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Baseball is a fantastic and wonderful sport. As observers of the game, we get to watch some amazing things unfold. The 2025 World Series was certainly one of them, topped by an amazing Game 7. One team celebrated, while the other was left to wonder where things went wrong. The difference in this series was minimal. It will take a while to digest everything that happened with the historical performances on both sides. Now, the offseason begins, and teams start to build their rosters for a run in 2026.
This photo. Wow. #WorldSeries
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World Series Wrapup
A REPEAT FOR THE AGES
In Epic World Series, the Dodgers Are Champs Again
In a World Series that had just about everything during the first six games, Game 7 checked off a few more boxes and provided another dramatic ending to the Fall Classic that was chock full of terrific turns. Game 7 was decided by two late home runs, the first by little-used Miguel Rojas with one out in the top of the ninth inning, the second by Will Smith with two outs in the top of the 11th as the Los Angeles Dodgers won their second straight World Series championship by defeating the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 at the Rogers Centre early Sunday morning. The Dodgers became the first team to repeat since the New York Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000 (and lost in the 2001 World Series). It was also their third championship in six years.
While the homers put the Dodgers in position to win, it was right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto who secured the back-to-back championships. A day after throwing 96 pitches in a six-inning start, Yamamoto came on in relief with one out in the ninth and pitched the final 2⅔ innings. The second-year player from Japan earned the victory in three of the Dodgers’ four wins, including a complete game in Game 2, and was named World Series MVP. The Dodgers, with the highest payroll in MLB history, were on the ropes, trailing in the series 3-2 and having to beat a Jays team that had the second-best home record in MLB.
On the flip side, it is heartbreak for the Blue Jays. After finishing last in the AL East in 2024, they had a chance in the final two games to win the franchise’s first World Series since going back-to-back in 1992 and ’93 and third overall. And they came so close. After leading early 3-0 on Bo Bichette’s three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani, the Jays were two outs away from making that a reality when Rojas took closer Jeff Hoffman deep in the ninth to tie it 4-4 for his first homer since Sept. 19th. Rojas, making just his third start of this postseason, hadn’t had a hit in exactly a month (Oct. 1) until he singled in the fifth inning of Game 7.
But the never-say-die Jays got right back up off the floor and almost pulled it out in the bottom of the ninth. After Vladimir Guerrero Jr. flew out to deep center, they loaded the bases on a Bichette single, an Addison Barger walk off left-hander Blake Snell, and Alejandro Kirk getting hit by Yamamoto’s second pitch. With the infield playing in, Daulton Varsho then hit a grounder to Rojas at second base. Rojas lost his balance, but still got the throw off to barely nail pinch-runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa by the slimmest of margins when it appeared Smith’s right foot might have briefly come off the plate, a call that was upheld by a replay review. As if that wasn’t enough, the next batter, Ernie Clement, hit the first pitch he saw from Yamamoto deep to left-center. Left fielder Enrique Hernández and center fielder Andy Pages, who had come into the game just before Varsho’s at-bat, were on dead sprints to track the ball down. Pages leapt and bowled over Hernandez while making a memorable catch that prevented the Jays from walking it off.
The Dodgers had a similar situation in the 10th, loading the bases with one out against right-hander Seranthony Domínguez. But the Jays got out of it when Pages grounded to shortstop Andrés Giménez, who easily threw out the runner at home and Hernández grounded to Guerrero, who flipped the ball to Dominguez, who initially missed the base but hit the bag before Hernández did.
That set the stage for the 11th. Shane Bieber replaced Dominguez to start the inning and got Rojas and Ohtani to ground out. Bieber fell behind in the count 2-0 and threw an 84.4 mph slider in the middle of the zone that Smith whacked with a 104.6 mph exit velocity into the left-field stands 366 feet away for the decisive homer. Smith’s shot was the first extra-inning homer in a winner-take-all World Series game. There was one more try by the Jays. Guerrero, who had a fabulous postseason, had a leadoff double down the left-field line against Yamamoto. Kiner-Falefa bunted Guerrero to third, and Barger walked on four pitches. That brought up Kirk, who was sawed off on an 0-2 splitter from Yamamoto and hit a broken-bat grounder to shortstop Mookie Betts, who ranged to his left to field the ball, stepped on second and threw to first for a game-ending and championship-clinching double play.
The Dodgers are champions again.
The Dodgers get a run back …But Daulton Varsho's stellar play prevents further trouble 🔥
Tommy Edman drives home Mookie Betts to make it a 1-run game in Toronto 👀
Andrés adds another! #WANTITALL
— Toronto Blue Jays (Bot) (@bluejaysbot.bsky.social) 2025-11-02T02:27:25.000Z
MIGUEL ROJAS TIE GAME! #WORLDSERIES
— Los Angeles Dodgers (bot) (@dodgersbot.bsky.social) 2025-11-02T03:19:17.000Z
MIGUEL ROJAS GETS HIM AT THE PLATE
OH MY GOODNESS WE ARE GOING TO EXTRAS
The ultimate game of inches 😱
NOW ANDRÉS GIMÉNEZ GETS MOOKIE AT THE PLATE 🤯
By The Numbers
⚾ The Dodgers became the third team to be trailing entering the ninth inning of a World Series winner-take-all game to end up winning.
⚾ With 11 innings in Game 7, Will Smith caught all 73 innings of the World Series, a record. The previous mark was 71, held by Lou Criger of the 1903 Boston Americans in an eight-game series. Muddy Ruel of the 1924 Yankees held the seven-game record at 67 innings.
⚾ The Dodgers are the ninth team to win Games 6 and 7 on the road and third in 10 years, joining the 2016 Chicago Cubs and 2019 Washington Nationals.
⚾ With his second-inning hit, the Jays’ Ernie Clement broke the record for most singles in one postseason with his 21st. He added another in the sixth. Clement also finished with a 13-game hitting streak. Then, Clement doubled in the eighth to break the record for hits in a postseason, which was held by Randy Arozarena of the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020. Clement has 30, Arozarena had 29, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had 28 this year.
HISTORY: Ernie Clement now has the most hits in a single #Postseason in baseball history 🤯
⚾ It helps that there were two floating around, but this is the sixth straight season in which the World Series-winning team included a Will Smith.
⚾ Jays reliever Louis Varland appeared in his 15th game this postseason, setting an MLB record. The Jays played 18 games.
⚾ Ohtani became the first starting pitcher to have a hit in a World Series Game 7 since 1975, when Don Gullett of the Cincinnati Reds and Bill Lee of the Boston Red Sox both did it. He also became the second player in World Series history to have multiple hits in a game he pitched in.
⚾ At 2,477, this was the most games played in an MLB season by five.
Around The World Series
MVP Caps Spectacular Postseason For Yamamoto
There were a few people who scoffed at the money the Dodgers threw at Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who had yet to throw a pitch in MLB, in order to land the free agent from Japan two offseasons ago. Turns out the Dodgers knew exactly what they were doing.
Yamamoto completed a one-of-a-kind postseason with 2⅔ innings of relief in Game 7 after winning his two World Series starts: a complete game in Game 2 and six innings in Game 6. In the three games, he allowed two runs on 10 hits and two walks with 15 strikeouts in 17⅔ innings. In six postseason starts covering 37⅓ innings, Yamamoto surrendered eight runs (six earned) on 23 hits and six walks with 33 strikeouts for a 1.45 ERA.
His relief appearance in Game 7 following his Game 6 start put him in rare company. The only others to do that in the World Series are Grover Cleveland Alexander of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1926 and Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.
Yamamoto joined Johnson in another rare feat: winning three World Series games. All three of Yamamoto’s wins came on the road, which is a first.
A Special Series
Here is a quick recap of how each game in the World Series:
Game 1: Addison Barger hit the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history as the Blue Jays used a nine-run sixth inning for an 11-4 win.
Game 2: Yoshinobu Yamamoto became the first pitcher since 2001 to notch back-to-back complete games as the Dodgers evened the series with a 5-1 win.
Game 3: Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off homer leading off the bottom of the 18th inning as the Dodgers won 6-5. It tied for the longest game in terms of innings in World Series history.
Game 4: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit an early go-ahead two-run homer, and the Jays scored four times in the seventh to beat the Dodgers 6-2 to pull even in the series.
Game 5: Trey Yesavage struck out a World Series rookie-record 12, while Davis Schneider and Guerrero opened the bottom of the first with back-to-back homers in a 6-1 Jays victory.
Game 6: Yamamoto struck out six over six innings, Mookie Betts had a go-ahead two-run single, and the Dodgers turned a lineout to the outfield into a game-ending double play to force Game 7 with a 3-1 triumph.
Game 7: Will Smith hit a solo homer with two outs in the top of the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas tied it with one out in the ninth, and Yamamoto pitched 2⅔ innings of relief to earn his third win as the Dodgers repeated with a 5-4 victory.
Best Moments From Yesterday
Something Went Wrong
George Springer looked back at Jays teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. after a strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play to end the first inning like someone missed a signal.
Shohei Ohtani strikes out Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as George Springer gets caught at second base to end the inning 👀
A Glove Guy, Too
Guerrero, a 2022 Gold Glove winner, can flash the leather in addition to pound the ball.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. back at it with the glove 😤#WorldSeries
THREE-6IX-THREEThe @BlueJays are six outs away! #WorldSeries
HBP-0
If you had a benches-clearing incident on your bingo card, congratulations.
Benches clear in #WorldSeries Game 7 after Andrés Giménez is hit by a pitch by Justin Wrobleski in the 4th inning.
Max Appreciation
Jays fans gave Max Scherzer one final ovation as he exited in the fifth inning. He reciprocated.
One final ovation in 2025 for the Hall of Famer 👏 #WANTITALL
— Toronto Blue Jays (Bot) (@bluejaysbot.bsky.social) 2025-11-02T02:00:28.000Z
Feeling The Pain
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was emotional after Game 7.
Vladdy was teary-eyed after his monster postseason fell one-win short of a World Series title
— Talkin’ Baseball (Bot) (@talkinbaseballbot.bsky.social) 2025-11-02T04:45:46.000Z
Celebration Scenes
A few pics from the Dodgers’ clubhouse.
MVP! MVP! MVP!
— Los Angeles Dodgers (bot) (@dodgersbot.bsky.social) 2025-11-02T07:05:24.000Z
Noteworthy News
Offseason Dates To Watch
Well, the next season officially begins today with the official beginning of the MLB offseason. Here are some dates to keep track of:
Today: Eligible players become free agents, and trades may resume. Gold Glove winners announced.
Thursday (fifth day after World Series): Deadline for qualifying offers to be extended (5 p.m. ET). Deadline for contract-option decisions by players and teams. Major-league Free agents can be signed beginning at 5 p.m. ET. Deadline for players on 60-day injured list to be reinstated to active roster (there is no 60-day IL in the offseason).
Thursday-Friday: NL (Thursday) and AL (Friday) Silver Slugger winners announced.
Friday: Platinum Glove winners announced.
Nov. 10-13: General managers meet in Las Vegas.
Nov. 10: Rookie of the Year winners announced.
Nov. 11: Manager of the Year winners announced.
Nov. 12: Cy Young Award winners announced.
Nov. 13: MVP winners announced. Other awards announced: All-MLB, Hank Aaron Award, Comeback Player of the Year, Reliever of the Year, Outstanding DH, and Executive of the Year.
Nov. 18: Deadline for players to accept qualifying offers is 4 p.m. ET. Deadline for players to be added to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft (6 p.m. ET).
Nov. 21: All players not under contract must be tendered a contract for 2026, including those eligible for arbitration. Players who are nontendered become free agents.
Dec. 8-11: Winter Meetings take place in Orlando, with the draft lottery conducted on Dec. 9 and the Rule 5 Draft on Dec. 10.
Dec. 15: 2025 international signing period ends.
Jan. 8: Players and teams exchange arbitration figures.
Jan. 15: 2026 international signing period begins.
February: Arbitration hearings, pitchers and catchers report, spring training starts.
March 4-17: World Baseball Classic.
March 25: Opening Day.
Extra Bases
⚾ Justin Willard is poised to become the new pitching coach for the New York Mets. Willard has been the director of pitching for the Boston Red Sox the past two seasons. He will replace Jeremy Hefner, who was not brought back in a major coaching staff shakeup.
Articles You Should Read
New Twins manager Shelton, unlike predecessors, not set up for success — La Velle E. Neal III, Minnesota Star Tribune
The clock is about to start on Phillies — Tim Kelly, On Pattinson
World Series observations — Peter Abraham, Boston Globe
