The Labatt Blue is on ice and the Dodger Dynasty blue is on thin ice.
The World Series returns to Rogers Center on Friday for Game 6, with the Blue Jays getting two chances to win one game against the $400 million Dodgers and dethrone the defending champions.
The Dodgers, who entered the Fall Classic as heavy favorites and seemingly on the verge of becoming the first team to win back-to-back championships since the 1998-2000 Yankees, are on the verge of having everything fall apart, being eliminated from a playoff game for the first time since winning the final two games against the Padres in the 2024 NLDS.
“I think there’s a fight in it. There’s a fight that — I think there’s more to it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I know there is more to it. We have won two games in a row, but again, it comes down to one game.”
The Dodgers certainly won’t go down without a fight, especially with Yoshinobu Yamamoto – author of two consecutive all-game gems – on the mound. But the Blue Jays went head-to-head in every battle that came their way this postseason, now one win away from securing the franchise’s first title since 1993.
“The job is not done, as Kobe Bryant used to say,” Blue Jays outfielder/second baseman Davis Schneider said after getting Game 5 going with a leadoff homer against Blake Snell. “There’s seven games for a reason. You’ve got to win four of them. And they’re a good baseball club over there. You can’t take it lightly. Yamamoto is going to pitch on Friday. He’s such a good pitcher, so you can’t really take anything for granted. And baseball is a funny game. You never know what you’re going to see that day, and we just have to win one more, and hopefully we don’t have to go to Game 7.”
Most teams use it against all odds over the course of a season or playoff run, but for these Blue Jays, there’s actually some legitimacy to it. Even though they have the fifth-highest payroll in the game — still about $100 million less than the Dodgers — they shouldn’t exactly have been here.
On the eve of opening day, FanGraphs’ playoff odds gave the Blue Jays a 2.8 percent chance of winning the World Series. They didn’t even have favorable odds of making the playoffs (43.6 percent), let alone winning the ALDS (13.8 percent) or ALCS (7.0 percent).
Of course, even when the Blue Jays won the AL East with the AL’s best record (with a tie against the Yankees), they got a bye in the ALDS where they were…underdogs against the Yankees, who they handled easily. It was the same story in the ALCS, where the Mariners were favored and took a 2-0 lead in the series, only for the Blue Jays to dispatch them in seven games.
And then the Dodgers entered the World Series as strong favorites, but are suddenly at risk of suffering the same fate as the Yankees and Mariners, who found the Blue Jays’ brutal, contact-heavy lineup too much — not to mention a rotation largely risen to the occasion.
That line-up could get a boost with the return of George Springer. He missed Games 4 and 5 after leaving Game 3 with right side discomfort, but manager John Schneider said Thursday he hopes to have the playoff veteran back Friday.
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The Blue Jays will counter Yamamoto with Kevin Gausman, who was as dominant as the Dodgers’ ace for much of Game 2 until the seventh inning rolled around.
And they’ll be back on their home court, which they’ve defended in their biggest games yet this postseason, as another rough environment awaits them on Friday.
“I’m just super excited to see what this place looks like [Friday]manager John Schneider said Thursday. ‘The boys too. They’re talking about it too. We can’t wait. You actually want the game to start now. But it should be fun.”
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