirk lobbed a broken-bat grounder to shortstop that Mookie Betts turned into a double play, ending a dream that seemed so improbable, to begin the season, and now has to wait another year.

“It will hurt for a few days, a few weeks, when you’re that close,” Schneider said. “The positive person in me will take some time to digest it, and I’ll go back (in my memory) to Bo’s (pinch-hit) homer in Texas, George’s Canada day. So many things I’ll go back to and be proud of. But I think right now you just have to take in what happened. But going forward -- you know, the beauty of baseball is that it goes on. There will be spring training in February.”

Game 7 was being billed as a marquee matchup on the mound between two presumptive Hall-of-Famers, Max Scherzer for the Blue Jays and Shohei Ohtani for the Dodgers. But in a winner-take-all affair, it was far more than being that simple and it became Dodgers manager Dave Roberts who blinked first.

Did the Dodgers manager make a mistake in the use of Ohtani? The Japanese superstar was starting on three days rest, half the normal time between starts that he prefers. But even playing every inning in his usual role as DH for every game and with warning signs of fatigue and a full bullpen that he promised was all hands on deck, the manager let his starter enter the third inning, already sitting at 43 pitches.

George Springer led off the key third inning with a line drive single to left. Nathan Lukes sacrificed him to second. Following a wild pitch to Guerrero Jr., Roberts followed up by issuing an intentional walk. In stepped Bo Bichette who proved earlier in the game on a station-to-station trip around to third, that he was still hobbled by his sprained left knee. The solution? When you hit the ball, don’t stop on any base. Bichette stepped in, turned on the first Ohtani pitch he saw and drove it out to left-centre for a three-run homer to open the scoring.

If the idea of a three-run homer sounds familiar to Jays fans, think Jose Bautista’s bat flip, Joe Carter’s touch-‘em-all moment, Springer’s go-ahead homer on October 20 against Seattle, Edwin Encarnacion’s wild-card walkoff, to name a few of the most important.

But the Dodgers are the defending champions and were not going to go down without a fight … literally.

The Angelinos scored a run in the third on a sac-fly by Teoscar Hernandez, corraled on a diving defensive gem by platinum-glove centre fielder Daulton Vasho. On the very next play, Guerrero Jr dove headlong for a hooking line drive over the bag by Tommy Edman, extending himself full length and capturing the ball just above the turf. Yes, it would have been foul, but a great play.

In the bottom of that fourth inning, the emotions of the moment, perhaps stirred by the fired up sellout crowd of 44,713 ended with both benches, both bullpens clearing in a typical baseball brawl, full of sound and fury, signifying … nothing but an official warning to both benches. The judgment of the umpires would result in ejections.

The brouhaha began with reliever Justin Wrobleski coming inside on consecutive pitches to Andres Gimenez. The next pitch hit him in the hand. He took a step towards the mound as he glared out and Wrobleski stepped in towards the plate. Players leaped over the rails of both dugouts and relief pitchers from left and right field loped gently in to join the fray.

Once the game settled down it became a battle of once-perceived-as-pedestrian bullpens, bolstered by any rotation starter not named Yamamoto or Gausman.

After Max Scherzer gave them 4.1 innings, in what was the second World Series Game 7 start of his career, it became everyday Louis Varland followed by the veteran Chris Bassitt, thrust into an ever-more important role as October turned to November. Varland made his 15^th appearance setting a record for a single post-season. Bassitt gave up a run that would become key as it reduced the lead to a single run.

Then came MGR Schneider’s turn to perhaps blink. In the seventh inning, he rolled the dice, using rookie sensation Trey Yesavage to face Ohtani and the top of the Dodgers order, with the Jays lightly caressing and protecting a 4-2 lead. An extra Jays run had arisen on a single and a stolen base from Clement, followed by a run-scoring double by Gimenez, who had begun the at-bat looking for a sac-bunt.

The single by Clement tied Randy Arozarena of the 2020 Rays for the most hits ever in any MLB post-season, with 29. Then, leading off the eighth, the super utility man staking his early claim on a starting role in 2026, laced a double up the alley in left-centre, prompting the Dodgers to go to another starter, lefthander Blake Snell.

If the Jays had scored Clement, it would have been an important add-on run with Hoffman on the hill and a two-run lead. That would have been huge, but instead, Snell shut them down, capped by a strikeout of pinch-hitter Davis Schneider, setting the stage for a nervy ninth.

“Battling with these guys, we have so much to be proud of,” Clement said in a subdued clubhouse. “It didn’t go our way. All I care about is hanging with these special players. We gave it everything we had. We fall short. When you can say you left it all out there, you have something to be proud of.

“I feel for the guys. I feel for everybody in here. It’s so hard. We wanted it so much all year. I’d go to war with Jeff Hoffman, every day of the week. I want him on the mound. I want (Bieber) on the mound. Those are guys that I would take a bullet for.

“I feel for those guys so much. I had a chance to win it there in the ninth and didn’t get it done. Those guys busted their tails all year, came through in big moments. It just wasn’t our night.”

The starting pitching matchup for Game 7 featured two likely Hall-of-Famers squaring off in a coin-flip of a game. It was Max Scherzer for the Jays and Ohtani for the Dodgers. It was Scherzer’s second career Game 7 assignment in four trips to the Fall Classic. The first came for the Nationals in 2019, facing the Astros, whose leadoff hitter against Mad Max just happened to be George Springer.

Back in 2019, Scherzer faced Zach Greinke of the Astros. The last time that Hall vs. Hall starting pitcher circumstance happened, that were later enshrined, was Game 7 of the 1991 Series, Jack Morris (Twins) facing John Smoltz (Braves). Coincidentally, Smoltz on Saturday was in the TV booth for FOX, while Morris, a member of the ’92 Blue Jays championship team, was invited to throw the ceremonial first pitch.

Now the Blue Jays questions that arise will all have to do with building next year’s roster. Bichette is a free agent. Where will he end up? Bieber has a player option for 2026 for $16-million. He will likely choose free agency and the Jays can make him a $22-million qualifying offer. Chris Bassitt, Max Scherzer, Seranthony Dominguez, Ty France and Isiah Kiner-Falefa are all free agents. The Jays will then have $87.5M freed up in salary that they can spend elsewhere. Spend wisely.

Interesting questions will begin being asked in the next few days. Stay tuned.