Sunday, November 2, 2025

A Sequel Better than the First

By EDDIE RIVERA

Dodgers celebrate their Seventh Game victory in Toronto. Photo by MLB/Fox Sports.

Dodgers defeat Toronto, 5-4, in heroic fashion, to win their second consecutive World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers have defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 5–4. Finally. 

It was an improbable victory and a perfect Hollywood sequel that, like so few sequels, was better than the first. It was a blockbuster filled with stars on both sides and crazy with heroes. And no bad guys. 

The noise at Rogers Centre was deafening before it went silent. Eleven innings of tension and talent, of moments meant for myth, had built to a single swing. When Will Smith turned on a 2-0 slider and sent it screaming into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, the Dodgers didn’t just take the lead — they took a deep breath that had been held for 25 years. 

The Dodgers’ 5–4 victory in Game 7 of the World Series delivered what baseball hadn’t seen since the turn of the millennium: a repeat champion. And it didn’t come easy. 

They trailed early. They trailed late. They looked, for much of the night, like a team weighed down by history and expectation. But they kept coming. A run chipped away here, a clutch at-bat there — and when the final out settled into Freddie Freeman’s glove at first base, a season’s worth of strain gave way to euphoria. 

“This one took everything we had,” manager Dave Roberts said afterward. “The Blue Jays pushed us to the edge. Every inning, every pitch — they played like champions.” 

That acknowledgment was earned. 

Toronto’s crowd, draped in blue and white and maple leaves, had been ready to witness the franchise’s first championship since 1993. When Bo Bichette launched a three-run home run in the

third inning off Shohei Ohtani that even stunned Ohtani, the indoor baseball stadium shook like the San Andreas. The Blue Jays led 3–0, their young core carrying the moment, their veteran ace Max Scherzer dealing with the precision of a man who had done this before. 

But baseball games — especially Game 7s — are written in pencil until the very end. 

Ohtani, pitching on short rest, lasted only a few innings before turning the ball over to a bullpen that had become the Dodgers’ quiet weapon. They held the line while the offense went to work. Teoscar Hernández, a former Blue Jay, punched an RBI single to break the silence in the fourth. Then, with the Dodgers down to their final outs, Miguel Rojas ripped a solo homer in the ninth to tie the game at four. 

“That’s why you play the full 27 outs,” Rojas said later. “You never know which one’s going to change everything.” 

The Blue Jays had chances — plenty of them. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. scorched a double in the eighth that just missed clearing the wall. Daulton Varsho made a leaping catch in left that saved a run in the 10th. It was the kind of game that left both dugouts gasping, both fan bases certain that destiny was on their side. 

In the end, it came down to one swing. 

Smith, who had been steady all postseason, stepped to the plate in the 11th with two outs and the count in his favor. Shane Bieber, Toronto’s reliable reliever, hung a breaking ball. The sound of contact — that sharp crack echoing through the dome — told everyone what they needed to know.

As Smith rounded the bases, his teammates spilled out of the dugout. In the bullpen, Ohtani raised both arms skyward. “We just never stopped believing,” Smith said. “That’s what this group does. Every time we got punched, we punched back.” 

The Blue Jays, in true Hollywood fashion, refused to fade quietly. A single and a walk in the bottom half brought the winning run to the plate. Roberts stuck with his ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, his, who coaxed a grounder from Alejandro Kirk to short. 

Mookie Betts snagged it on the run, stepped on second, and fired it to Freeman. Out.

The Dodgers, at last, were champions again.

There was no villain here — just two teams who refused to lose. The Blue Jays had reawakened an entire country’s baseball heartbeat. The Dodgers had reaffirmed their dynasty. Both had delivered a World Series worthy of its stage. 

As champagne sprayed and the cheers rolled through the visiting clubhouse, Roberts summed it up with a grin. “Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it better,” he said. 

And he was right.