TORONTO — In some ways, it still feels like October here.
There’s a bite in the air, a chill in the wind, the same as there was five months ago for the most unforgettable ballgame anybody in attendance had ever witnessed. Torontonians stroll the streets with long coats, gloves, scarfs and Jays caps. A bar one block from the ballyard boasts a sign that reads “We Run October.” The sky is overcast, the Rogers Centre dome is closed, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in town.
And so, ahead of this relatively meaningless April matchup, it was impossible to not dwell on World Series 2025 Game 7 — what happened that night and what didn’t. Neither Miguel Rojas nor Yoshinobu Yamamoto started Monday, yet both were dominant topics of pregame conversation. The two skippers, Toronto’s John Schneider and L.A.’s Dave Roberts, tried to downplay the significance of this Fall Classic rematch, but the ghosts of November were too weighty, too lasting for Monday’s contest to mean nothing.
“A few short months ago, it was bedlam in here,” Schneider said beforehand. “So, looking forward to it.”
“I don’t feel as much anxiousness as I did the last time, understandably so,” Roberts remarked.
Unfortunately, the game itself — a resounding 14-2 Dodgers victory — was a lackluster dud devoid of anything resembling drama.
Asked about his anxiety level after the game, Roberts was unflustered. “It was probably a 10 in October, and it was probably a one tonight,” he said.
That’s because Toronto looked nothing like that unstoppable freight train of camaraderie we saw last autumn. Jays starter Max Scherzer lasted two innings, limited by forearm tendinitis. That allowed Los Angeles’ star-studded offense to jump all over a carousel of overmatched relievers. The Dodgers finished the night with 17 hits and five homers, including two from young backstop Dalton Rushing. Jays catcher Tyler Heineman, whose struggles earlier in the week literally brought him to tears, was brought in to lob lifeless lollipops in the ninth.
Toronto’s offense had a different experience. Before the ninth, the Jays managed just four hits, only three of which left the infield and only one of which was hit hard. They failed to capitalize on four free passes from Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski. It was an evening of grimaces, hung heads and slow trudges. Things got ugly enough for Roberts to pull his starters in the seventh. By the time Game 7 hero and veteran infielder Miguel Rojas was brought in to sponge up the ninth, the scattered Jays fans still in attendance hardly had the energy to boo.
In short, an evening that could have been a celebration turned into a circus. As unsightly as Monday’s game was, there was something familiar about the whole thing.
Scherzer, the future Hall of Famer, started for Toronto, as he did in Game 7. When Dodgers slugger Teoscar Hernández clobbered a Scherzer cement-mixer for a first-inning homer, the hoots and hollers echoing from the visiting dugout throughout a disappointed stadium elicited memories of Will Smith’s crowd-quieting blast last year.
Ernie Clement, he of the record 30 hits in a single postseason, looped an RBI duck snort into center for Toronto’s first RBI. Andy Pages nearly bulldozed his left fielder on a running catch in the third. Shohei Ohtani sizzled one over the center-field wall in the sixth. After the final out, Los Angeles took the field to celebrate, albeit in a more subdued fashion. Louis Varland, who threw in 15 of 18 postseason games for Toronto, warmed up but did not pitch.
Still, for the Jays, Monday was a horrendous, emotionless, unbecoming showing, one that highlights the current disparity between Toronto and the team it came inches from toppling in October. Yes, there’s ample time for the reigning American League champions, currently 4-6, to get things sorted out. Last year’s club, for instance, was two games under .500 as late as May 27. It is far, far too early to panic.
However, it’s also difficult to envision Toronto’s past week having gone any worse. After a season-opening sweep of the A’s at home, the Jays dropped a series to a Colorado Rockies club coming off a historically bad 2025. Then they rolled into the South Side of Chicago and got swept by a rebuilding White Sox team. They followed all that with … whatever Monday was.
“It’s no secret — it’s not working right now,” Schneider said after the game. “[But] better now than in July or August. You know, we’re 10 games into the season, and if we sit here and dwell on it, that’s when s*** snowballs.”
The Jays spent the past winter spending money to establish themselves as an imposing force, an American League analog to the Dodgers. They gave hurler Dylan Cease a king’s ransom to lead the rotation, inked Japanese star Kazuma Okamota to a four-year deal and made a hard charge for Kyle Tucker, the top player on the market, only to lose him to L.A.
But early injuries have already sidetracked this operation to a staggering degree. Veteran arms Shane Bieber and José Berríos are hurt. So are free-agent addition Cody Ponce and 2025 breakout star Trey Yesavage. Catcher Alejandro Kirk, set to undergo surgery on a thumb fracture, could prove to be the biggest loss of all. The All-Star backstop, crucial to everything Toronto does on defense, likely won’t be back for at least a month.
Los Angeles, meanwhile, is firing on all cylinders. The Dodgers have the best run differential in MLB and are tied for the best record. Ohtani, after a slow start, has three round-trippers. Pages looks like an All-Star. Mookie Betts is on the shelf due to an oblique issue, but the Dodgers probably have the depth to weather that storm.
They certainly did Monday, a night that will be remembered as an unworthy epilogue to an epic piece of baseball history.