My initial takeaway from last night's game is that nobody wanted that World Series to end. Everybody wanted the win, and everybody wanted to do whatever necessary to make it happen. Every pitcher gave everything they had left, from the starters, Scherzer and Ohtani, to every past starter who made a relief appearance, like Glasnow, Bassitt, Bieber, Snell, Yesavage and especially Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who stamped his ticket to an MVP by being as good last night as he was Friday night [somehow]. Nobody wanted this to be easy.
But then you think of the outcome, and the way we got there, and you're handed a different idea entirely: everybody wanted the World Series again because everybody, bar the few that made it a game, was absolutely exhausted. The Jays put up a graphic midway through of Max Scherzer and Bo Bichette, the two that made this a 3-1 Jays lead for most of the game, and both of them had substantial missed time in between the regular season and part of the postseason. Scherzer had the bye and didn't make the ALDS roster. Bo was out for a couple months and didn't get here til the World Series. Both had big moments last night, Bo with his 3-run bomb and Max with his dominant start. A lot of other Blue Jays did not rise to the occasion, and Vlad, Kirk and Barger were given moments to win it and couldn't. Even on the Dodgers' side, the big pieces, like Ohtani, Freeman, Muncy and Betts, didn't factor into this as much.
Cause they were all absolutely fried from seven months of this shit. And it had finally gotten to them. Remember back in the day, when hitters didn't swing on every pitch and pitchers didn't throw hard on every pitch, when the postseason only lasted like a week and a half? This shit is not sustainable anymore.
But because this season now lasts that long, the guys who were cold have enough time to get hot again and be the heroes in the last moments of the season. That explains Andres Gimenez, who was listless for a while, having a hero moment. That explains Yamamoto, whose Cy Young case fell off expediently as the season went on, becoming unstoppable in October. And that explains Miguel Rojas, who hadn't hit a home run in over a month, and had barely gotten any hits in the postseason, being the man to hit the game-tying home run off of Jeff Hoffman in the ninth, as the Jays were two outs away from hoisting the trophy themselves. Rojas had the game of his life last night, and for a career workhorse who always keeps his head down and does his job, and is a favorite to manage after his career, Rojas being the hero is a very cool thing. It's not a flash in the pan guy, it's not the obvious choice. It's a reliable, hardworking guy who needed recognition.
There were so many incredible moments in that game. Pages making the catch in center field after subbing in. Vlad turning a double play. That insane moment where it looked like Will Smith could have blown the game by lifting his cleat off the plate for a millisecond. Then Smith getting to be the hero. And then the Kirk GDP that ended the game. I was exhausted in the seventh inning but I needed to know how this ended, and even if I'd have preferred a Jays win, I cannot stay too mad at that outcome. The Dodgers won by never giving up and continuing to pound a team that was inches from taking it themselves.
Now...there's a lot about this that I'm very concerned about. Like the fact that we only got this game because of a very dubious dead ball moment in Game 6 that could have tied the game. And the fact that this is the exact outcome that Rob Manfred wants, because it strengthens the case in favor of a salary cap, which will no doubt lead to an avoidable standstill, the likes of which we already have enough of at the moment. And the fact that I literally wrote a post when the Dodgers got Roki Sasaki, saying 'there's no need to play the season at all, as they just bought a ring', and literally no one else could stop them despite obvious flaws. The Dodgers' bullpen could have lost them this Series, and they gamed the system so that they barely had to use it at all.
The way to stopping the Dodgers is not stopping the Dodgers. The way to stopping the Dodgers is encouraging the other 29 owners to do exactly what the Dodgers have been doing to win. This season proved that that's how you win World Series, you outspend the competition and reward players. Nobody else wants to do that. Especially guys like John Fisher and Bob Nutting and the Pohlads and...and I could go on. These people have no desire to actually spend money on their baseball teams, and Manfred has no incentive to make them, because of the amount of leverage he has over the players' association because of this Dodgers win. And hey, people watched! They watched cause a lot of them wanted the other outcome, but they sure watched. The only thing that may not be in Manfred's corner heading into a potential lockout in a year or so, is that, uh...somebody that famously enjoys rewarding billionaires may not be too keen on a California team being that good at winning right now.
It is absolutely true that this outcome can be both a very good, and exciting one, and also a disastrous one for the future of the game. I'm mostly saying this because I genuinely don't know what's going to happen next year, and there's a lot of doomerism out there where people are convinced there isn't gonna be a 2026 season, let alone a 2027 one. Maybe I'll be able to enjoy this more in hindsight then.
Anyway. Congratulations to the Dodgers, and Dodgers fans. A lot needs to be fixed for me to enjoy this more, but I definitely enjoyed this World Series. Now to the waiting. Hopefully it's not that long.
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