Dodgers win World Series in absolutely epic Game 7 vs. Blue Jays

TORONTO – Perhaps now we know why it took a quarter-century for a Major League Baseball team to repeat as World Series champions. Now that the Los Angeles Dodgers have done it, we understand how harrowing, hair-raising and humbling a feat it really is.

These Dodgers took their repeat bid to the limit – Game 7 of the World Series against a talented Toronto Blue Jays team, down to their final two outs and looking for all the world like those three-peating New York Yankees from 1998-2000 would maintain their status in the baseball pantheon.

And then Miguel Rojas stepped to the plate, a light-hitting utilityman when he climbed into the batter’s box, an October legend when he returned from his trip around the bases.

Rojas’s home run off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman saved them from the brink, they survived a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the ninth and their most underrated star, catcher Will Smith, finally delivered them the title so many expected.

His long home run to left field off Shane Bieber with two outs in the top of the 11th inning gave the Dodgers their first lead of the night, and Game 6 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto stranded the tying run at third as the Dodgers secured a 5-4 victory and back-to-back championships.

It was their ninth title in franchise history, eighth since moving to Los Angeles and third in the past five years. Yet it also went from preordained – thanks to a superstar-studded roster and a total investment of half a billion dollars in payroll – to unlikely.

After all, it was the Blue Jays who brought a 3-2 World Series lead back to Canada, nine innings from their first title since 1993.

Instead, it was Smith, exhorting his baseball over the wall, screaming “Come on!” as it whistled over the wall.

And it was Yamamoto, completing one of the gutsiest pitching performances in baseball history: Winning Games 2 and 6 as a starter, then pitching 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief on zero days rest to win Game 7.

It was Randy Johnson who ended the Yankees’ dynasty by winning 2001 Game 6 and then coming back a night later to save Game 7. It took a similarly unbelievable act from Yamamoto to do what those Yankees could – go back-to-back.