Trey Yesavage pitched the Blue Jays to a 3-2 World Series lead. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
(Daniel Shirey via Getty Images)
Trey Yesavage has a new place in baseball history. The Toronto Blue Jays have a 3-2 World Series lead. The Los Angeles Dodgers have some soul-searching to do.
Behind a World Series rookie record 12 strikeouts from the 22-year-old Yesavage, the Blue Jays cruised to another win, 6-1, over the Dodgers in Game 5 of the Fall Classic. They will go back to Rogers Centre with two chances to clinch their first championship since 1993.
Advertisement
Game 6 is scheduled for Friday at 8 p.m. ET in Toronto.
The night belonged to Yesavage, who was drafted last season, began 2025 at Low-A Dunedin and didn’t make his MLB debut until mid-September. The Dodgers offense had been struggling before Wednesday, but Yesavage outright dominated them.
He struggled in Game 1 mainly due to a lack of feel for his signature splitter, instead leaning on a slider that can come and go. Both worked to a monstrous degree in Game 5, with the Dodgers whiffing 14 times on 29 swings against the slider and seven times on 10 swings against the splitter. Overall, Yesavage worked an outstanding 44% whiff rate.
Advertisement
He struck out every Dodger in a revamped starting lineup at least once, and their 2-3-4 hitters two times each for good measure.
His lone mistake was an inside fastball that Kiké Hernandez punished for the Dodgers’ only run.
Toronto had all the runs it needed by the time Yesavage took the mound. Both Yesavage and Blake Snell were trying to recover from rough Game 1 starts, and that effort went south on the first three pitches of the game.
Blue Jays leadoff hitter Davis Schneider ambushed a fastball on Snell’s first pitch, then Vladimir Guerrero Jr. crushed an inside mistake to make it 2-0 Toronto before the first out.
Snell actually settled in pretty well from there, all but abandoning his fastball against a lineup that has spent all postseason demolishing them. It got rough for him as he reached the seventh inning, though, as he allowed two more baserunners and had to exit the game at 116 pitches.
Advertisement
Both runs ended up scoring, and the first really epitomized the night for the Dodgers. Addison Barger reached first on a grounder that reached the outfield, took second base on a Snell wild pitch, took third base on another Snell wild pitch, then took home on an Edgardo Henríquez wild pitch.
It was the first time in World Series history that a team threw three wild pitches in a single inning.
A little less than two days ago, the Dodgers had survived an 18-inning marathon to take a 2-1 lead. However, that game also laid bare their offensive woes with their failure to score against a Blue Jays bullpen that has struggled almost as much as theirs this postseason. That has continued for the next two games, and the team now needs a complete offensive revitalization if it wants to win MLB’s first back-to-back championships.
Advertisement
They will have to do so against Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman in front of a hostile Toronto crowd on Friday. On the bright side, they will have the only starting pitcher who has performed well against this Toronto lineup, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Follow along with Yahoo Sports for live updates, highlights and more from Game 5 of the 2025 World Series:
-
Jack Baer
-
Jack Baer
The Dodgers hit .210 in their final three games at Dodger Stadium. They’re honestly lucky this series isn’t already over.
-
Jack Baer
-
Jack Baer
For a second straight day, the Blue Jays beat the Dodgers in all phases of the game. Trey Yesavage was unhittable to a historic degree. He had all the runs he needed just three pitches into the game, thanks to Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and the Dodgers coughed up a few more runs down the line.
This series is going back to Toronto with the Jays up 3-2 and win away from their first World Series title since 1993.
-
Jack Baer
Freddie Freeman strikes out. Two down.
-
Jack Baer
Mooke Betts flies out to left. One down.
-
Jack Baer
Will Smith leads off the bottom of the ninth with a full-count single off Jeff Hoffman.
-
Jack Baer
-
Jack Baer
Blake Treinen, a cyclone of misery for the Dodgers since the start of September, enters the game and throws a clean ninth inning to keep the deficit at five runs. Sure.
-
Jack Baer
Ohtani grounds out to end the inning. Just one more inning to go as Blake Treinen enters the game.
-
-
Jack Baer
Alex Call just worked a walk, something Andy Pages hadn’t done all postseason. Up comes Shohei Ohtani against Dominguez with two outs.
-
-
Jack Baer
Pinch-hitter Myles Straw flies out to end the top of the eighth inning. With his team up five runs, Trey Yesavage’s night officially ends as Seranthony Dominguez takes over for the bottom of the eighth.
-
-
Jack Baer
-
Jack Baer
Anthony Banda stayed in and allowed a leadoff single to Ernie Clement, who took second on a wild pitch, then scored on a first-pitch single from Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
-
-
Jack Baer
Teoscar Hernández gets a single on a swinging bunt, but Tommy Edman grounds into a double play to end the seventh inning. Yesavage is at 104 pitches, and you would imagine that’s it for him after a night no one could have imagined for him at the start of the season.
His line: 7 innings, 3 hits, 1 run, 0 walks and 12 strikeouts.
-
Jack Baer
First Appeared on
Source link
