- The Toronto Blue Jays lost Games 6 and 7 at home after holding a 3-2 series lead.
- Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman gave up a game-tying home run in the ninth inning of Game 7.
- Both games ended with the Blue Jays hitting into double plays with runners in scoring position.
TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays absorbed a 24-hour gut punch that may never again be experienced in World Series history. And the emotional reaction was proportional.
Have you ever seen a franchise player with tears in his eyes before departing the dugout, as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did? Or a salty, 36-year-old pitcher like Chris Bassitt stumble over his words and compose himself when pondering whether he’d be back in 2026?
Or Mad Max Scherzer, always on tilt, but in the wee moments of Nov. 2 reduced to just one word he said described the emotional state of the team.
‘Gutted,’ he said.
It’s understandable.
The Blue Jays took a 3-2 Series lead back to Rogers Centre, two chances to close out a Los Angeles Dodgers team that was supposed to be indomitable but, by this stage, was clearly vulnerable. And goodness, a championship was there for the taking.
Instead, two sudden endings, one stunning relief failure and a pair of late home runs catapulted the Dodgers to victories in Games 6 and 7, the 3-1 and 5-4 results boosting them to Major League Baseball’s first repeat championships in 25 years.
Both games ended with the Dodgers skipping giddily, disbelievingly off the field, like they made off with a bag of jewels just before the gendarmes caught on to their heist.
That’s certainly how the Blue Jays felt.
After all, they had the tying runs in scoring position in Game 6 and the Series-winning run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth. And the tying run 90 feet away and Series-winning run at first base in the bottom of the 11th one night later, Game 7 and a championship wavering in the balance.
Both nights, they hit into game-ending double plays.
In Game 7, they were two outs from their first World Series championship since 1993, nursing a 4-3 ninth-inning lead when Miguel Rojas – he of the seven homers in 2025, the one extra-base hit in 51 career postseason at-bats – clubbed a hanging slider from closer Jeff Hoffman over the Blue Jays bullpen in left field, the ball caught by a fan who immediately realized how depressing this moment was for the 44,713 on hand.
To say nothing of the 26 Blue Jays who saw a title snatched from them two nights in a row. Yet in Game 7, unlike the baserunning gaffe committed by Addison Barger that ended Game 6, the culprit was more direct.
The last Blue Jays championship was won when Joe Carter turned around World Series Game 6 with a walk-off three-run homer off Philadelphia Phillies reliever Mitch Williams, a failure that followed Wild Thing around the rest of his career.
Hoffman seemed to grasp the ramifications of his gopher ball.
‘I cost everybody in here a World Series ring,’ he told reporters. ‘It was supposed to end differently.’
Instead, a river of champagne was replaced by a reservoir of tears. Ernie Clement, who set a postseason record with 30 hits and nearly hit a walk-off, Series-ending grand slam only for Andy Pages to haul the ball in at the wall, told reporters he cried for an hour after the game.
He was still welled up after all that.
‘I thought I was done with the tears,’ Clement said. ‘I just could not wait to come to the field every day. I just love these guys so much. It’s all I care about.
‘We gave it everything we had. When you fall short but you can say you left it all out there, there’s something to be proud of there.”
Indeed, the Blue Jays landed haymaker after haymaker on the Dodgers, who emerged impressed with their opponent. Blue Jays manager John Schneider bristled profanely one last time at the characterization that this was a ‘David vs. Goliath’ battle.
True. But they certainly bore some of the blame, stranding 14 runners in Game 7 and getting one hit in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Now, on to a tenuous future.
Scherzer, their Game 7 starter, Bassitt and late-season acquisition Shane Bieber can become free agents. Yet the biggest question mark is shortstop Bo Bichette, who probably played his way into a nine-figure contract with an excellent season followed by a gallant World Series performance (eight hits in 23 at-bats, .923 OPS) after he sat out seven weeks with a knee sprain that kept him out of the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The young core of Guerrero and emerging apparent stars such as Clement and Addison Barger and playoff ace Trey Yesavage augur very good things for the future. Yet when they report to Dunedin, Florida in just three months for spring training, the residue from this World Series conclusion may linger.
‘We’re a team. Win and lose as a team,’ says Scherzer. ‘Everyone in here is gutted. Just disbelief.’
