Rookie Trey Yesavage’s brilliance has Blue Jays one win from glory – The Athletic – The New York Times

MLB
2025 World
Series
Trey Yesavage of the Toronto Blue Jays reacts after pitching in the seventh inning during Game 5 of the 2025 World Series. (Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES — Nine years, nine months and five days after Joe Carter rounded the bases in a building called the SkyDome, Dave and Cheryl Yesavage welcomed a baby boy into the world. They named him Trey. Like so many of his future Toronto Blue Jays teammates, he wasn’t born yet the last time the franchise won a championship. At 22, Yesavage is merely the youngest.
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On Friday evening, Yesavage and the rest of his teammates will reconvene in that same stadium, now known as Rogers Centre, with a chance to return Toronto to the promised land. After a 6-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday, the Blue Jays will have two chances at immortality, two chances to make memories that linger like Carter’s walkoff still does for fans across Canada, two chances to match the dominance Yesavage unleashed at Dodger Stadium.
“I can’t wait,” Toronto manager John Schneider said, “to see what the Rogers Centre is going to look, feel and sound like.”
If there is to be a coronation, Yesavage may be a spectator. But he pushed his club to the doorstep of history with 12 strikeouts across seven innings of one-run baseball. Wielding a hellacious splitter thrown from a uniquely elevated release point, he established a new record for strikeouts by a rookie in a World Series game. It was the best performance by a pitcher that young in the Fall Classic since Smoky Joe Wood of the Boston Red Sox struck out 11 New York Giants in 1912.
For the second time in this series, Yesavage and the Blue Jays toppled two-time Cy Young award winner Blake Snell. The Blue Jays hit two home runs before Snell had thrown his fourth pitch. The 1-2 jolt by Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. gave Toronto an early lead. The Jays padded the advantage against the pitiful Dodgers bullpen in the seventh.
For the Dodgers, a club beset by a lineup-wide slump, the chance at a repeat championship will rely upon the return of Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 6. He evened this series with a nine-inning gem in Game 2. He could drag the club into a Game 7, which would likely feature the return to the mound of two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani. But to get there, the Dodgers would have to best a club that recovered from a crushing 18-inning defeat in Game 3 to outclass their hosts across the past two nights at Dodger Stadium.
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“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.”
The pitching matchup on Wednesday featured a rematch from Game 1. Neither starter distinguished himself last week in Toronto. Yesavage exited after four innings. The Blue Jays chased Snell in the sixth. Atonement was only achieved by one man.
After debating changes for several days, Roberts shook up his lineup. Catcher Will Smith displaced shortstop Mookie Betts as the No. 2 hitter behind Ohtani. Betts did not go far; he batted third. The team also benched center fielder Andy Pages, who was batting .080 this postseason, in favor of midseason acquisition Alex Call. Kiké Hernández started in center, with Call in left.
The reconfiguration represented an attempt to revive the group. Freddie Freeman laid out the problem in the hours before the game. Too often, he recognized, the Dodgers were simply swinging for the fences. Only one of their hitters was consistently clearing them.
“There’s a few of us that need to be successful,” Freeman said. “It can’t always just be Shohei.”
As the Dodgers searched for a more potent formula, the Blue Jays pushed forward without their most potent hitter. George Springer, the four-time All-Star leadoff hitter, sat for the second game in a row with side discomfort. Schneider hoped Springer could come off the bench as a pinch hitter.
Toronto did not need him for Game 4, and the team did not need him to provide a spark from the leadoff spot on Wednesday. In Game 1, Snell struggled to throw strikes with his fastball. In Game 5, the Blue Jays demonstrated what they can do to fastballs in the strike zone. Davis Schneider, a right-handed batter called into the lineup to pick up the platoon advantage against Snell, walloped a first-pitch fastball for a leadoff homer. He pulled on the team’s home run jacket and accepted congratulations from his teammates.
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Schneider had just removed the garment from his back when Guerrero received a 0-1 heater from Snell. Guerrero treated the pitch with the same viciousness he reserved for a hanging sweeper from Ohtani in Game 4. Guerrero swatted his eighth homer of the postseason to spot Yesavage a two-run advantage.
 
BACK-TO-PLAK 💥
VLADDY’S TURN! #PLAKATA pic.twitter.com/8WcyKZtTMX
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) October 30, 2025

Yesavage took the mound on the road for the first time since giving up four runs in four innings to the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium on Sept. 21. All four of Yesavage’s prior postseason starts took place at Rogers Centre. Those outings comprised more than half of his big-league experience heading into Wednesday.
“He’s just completely composed,” Blue Jays pitcher Chris Bassitt said. “The moment’s not too big for him – which is pretty crazy, considering how young he is.”
John Schneider was optimistic Yesavage would look less skittish in his second World Series outing, especially with better control of his splitter. A 1-2-3 first inning made the manager look prescient. Yesavage struck out Freeman with a splitter in the second. He fanned outfielder Teoscar Hernández with a slider. Another splitter left second baseman Tommy Edman flailing to end the frame.
“When it’s on,” Toronto veteran Max Scherzer said, “he can make anybody in the game look stupid.”
A string of five consecutive strikeouts was interrupted by Kiké Hernández. The Dodgers have come to expect brilliance from Hernández — a mediocre performer during the summer — once the calendar turns to October. This month had been a quieter one for him. He had not homered until Yesavage tried to sneak a 93 mph fastball past him. Hernández clubbed the ball into the left-field bleachers to wake up the crowd.
The Blue Jays clawed a run back in the fourth by capitalizing on the slipshod defense of Teoscar Hernández in right. Toronto outfielder Daulton Varsho nearly scraped the dirt while digging out a curveball from Snell and flicking it down the line. Hernández slid as the ball approached the grass. He could neither catch nor stop the ball. It was a triple for Varsho, who scored on a sacrifice fly by third baseman Ernie Clement.
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In Game 3, John Schneider grew tired of watching Ohtani bully his pitchers. As the game stretched into extras, Schneider ordered four intentional walks, with an unintentional fifth walk in the 17th. The strategy was so blatant that Schneider was asked if he would bequeath first base to Ohtani to begin Game 4. Instead, the Blue Jays found ways to quiet the most explosive bat in the Los Angeles lineup.
Like starter Shane Bieber in Game 4, Yesavage earned the chance to face Ohtani for a third time in Wednesday’s sixth inning. Schneider trusted both the rookie and his defense. When Ohtani smoked a 117.4 mph rocket into right field, Addison Barger sprawled in the grass. Unlike Teoscar Hernández, Barger made the catch.
An inning later, a trio of wild pitches led to Barger scoring Toronto’s fourth run. Snell uncorked the first two after Barger’s leadoff single. With runners at the corners, Roberts removed Snell after 116 pitches. For weeks, Roberts has managed as if reluctant to open the door to his bullpen. The rest of the inning demonstrated why: Rookie Edgardo Henriquez walked Guerrero by flinging a 99.9 mph fastball for a run-scoring wild pitch, then gave up an RBI single to Bo Bichette.
“Guys have got to be better,” Roberts said.
Yesavage returned for the seventh. He fooled Freeman again with a splitter for the 12th strikeout. After an infield single by Teoscar Hernández, Yesavage steeled himself to face one more batter. He flung a full-count slider to Edman, who smacked a hard grounder down the third-base line. Toronto turned two to end the frame.
“What more can you say?” Blue Jays Game 6 starter Kevin Gausman said. “What an exceptional young kid. But also, what a pitcher.”
A procession of Blue Jays greeted Yesavage. Like the rookie, so many of them were born years after Joe Carter and the rest of the 1993 edition of this team called themselves champions. After Wednesday, these Jays are now one victory away from joining them.
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Andy McCullough is a senior writer for The Athletic covering MLB. He previously covered baseball at the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star and The Star-Ledger. A graduate of Syracuse University, he grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Follow Andy on Twitter @ByMcCullough

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