TORONTO – Thirty-two years of frustration and failure, disappointment and self-loathing, trauma worn as a badge of honour, erupted in glorious fashion on Friday night. The sixth inning of Game 1 of the World Series was an exorcism. Toronto, one of the world's greatest metropolises, a city that has loved its baseball team without reciprocating for decades, screams, roars, and remembers what championship baseball looks like. The Toronto Blue Jays did more than produce one of the greatest offensive innings in World Series history as they defeated the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers 11-4.
Editor's Picks
2 related
They showed the world what they had already established in the 121st World Series: They were no pushovers.
“We've had a genuine feeling for a long time that if we just played a certain brand of baseball, we would win games,” Toronto right-hander Chris Bassett said, and he was right. In an era filled with strikeouts, the Blue Jays had none. In an era of shoddy defense, the Blue Jays played cleanly. Even against a team as good as the Dodgers, a team filled with late bloomers and second chances looks like it can be a dominant force.
Nothing exemplifies this more than the sixth bottom. It was one of the greatest half-innings in World Series history, a wild nine-run run filled with everything the Blue Jays offense had going for them. Toronto enters the series with the best offense in Major League Baseball so far this postseason, scoring 6.5 points per game, nearly two more than the Dodgers. The sixth explains how.
Starting with a six-pitch walk, adding a single, batting in the ninth pitch and catching two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell set the tone. A single scored in the first quarter, giving the Blue Jays a 3-2 lead. A nine-pitch walk scored another run and a single added another run. During a power play at home, after a pitcher-hitter struck out the first inning, Blue Jays manager John Schneider called Addison Barger, the third pinch hitter of the inning.
Blue Jays' best World Series performances
Toronto is participating in the Fall Classic for the first time since 1993. Here are our must-read picks from the Jayhawks through October.
The Magic of the Blue Jays Clubhouse »
George Springer, the modern Mr. October »
How Vlad Jr. and Toronto bet on each other »
Relive the Blue Jays' ALCS Game 7 win »
The past week has been a busy one for Barger. The Blue Jays defeated the Seattle Mariners in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on Monday night to capture the pennant. The next morning, Barger said, he flew to the hospital to pick up his wife for the birth of their third child. A day later, he flew back to Toronto for a Blue Jays practice but had no place to stay.
“They arranged a place, but I thought, there were a few days that I wasn't going to pay for a hotel room,” Barger said. “I know it sounds crazy, but I'm just trying to save some money.”
So, days after crashing on Blue Jays outfielder Myles Straw's couch, Barger spent Friday night with teammate Davis Schneider, sleeping on a foldout couch in the living room of a hotel suite overlooking Rogers Center from center field. Bugger wasn't feeling well—Schneider said he heard a squeak in the bed as Bugger tried to find some peace—but that didn't stop him from unleashing some of the biggest hits of his young career.
Relief pitcher Anthony Banda hit a 2-2 slider and Barger's pitch sailed over the center field wall for the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history, sparking chaos inside the Dome as primal screams bounced off the roof and echoed like a tsunami of sound.
The Blue Jays' expertise in this style is nothing new — they've won the most games in the AL this season precisely because they're so good at cutting into pitchers' souls like sandpaper — but seeing it on this stage, against a Dodgers team that limited Milwaukee to four runs in the National League Championship Series, made it clear that Toronto wasn't going to be just another stopover on Los Angeles' road to back-to-back championships.
Flooding continues. Single by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Catcher Alejandro Kirk hit another home run, going 3-for-3 in Game 1, and drew a nine-pitch walk when the Blue Jays allowed Snell to pitch 29 and predicted an early out. All told, Toronto threw 44 pitches, scored nine runs – the third-highest score in a World Series inning and the most since 1968 – and turned a 2-2 nail-biting into an 11-2 foot-stomping victory.
New ESPN and FOX One Bundle
Bundle ESPN and FOX One to unlock more sports at an unbeatable price. Watch the World Series, college football, NBA, NHL and more. Get access
This is the Blue Jays. They have a superstar (Guerrero) and a playoff veteran (George Springer), as well as a returning All-Star (Bo Bichette, making his first start since Sept. 6 at second base, having not played since moving to Triple-A six years ago). The rest of their roster shares Toronto's philosophy that as long as the Blue Jays don't beat themselves, they're good enough to outscore any team — even one as talented as the Dodgers.
“If we don't strike out, don't give up, don't beat ourselves, don't give up home runs, we're going to win the game,” Bassett said. “It's not about facing any team. It's just our team believing that no matter who we play, this brand can win.”
It's the brand that made the city fall in love with the Blue Jays all over again. Toronto knows baseball is heartbreaking. After winning back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993, the Blue Jays fell into a pattern of perpetual mediocrity. Even though they were good in the mid-2010s, they struggled in the American League. Their previous three playoff berths all ended with wild-card series sweeps. They tried to make Shohei Ohtani a free agent. He went to the Dodgers. They tried to make Juan Soto a free agent. He went to the New York Mets. The Blue Jays have been snake-bitten for decades and enter 2025 with little hope of turning things around.
2025 World Series Player of the Year
We've covered all of the Dodgers and Blue Jays' title race.
World Series Big Preview, Predictions »
MLB Insider Predictions for World Series »
Best World Series rankings since 2000 »
World Series Player Rankings, Best Tools »
But baseball is fun like that. Sometimes when a team coalesces around an idea, the idea becomes an ethos, and that ethos sparks a revolution. The Dodgers are so good that all of these sources of joy, emotion and excitement can be short-lived. Maybe it was the culmination of a great season, but not great enough.
Or maybe the crowd of 44,353 at Rogers Center started cheering through the stadium with two outs and Ohtani at the plate in the ninth inning.
“We don't need you,” Blue Jays fans say to the best player in the world. They don't need him this season. They didn't need him Friday. They don't need him to move on.
This is arrogant, but understandable. Toronto has never experienced a night like this in the past 32 years. Of course, the Blue Jays have had their moments. Jose Bautista's bat flip. Edwin Encarnacion's home run. All of this ultimately came to nothing. But what about this time? With this team of true believers? In a dream city?
The remaining games of the World Series will provide the answer. On this night, however, it was true. The Toronto Blue Jays just need themselves. And there are lots of them.