TORONTO (AP) — In a World Series for the ages that went back and forth again and again, Will Smith delivered the biggest swing of all for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Smith connected in the 11th for the first extra-inning homer in a winner-take-all title game, and Miguel Rojas became the first player to hit a tying home run in the ninth inning of a Game 7. On a roller-coaster night of see-sawing emotions, the Dodgers outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 Saturday to become the first repeat champion in a quarter century.
“You dream of those moments,” Smith said after the 4-hour, 7-minute thriller. “I’ll remember that for forever.”
In the type of dramatic Game 7 that kids conjure in backyards, the Blue Jays led 3-0 on Bo Bichette’s third-inning homer off Shohei Ohtani and 4-2 before Max Muncy’s eighth-inning solo homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage.
Toronto was two outs from its first championship since 1993 when Rojas, inserted into the slumping Dodgers lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman and stunned the Rogers Centre crowd of 44,713.
“I’ve cost everybody in here a World Series ring,” Hoffman said.
Rojas hadn’t homered since Sept. 19.
“I had a conversation with my wife,” he said. “She told me something big was waiting for me.”
World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half, and Toronto reliever Seranthony Domínguez stranded three Dodgers runners in the 10th.
Smith, who hit a go-ahead homer in Game 2, sent a 2-0 pitch from Shane Bieber into Toronto’s bullpen in left field, where it bounced into the seats and gave the Dodgers their first lead of the night. Running between first and second, Smith raised his arms in triumph.
“He hung a slider,” Smith said. “I banged it.”
Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner, was making his first relief appearance since 2019.
“He was looking for it and I didn’t execute,” he said.
Of course, there had to be even more drama in just the sixth winner-take-all Series game to go extra innings. It matched the Marlins’ 3-2 win over Cleveland in 1997 as the second-longest Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3, 12-inning victory against the New York Giants in 1924.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled leading off the bottom of the 11th and was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk hit a broken-bat grounder to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-6-3 double play. It was only the second double play to end a Series, after the Yankees turned one in 1947 against the Dodgers.
“I thought we had chances to sweep them,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “Going back to the beginning of the Series when people were calling it David vs. Goliath, it’s not even close.”
Smith set a Series record by catching 73 innings. Betts earned his fourth title in the finale of baseball’s 150th major league season, the first that began and ended outside the United States.
In the Dodgers bullpen for the last game of his decorated 18-year career, Clayton Kershaw lost track of the outs.
“When he hit the double play, I thought the run scored and it was tied,” he said. “I thought I had the next batter.”
Los Angeles and its $500 million roster overcame a 3-2 Series deficit on the road. The Dodgers became the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees won three in a row, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.
With their ninth championship and third in six years, the Dodgers made an argument for their 2020s teams to be considered a dynasty. Dave Roberts, their manager since 2016, boosted the probability he will gain induction to the Hall of Fame.
“To do what we’ve done in this span of time is pretty remarkable,” Roberts said. “I guess let the pundits and all the fans talk about if it’s a dynasty or not.”
After throwing 96 pitches in a Game 6 win Friday, Yamamoto tossed 43 more over 2 2/3 innings for his third win of the Series. He finished the postseason 5-1 with a 1.45 ERA.
“Before I went in, to be honest, I was not really sure if I could pitch up there to my best ability,” Yamamoto said through a translator. “But as I started getting warmed up … I started making a little bit of an adjustment, and then I started thinking I can go in and do my job.”
This Series produced the World Series’ first pinch-hit grand slam, its first complete game in a decade, an 18-inning Game 3 featuring Shohei Ohtani reaching base nine times, six outs on the bases and Freddie Freeman becoming the first to hit two walk-off homers, the first back-to-back homers opening a game, Yesavage striking out a rookie-record 12 just six weeks after his debut, and the first game-ending double play in which an outfielder had a putout or assist.
“That game had every single thing you could possibly have,” Freeman said. “Just an absolutely incredible game, incredible Series.”
Los Angeles used all four of its postseason starting pitchers, with Yamamoto joined by Ohtani and Glasnow (2 1/3 innings each) and Blake Snell (1 1/3 innings).
Bichette, eyes bulging, put Toronto ahead in the third with a 442-foot drive off Ohtani, the two-way star pitching on three days’ rest after taking the loss in Game 4.
Los Angeles closed to 3-2 on sacrifice flies from Teoscar Hernández in the fourth off 41-year-old Max Scherzer, just the fourth pitcher to start multiple winner-take-all Game 7s, and Tommy Edman in the sixth against Chris Bassitt.
Andrés Giménez restored Toronto’s two-run lead with an RBI double in the sixth off Glasnow, who relieved after getting the final three outs on three pitches to save Game 6 on Friday.
There was so much more to come.
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In a Series filled with key defensive plays, Rojas stumbled in the ninth while fielding Daulton Varsho’s one-out, bases-loaded grounder off Yamamoto. Rojas managed to throw home for a forceout as Smith kept his foot on the plate to beat Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who had taken an unusually short 7.8-foot lead off third.
Ernie Clement then flied out to center fielder Andy Pages, who had just come off the bench for defense. Pages sprinted 121 feet and made a jumping, backhand catch on the left-center warning track as he crashed into left fielder Kiké Hernández.
Then with the bases loaded and one out in the 10th, Pages grounded to shortstop, where Giménez threw home for a forceout. Guerrero fielded a grounder to the right side and tossed to Domínguez covering first, just beating Hernández in a call upheld upon video review.
Visiting teams have won five straight World Series Game 7s after home teams won nine in a row from 1982 to 2011.
While the Dodgers were sprayed with silver confetti and they celebrated, the Blue Jays pondered how close they came in falling short. Eyes were red and voices cracked amid the sobbing.
“I’ve been crying for like probably for an hour,” Clement said long after the final out. “I thought I was done with the tears.”
In the midst of the celebration, Freeman already looked ahead to the big, bad Dodgers taking on the rest of baseball again in 2026.
“The Yankees are three-time back-to-back,” he said, “so we get to use that same narrative next year.”
