TORONTO — The plot to ruin baseball hit a snag on Friday night. For the past seven months, the story of the 2025 Major League Baseball season has been the exploits and excesses of the defending world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, a budding dynasty to their fans and world-bestriding menace to the rest of the industry, a paragon of spending and winning and demoralizing their foes.
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But the game has a way of sneering at coronations. If baseball was searching for a savior, if you believe the narratives about a game overflowing with talent yet overshadowed by the specter of labor strife, one emerged in Game 1 of the World Series, an 11-4 romp by the Toronto Blue Jays, a group enlivened by a raucous crowd at Rogers Centre and buoyed by a relentless offense that exposed the one major flaw within the Dodgers’ roster.
A nine-run sixth inning demonstrated the vulnerability of the Dodgers’ bullpen and the capacity of the Blue Jays to exploit it. Toronto taxed Dodgers ace Blake Snell and pilloried his replacements.
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