LOS ANGELES — It was pretty deep into the 2025 season when the more veteran members of the Toronto Blue Jays first heard the name Trey Yesavage.
They had no reason to read up on what he had done in Dunedin. No reason to scout his box scores from Vancouver. No reason to take note of his numbers with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. A player in Yesavage’s position is usually a future consideration, only applicable to the big league club and its aspirations if, perhaps, he can fetch them something of significance at the Trade Deadline.
But the American League champs, one win away from World Series glory, certainly know Trey Yesavage’s name now. So does the richest team in baseball. And so does the rest of the world.
Behind the rookie Yesavage’s historic start and back-to-back blasts from Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at the outset, the Blue Jays downed the defending champion Dodgers, 6-1, in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night.
It was the latest, greatest scene from the implausible script written by the 22-year-old Yesavage, who began the year in Single-A, was summoned by the Blue Jays from Triple-A Buffalo on Sept. 15 and has now pitched them to the cusp of a crown.
“Hollywood,” Yesavage said, “couldn’t make it this good.”
And Canada couldn’t ask for anything more.
The Jays are headed home to Rogers Centre with a chance Friday to clinch their first championship since 1993.
In any best-of-seven series tied 2-2, the Game 5 winner has won the series 46 of 68 times (67.6%). In series with the current 2-3-2 format, teams taking a 3-2 lead by winning Game 5 on the road — before returning home for Games 6 and 7 — have gone on to win the series 20 of 27 times (74.1%).
Yesavage allowed just one run over seven innings in Game 5, striking out 12 — the most by a rookie pitcher in a World Series game — and walking none. He became the first pitcher in the World Series to have that many strikeouts with zero walks, and he did it in only his eighth MLB start and his first postseason road start.
“He’s just completely composed,” veteran pitcher Chris Bassitt said. “The moment’s not too big for him, which is crazy for how young he is. So hats off to him for who coached him, who raised him, because he’s very, very calm under pressure. It’s unbelievable.”
Unbelievable, too, is what the Blue Jays did to the Dodgers the past two days.
They lost Game 3 in epic, exhausting fashion, coming out on the wrong end of an 18-inning affair. It was the kind of loss that can break a ballclub, the kind of agony that can make you want to curl up in a corner and suck your thumb.
Yet all the Blue Jays have done since is dominate the Dodgers.
“It doesn’t feel great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You clearly see those guys finding ways to get hits, move the baseball forward, and we’re not doing a good job of it.”
Across Games 4 and 5, the Jays’ franchise face Guerrero hit two tanks, their pitching held the L.A. bats to a .161 average (10-for-62), and they completely quieted the crowd.
That happened right away Wednesday.
While many fans, in keeping with L.A. tradition, were still stuck in snarled traffic outside Dodger Stadium, the Blue Jays’ bats created two long and unimpeded drives against two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell.
Schneider, batting in the Toronto leadoff spot in lieu of George Springer and his injured oblique, smashed Snell’s first-pitch four-seamer out to left. And on Snell’s third offering of the evening, the No. 2 hitter Guerrero did the same thing to the same type of pitch.
Three pitches, two homers and a 2-0 lead for the Jays.
“They didn’t really get to me,” Snell said. “First pitch of the game, fastball up and in. It’s 98 and up. Unlucky. And then Vlad, that’s just a bad pitch … After that, pretty smooth sailing.”
Hmm. Well, Schneider said the Jays were ready for Snell’s fastball.
“He couldn’t really locate the fastball in Game 1, but he was still throwing that changeup effectively,” Schneider said. “So we figured he’s going to try to get the fastball over for a strike and then kind of go to his off-speed.”
It was an ambush unlike any other, for the World Series had never had a game begin with back-to-back blasts. (The only other team to hit back-to-back homers at the start of a postseason game was the 2002 A’s in the ALDS.)
It was the first time all year that the Blue Jays started a game with back-to-back homers.
It was the first time all year the Dodgers started a game by allowing back-to-back homers.
And it was the first time in his entire career that Snell served up homers to the first two batters in a game.
That shocking sequence put Yesavage in a good spot before he even took the mound. Yesavage had trouble getting a feel for his wicked overhand splitter in Game 1, but that was not an issue this time around. The remarkably poised Pottstown, Pa., native, who will still qualify for rookie status in 2026, once again belied his age and experience with a remarkable K display.
Though the Dodgers did get a run off Yesavage via known October hero Kiké Hernández’s homer in the bottom of the third, the kid was in command. He became the first rookie in postseason history with multiple outings of 10 strikeouts or more and just the second pitcher – joining the legendary Sandy Koufax, who was in attendance – to notch at least 10 strikeouts in the first five innings of a World Series game (Koufax did it in Game 1 in 1963).
“Just getting in the zone early, being in my count, just throwing whatever I wanted when I was in two-strike counts,” Yesavage said.
His teammates — even one who has had a Hall of Fame career — were in awe.
“I go back to how I came to the big leagues,” Max Scherzer said. “I couldn’t imagine in that 2008 season, ending up in the World Series pitching. You know, that would be just such a crazy, crazy story … He’s for real. He can go up against anybody right now.”
The Blue Jays added insurance off Snell in the fourth, when Daulton Varsho led off with a triple and scored on an Ernie Clement sacrifice fly.
And in a wild seventh, they broke it open.
Snell uncorked two wild pitches and left with runners on the corners and two outs. Reliever Edgardo Henriquez walked Guerrero, and catcher Will Smith couldn’t corral the third wild pitch of the inning, allowing Addison Barger to score from third. Then Bo Bichette banged a single to right to score Andrés Giménez and make it 5-1.
All night, the Blue Jays kept the crowd quiet and the defending champs on the defensive. And a Dodgers team that shuffled its lineup for Game 5 once again did not have the answers at the plate.
So the Dodgers’ repeat bid is on the brink, and the Series is headed back to the same building where the Blue Jays completed their own repeat bid in 1993.
Or 10 years before Trey Yesavage was born.
“This playoff paycheck,” he said, “is going to be nice whenever it hits.”
A ring would be nice, too.
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