All for one: Intangibles have Blue Jays on brink of baseball immortality
As a rule, one should be a little suspicious of teams that attribute their success to intangible factors like unity and togetherness.
The act of hitting a 99-mph fastball, for example, doesn't really depend on whether the batter is great pals with his teammates sitting some distance away in the dugout. Sometimes things just happen.
But the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays are at least making me reconsider that cold logic.
After the Jays limped through the final 11 innings of a brutal, dispiriting Game 3 loss, there was every reason to believe that the team was finally spent.
George Springer, the leadoff spark plug, was hurt. Bo Bichette, gamely trying to play despite a knee injury, showed the limitations of a batter who literally couldn't sprint. John Schneider had pulled every lever available to him in a hair-on-fire managerial effort, seemingly desperate to not let the opportunity slip away, and it backfired.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, meanwhile, had all their megastars healthy. (So many guys on nine-figure contracts!) It was all starting to feel like too much for Toronto to overcome. But the Blue Jays, who will tell anyone willing to listen that they're a tight-knit group with an unusual level of trust in one another, picked themselves up and staggered back into the center of the ring.
They outscored L.A. 12-3 over the next two games, a pair of shockingly comfortable victories that have Toronto within one win of claiming its first World Series title since 1993. Somehow, it's the Dodgers who are wilting in the face of prosperity.
The hardest task is not yet done, and it would be foolish to expect the Dodgers to go quietly as the series returns to the Rogers Centre on Friday. But Toronto even being in this position at all, given that crushing loss in Game 3, sure feels like a testament to the intangible qualities the Jays insist they have.
If there was a moment that captured the team's all-for-one vibe, it might have come in the seventh inning of Game 5, when rookie pitcher Trey Yesavage was having a little wobble. Los Angeles had a runner on base and Tommy Edman at the plate. Schneider was looking mildly panicked in the dugout, trying to figure out when to lift Yesavage, who was in the middle of a historic 12-strikeout performance.
Yesavage promptly induced a ground ball that the Jays smoothly turned into a double play, ending the threat. Max Scherzer, the 41-year-old warhorse, standing on the top step of the dugout, let out a roar of such violence that it would have scattered seagulls and frightened small children. He pumped his fists and threw a handful of what looked like sunflower seeds into his mouth. Never before have seeds been chewed with such intensity. Scherzer was into it.
How much does mood matter? It is, of course, impossible to say. The Blue Jays are leading the World Series 3-2 because they're outplaying the Dodgers in every facet of the game. They have outscored them (29-18) and outhit them (53-37) by significant margins. They've played better defense as well. L.A. gifted Toronto a pair of runs in Game 5 alone, as Teoscar Hernández badly misplayed a Daulton Varsho hit, turning a single into a triple, and Addison Barger was later handed two free bases after wild pitches. Both runners would eventually score.
If not for the spectacular performance from Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 and Shohei Ohtani's four-hit, five-walk absurdity in Game 3, the World Series might already be over. (Those two have contracts that are worth more than a billion dollars combined, mind you. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.)
Shane Bieber outpitched Ohtani. Yesavage, the 22-year-old making his eighth career start, outpitched Blake Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner. The Toronto bullpen, beleaguered for most of the season, is holding up better than L.A.'s bullpen.
It's been a comprehensive Jays performance. So complete, in fact, that it has taken this long to mention Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and all he's done is post eight hits, six walks, and an OPS of 1.136 through five World Series games. His two-run homer off Ohtani in Game 4 might end up being the turning point of the series despite paling in majesty to the absolute rocket he hit off Snell in Game 5. The latter followed Davis Schneider's leadoff blast and gave the Jays a 2-0 lead after just three pitches.
It's been that kind of series, that kind of postseason, and that kind of year for the Blue Jays.
Is that because they enjoy each other's company and have a great old time in the clubhouse? Probably not, especially since most of these guys were on the team that finished last in the AL East in 2024.
But they seem to believe it, and that might be all that matters.
Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.