The defending champs are the defending champs again!
With their absolutely wild Game 7 defeat of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2025 World Series and became the first team to go back-to-back since the 2000 New York Yankees.
Here's how their historic victory went down, with our in-game analysis and postgame takeaways.
Takeaways
Los Angeles Dodgers 5, Toronto Blue Jays 4 (11 innings)
The moments that decided Game 7:
• The Blue Jays load the bases with two outs in the bottom of the second, but Shohei Ohtani strikes out Andres Gimenez swinging on a 99 mph fastball up and in. It was the first time all season Ohtani had faced a hitter with the bases loaded. He threw 42 pitches through two innings, clearly having trouble with his command.
• George Springer leads off the third against Ohtani with a base hit. After a sacrifice bunt and wild pitch, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts intentionally walks Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Just like Jays manager John Schneider's intentional walk to Ohtani in Game 6 backfired in a big way, so does this one: Bo Bichette blasts a first-pitch slider for a monstrous 443-foot home run to center field.
• Toronto's clutch defense comes up big in the fourth. With runners at first and third and one out, Teoscar Hernandez hits a blistering line drive to center with an expected batting average of .660, but Daulton Varsho makes a spectacular diving catch. A run scores, but if he dives and doesn't make the play, it's at least a triple for Hernandez -- meaning three runs score instead of one and the score is tied. Guerrero then ends the inning when he makes a diving catch of Tommy Edman's line drive over first base.
• The tension is building and it's only the fourth inning. Justin Wrobleski barely knicks Gimenez's elbow guard, which upsets Gimenez, and we get the rarely seen Game 7 benches-clearing incident. Even the relievers come running in from the bullpen. Tyler Glasnow eventually gets out of a two-on jam when Guerrero lines out to center.
• The Blue Jays' defense steps up yet again! With rookie Trey Yesavage now on in relief in the seventh, Guerrero turns a picture-perfect 3-6-3 inning-ending double play on Freddie Freeman's chopper, then runs off first base with his knees pumping high like an Olympic sprinter and shouting in excitement.
• Instead of bringing in closer Jeff Hoffman for a two-inning save, Schneider tries to sneak one more inning out of Yesavage. Max Muncy blasts a towering home run to right field. It's a one-run game in the eighth.
• A couple of years ago, Ernie Clement was, in his own words, the worst hitter in baseball. On Saturday, he singles and scores in the sixth and then doubles in the eighth -- his 30th hit of the postseason, a single-postseason record.
• And then the unbelievable: It's not Ohtani who ties the score with a home run in the ninth, but No. 9 hitter Miguel Rojas, who hadn't been in the starting lineup until Game 6. Baseball is the best.
• You could write a book on the bottom of the ninth, but the Dodgers escape with the wildest back-to-back outs in World Series history. Rojas comes through again, getting a force play at home as he stumbles fielding the ball, beating pinch runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa by maybe half an inch. And then Andy Pages runs over Enrique Hernandez to make the catch for the third out at the outfield wall and send the game to extra innings. Wow.
• The Dodgers load the bases with one out in the 10th, but Seranthony Dominguez escapes with another forceout at home, and then a 3-1 bang-bang groundout at first. More Blue Jays defense to the rescue.
• Will Smith, welcome to the "most memorable World Series home runs of all time" list. He gives the Dodgers the lead in the 11th inning with a two-out blast to left field off Shane Bieber.
• On his 130th pitch over two days, Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets Alejandro Kirk to ground into a game-ending double play with the tying run on third base. The Dodgers are the first repeat champs in 25 years, winning one of the greatest games in World Series history -- with Yamamoto and Rojas cementing themselves as Dodgers World Series legends alongside names such as Podres and Koufax and Hershiser and Gibson.
Star of Game 7: Well, it might go down as the Miggy Rojas Game for his tying home run in the ninth inning and then his game-saving defensive play in the bottom of the ninth. But we have to give co-star honors to Smith for his go-ahead home run in the 11th inning. And another co-star to Yamamoto -- the World Series MVP -- for getting his third win of the series, the day after throwing 96 pitches.
What went wrong for the Blue Jays: It's obviously a tragic ending for the Blue Jays, who shut down the Dodgers' offense most of the series, scored more runs, received a dynamic boost from rookie Yesavage, a clutch effort from 41-year-old Max Scherzer in Game 7, and great work from the bullpen for almost the entire series. A big question for the Jays entering the postseason was their closer. Hoffman had allowed 15 home runs in the regular season, the second most of any reliever in baseball. He had been lights-out all postseason, however, allowing one run in 11 innings. It's not all on him, but the Jays were two outs from victory when he finally gave one up.
Stat that sums up this World Series: One. One blown save. No team had blown a ninth-inning lead this postseason -- until Game 7 of the World Series, when Rojas hit one of the more improbable home runs in World Series history, setting up the Dodgers' dramatic win in extra innings. -- David Schoenfield