Toronto Blue Jays outfielder George Springer singles during Game 7 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Toronto last November.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Marvin Torreno from Mississauga and his wife, Heather, were perched along the rail in the outfield at Rogers Centre this week as the Blue Jays took on the Colorado Rockies.
They are both Toronto fans and lament the club’s loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2025 World Series.
“We were watching at home and jumping around and yelling,” Marvin recalled.
In Game 6, when Addison Barger lined a ball to left-centre field with none out and a runner on base, Marvin figured a ninth-inning comeback was forthcoming and with it the team’s first world championship since 1993.
Instead the ball got wedged beneath padding at the bottom of the wall. Umpires declared it a dead ball and Myles Straw, who had already crossed home plate, was made to return to third. Barger was ruled to have a ground-rule double but the Blue Jays still seemed to be in good shape.
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Two runners in scoring position, three outs to give. After that, however, the rally fizzled.
“I thought we were going to win there,” Torreno said.
The Blue Jays lost 3-1 and then again in Game 7 in an 11-inning heartbreaker.
Individually, Torreno is a fan of Los Angeles first baseman Freddie Freeman and didn’t develop an instant dislike for the Dodgers.
Heather? She has not gotten over it yet.
“I am still holding a grudge,” she said.
On Monday the Dodgers return to Rogers Centre for the first time since they claimed their second straight World Series late in the evening of Nov. 1.
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The Blue Jays overtook the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East Division on July 3 and held them at bay through the final day of the regular season. They beat the Yankees and Seattle Mariners in the playoffs before they met the Dodgers for all of baseball’s marbles.
The clubs split the first two games at Rogers Centre, Toronto won two of three in Los Angeles, and needed to win just once more back in Toronto to win the best-of-seven series.
It never happened.
Rylie Cabanlig and three of his friends from Peterborough, Ont., sat at a table within the WestJet Flight Deck at Rogers Centre. Each had eaten three of the 90,000 loonie dogs that fans devoured on Tuesday night.
“The best part of the season for me was when the Blue Jays went neck to neck with the Yankees to win the division,” Cabanlig, a 18-year-old high-school student dressed in a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. shirt, said. “The worst part was when they choked.”
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That’s being a little hard on Toronto, though Bo Bichette staked the team to a 3-0 lead with a three-run home run in the third inning of Game 7 off Shohei Ohtani. It lost 5-4; Alejandro Kirk hit into a double-play with runners on first and third to end the game.
World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Ohtani are both expected to pitch in the rematch series. Toronto will counter with Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease.
Yamamoto was credited with three of the Dodgers’ four World Series victories.
“Don’t like him,” Heather Torreno said.
Other than 41-year-old Scherzer, the Blue Jays have not publicly said much about the rematch.
“You never get over it,” Scherzer told Sportsnet ahead of his first start of the season on Tuesday against Colorado. “You make all the sacrifices in the world and work so hard to get that one opportunity, and come so close, I don’t see how I’m ever going to get over that one.”
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John Schneider, the Toronto manager, played it down.
“It’s not a three-game rematch of the World Series,” he said. “Fans will have fun but it’s just three games against a good opponent that we want to win.”
Gausman, however, said players have been talking about it.
“In our mind, though it’s not the World Series,” Gausman said. “That was last year. It’s just another series for us. The fans will be excited and there will be lots of hoopla, so that will be fun.”
Ernie Clement said players have begun to get tired talking about it.
“It’s hard not to think about it because we keep getting asked,” the second baseman said. “It was such a great year for us that people want to talk about it. In our mind, though, these are just three games against a damn good opponent and that’s it.”
Said outfielder Davis Schneider: “It was a great World Series, but these will be like any other three games. As a player, I respect the Dodgers. They do things the right way.”
Kazuma Okamoto watched the World Series at home in Japan. He had no idea at the time that he would sign with Blue Jays and become their third baseman.
He looks forward to reconnecting with fellow Japanese major-leaguers Ohtani and pitcher Yamamoto.
“I’m very excited,” he said.