2025 World Series Game 5 Recap

The Kid is Savage: Yesavage Puts the Blue Jays on the Brink!

We knew the Toronto Blue Jays had some momentum heading into Game 5, but what we saw last night at Dodger Stadium was an absolute shellacking, a definitive 6-1 statement win that shoves the defending champion Dodgers right up against the elimination wall. The Blue Jays now lead the Fall Classic 3-2, and honestly, L.A. looked totally flat, totally rattled.

The whole vibe shifted on the very first pitch. Blake Snell, the Dodgers' ace, throws a heater, and Davis Schneider, leading off in the place of the injured George Springer, turns on it and sends it into the bleachers. Next batter? Vlad Jr. He steps in, sees a fastball he likes, and launches it over the wall, too. Back-to-back jacks to open the World Series game. The stadium went dead silent, and you could practically see the air leaking out of the Dodgers' tires right there in the first inning. Snell, who's now 0-2 with an ERA north of seven this series, looked absolutely ambushed, and really never settled in.

But the real story, the one we'll talk about for years, is Blue Jays rookie Trey Yesavage. That kid is straight-up electric. He was a little shaky in Game 1, but last night? He was a flamethrower. Over seven innings, he completely dismantled the most expensive, star-filled roster in the game, fanning 12 Dodgers in total. And with that final strikeout, he broke the all-time record for most strikeouts in one World Series game by a rookie, one that was set back in 1949 by Don Newcombe of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who struck out 11 in Game 4 against the Cubs. It's an extraordinary, wild tale for the 22-year-old, who was toting the ball in Single-A only five months ago. The Dodgers, with Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani—none of them seemed to know what hit them.

The only run the Dodgers scored was on an isolated Kiké Hernández home run in the third, but that was it. The Jays' offense just continued to pile on—on a sac fly, on a wild pitch (of which there were four in the game, by the way), and on Bo Bichette's RBI single. The Dodgers' supposed powerhouse offense just doesn't seem to be materializing, sitting around .200 in the series now, and they didn't exactly play well defensively either. The Jays have extended the season with Game 6 back in Canada, one win away from the team's first title since '93. Looks to be an awfully long plane ride back to LA for the Dodgers, who need to find something before they can be considered dethroned.