World Series: Dodgers Even Series with Blue Jays

Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Will Smith of the Dodgers celebrating their team's win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of the 2025 World Series

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

October 25, 2025

World Series, Game 2: Dodgers 5, Blue Jays 1

One way to avoid using pitchers from a struggling relief unit is to have the starting pitcher go the distance. Yoshinobu Yamamoto did exactly that, tossing the first World Series complete game in a decade to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5–1 win over the host Toronto Blue Jays Saturday night. His batterymate, Will Smith, went 2-for-4 with a home run, three RBI, and a run scored to lead the Dodgers offensively. Max Muncy added a 1-for-3 effort with a walk, a homer, an RBI, and a run scored.

Yamamoto allowed one run on four hits, walking none and striking out eight. “Outstanding, uber-competitive, special,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Yamamoto’s performance in the postgame press conference. “He was locked in tonight. It was one of those things he said before the series. Losing is not an option, and he had that look tonight.” Blue Jays manager John Schneider added, “Second complete game in a row in the postseason, that’s pretty impressive, with a layoff in between,” referencing Yamamoto’s Game Two performance in the NLCS. “I think he made it hard for us to make him work. He was in the zone. (Split-fingered fastball) was in and out of the zone. It was a really good performance by him.”

Dodgers – Blue Jays Game Summary

The Dodgers took a 1–0 lead out of the gate with a two-out rally in the top of the first. Their run came after Freddie Freeman doubled to the corner and scored on a Will Smith single. The Blue Jays tied the game on a sacrifice fly by Alejandro Kirk in the bottom of the third.

After a long string of consecutive outs by both starters, Smith came through again in the seventh. His second-deck solo homer near the left-field line with one out in the seventh snapped the tie and gave the Dodgers a 2–1 lead. Two batters later, an opposite-field homer by Max Muncy made the score 3–1 and gave starter Kevin Gausman an “Exit, Stage Right.”

Two more Dodger runs came in the top of the eighth. One came on a bases-loaded wild pitch by Blue Jays fireman Jeff Hoffman. The other came on a bases-loaded fielder’s choice force play grounded into by Smith, who beat the relay to first to avoid a double play that would have retired the side.

Meanwhile, Yamamoto worked his brilliance, not even allowing a baserunner after a hard one-out single off the left-field wall by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. It gave the Blue Jays no chance to rally, giving the Dodgers the Series-tying 5–1 win.

What Went Right for the Blue Jays

Starting Pitching

Overshadowed by Yamamoto’s brilliance is the Quality Start by Gausman, who allowed three runs on four hits, walking none and striking out six across 6 2/3 innings.

Manufactured a Run

The Blue Jays scored in the third despite their lone hit in the inning being a single. George Springer got hit by a pitch, advanced to third on the Guerrero single, and scored on Kirk’s sacrifice fly.

What Went Wrong for the Blue Jays

Missed Opportunity in First

The Blue Jays had a runner on second as well as runners on the corners with nobody out in the bottom of the first but came up empty-handed. A swinging strikeout, an infield lineout, and a called strikeout followed.

The Eighth Inning

Louis Varland and Jeff Hoffman combined to, in relief, allow two runs in the eighth inning. It came after Varland allowed two hits and a walk before Hoffman uncorked a run-scoring wild pitch and, after he walked Freeman intentionally, the Blue Jays couldn’t turn a double play on Smith’s ground ball to short. This changed a manageable 3–1 deficit into a much more daunting 5–1 hole.

What Went Right for the Dodgers

Starting Pitching

This one was an obvious one. For Yamamoto to generate eight strikeouts against a team that strikes out as infrequently as the Blue Jays is impressive. In a combined 175 regular-season and postseason games for the Blue Jays in 2025, they’ve had that many strikeouts or more in 58 (56 regular-season, two postseason) — right around a third of the time. Only the Kansas City Royals (52) did it fewer times, and the next-lowest after the Blue Jays in the 2025 regular season was the San Diego Padres (70). (Side note: The Los Angeles Angels did it the most often — 128 times.)

Did Not Have to Use Any Relievers

When a team’s relief corps is struggling but their starting pitchers are thriving, the manager is handcuffed. Handcuffed, that is, unless the starting pitchers can go deep into games or, even better, can pitch the entire game. With the Dodgers relief unit being a disaster waiting to happen, Yamamoto’s complete game became that much more important. “I love feeling that the starter is the best option to go six, seven, eight, and what Yamamoto is doing, nine innings,” Roberts said. “And you’ve got to be efficient. You’ve got to have the weapons to be able to take down a lineup three times, four times, whatever it is. And you’ve got to want to do it.”

What Went Wrong for the Dodgers

Botched Infield Popup

It went down as a hit, but Ernie Clement’s popup between the mound and the first-base line, closer to the plate than to first base, should have been caught. And this one is on Yamamoto for not taking it. While true that pitchers almost never catch pop flies while in the game, there are times where they should. Given where this ball was hit, Yamamoto had a far easier play on it than Freeman, who had to sprint in hard from over a hundred feet away while craning his neck to see high in the air. Freeman will say he should have had it, but he shouldn’t have had to take it.

Quick Hits

Ernie Clement hit a second-inning single to extend his postseason hitting streak to eight games. He is now tied with Hall of Famer Paul Molitor for the fourth-longest in Blue Jays postseason history within a single postseason. Only Pat Borders (12 in 1992), Devon White (10 in 1993), and Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar (also 10 in 1993) are ahead of Clement and Molitor.

Gausman and Yamamoto combined to retire 21 consecutive batters from the third-inning Alejandro Kirk sacrifice fly through the Freddie Freeman fly-out in the seventh. This is the most in a World Series game since Don Larsen’s perfect game, Game Five of the 1956 Series. In that game, the first 23 batters of the contest went down before Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle hit a two-out homer off Sal Maglie in the bottom of the fourth.

This game lasted two hours and 36 minutes. It is the shortest World Series game since Game One of the 2017 World Series between the Dodgers and the Houston Astros lasted 2:28.

Looking Ahead

Yamamoto earned the win as Gausman took the loss.

The Dodgers and Blue Jays now shift to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for the next three games. They will have Sunday off to accommodate the travel before resuming the Series with Game Three Monday night. It will be another battle of righties, Max Scherzer for the Blue Jays and Tyler Glasnow for the Dodgers. First pitch will be around 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific. Fox will handle the broadcast in the United States with Sportsnet taking the English-language broadcast in Canada and TVA Sports taking the French-language Canadian broadcast.