# 2025 World Series
The 2025 [World Series](https://www.edgepedia.org/world-series) was the championship series of [Major League Baseball](https://www.edgepedia.org/major-league-baseball)'s 2025 season, a best-of-seven contest in which the [Los Angeles Dodgers](https://www.edgepedia.org/los-angeles-dodgers) of the National League defeated the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League, 4 games to 3, to become repeat champions for the first time in a quarter century.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Result | Dodgers over Blue Jays, 4 games to 3; the Dodgers' Game 7 win came in 11 innings, 5-4[1](https://www.mlb.com/postseason/history/2025) |
| Home field | Toronto (94-68) hosted Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 over Los Angeles (93-69) by one regular-season win[2](https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/2025-mlb-playoffs-full-schedule-how-to-watch-format-bracket-rules/) |
| Longest game | Game 3 ran 18 innings and 6 hours, 39 minutes, with 609 pitches and a record 19 pitchers used, tied for the longest World Series game by innings[3](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46824017) |
| MVP | Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who won three games in the Series, the first pitcher to do so since Randy Johnson in 2001, and won Game 7 on zero days' rest[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) |
| Firsts | Addison Barger hit the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history; the Series also produced the first game-ending 7-4 double play in Series history[3](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46824017) |
| Viewership | Game 7 averaged 51.0 million viewers combined across the United States, Canada, and Japan, the most-watched MLB game in 34 years[5](https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/epic-world-series-game-7-delivers-27-3-million-viewers) |
| Context | Toronto's first Series appearance since 1993; the 32-year gap topped the previous record between pennant appearances[6](https://apnews.com/article/43453e53c8531918903bc483f3691b0a) |
## The matchup
The pairing was a first in Series history: the Dodgers and Blue Jays had never met in a World Series before.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) Toronto reached the Series for the first time since its 1993 title, beating Seattle 4-3 in the [American League Championship Series](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-league-championship-series) with a Game 7 win on October 20.[1](https://www.mlb.com/postseason/history/2025) • [6](https://apnews.com/article/43453e53c8531918903bc483f3691b0a) The Dodgers, the defending champions, swept the [Milwaukee Brewers](https://www.edgepedia.org/milwaukee-brewers) 4-0 in the [National League Championship Series](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-league-championship-series).[1](https://www.mlb.com/postseason/history/2025) With home-field advantage decided by one regular-season win in Toronto's favor (94-68 against 93-69), the Series opened at Rogers Centre on Friday night.[2](https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/2025-mlb-playoffs-full-schedule-how-to-watch-format-bracket-rules/) • [6](https://apnews.com/article/43453e53c8531918903bc483f3691b0a)
Los Angeles entered the postseason with baseball's largest payroll at $341.5 million and a projected luxury-tax bill of nearly $168 million, itself a record.[6](https://apnews.com/article/43453e53c8531918903bc483f3691b0a) A repeat title would make the Dodgers the first back-to-back champion in a quarter century.[6](https://apnews.com/article/43453e53c8531918903bc483f3691b0a)
## Games 1 and 2: Toronto's rout, Los Angeles' counter
Toronto stunned the favored Dodgers with an 11-4 win in Game 1 at Rogers Center.[7](https://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr2025ws.shtml) The game included [Addison Barger](https://www.edgepedia.org/addison-barger)'s pinch-hit grand slam off left-hander Anthony Banda, the first ever by a pinch-hitter in World Series history.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series)
Los Angeles answered in Game 2 behind [Yoshinobu Yamamoto](https://www.edgepedia.org/yoshinobu-yamamoto)'s complete game, a 5-1 Dodgers win. Yamamoto became the first pitcher in 24 years to throw consecutive complete games in the same postseason, matching [Curt Schilling](https://www.edgepedia.org/curt-schilling)'s feat with Arizona in 2001.[8](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/)
## Game 3: the 18-inning marathon
Game 3 became the signature contest of the Series. It began at 5:11 p.m. in Los Angeles and ended shortly before midnight, with [Freddie Freeman](https://www.edgepedia.org/freddie-freeman) homering leading off the bottom of the 18th inning off Brendon Little's full-count sinker, a 406-foot drive to straightaway center field for a 6-5 Dodgers win.[9](https://apnews.com/article/ec8b7b457a436ab899c322255bd4ef03) The game lasted 6 hours, 39 minutes, used 609 pitches and a record 19 pitchers (10 of them Dodgers, a record for one team in a World Series game), and tied the longest game by innings in postseason history.[3](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46824017) • [9](https://apnews.com/article/ec8b7b457a436ab899c322255bd4ef03)
[Shohei Ohtani](https://www.edgepedia.org/shohei-ohtani) set a single-game record by reaching base nine times in nine plate appearances, a postseason record by three, with two doubles, two home runs, five walks (four intentional), and the first four-extra-base-hit World Series game by any player since 1906.[8](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/) Freeman's homer was his second career World Series walk-off, making him the first player with two.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) Manager Dave Roberts called it a game that "could go down as one of the greatest games of all time."[9](https://apnews.com/article/ec8b7b457a436ab899c322255bd4ef03) The win put Los Angeles up 2-1 in the Series and left it positioned to clinch at home, something the franchise had not done since 1963.[9](https://apnews.com/article/ec8b7b457a436ab899c322255bd4ef03)
## Games 4 and 5: Toronto pushes back
Toronto won Game 4, 6-2, then took Game 5, 6-1, behind rookie [Trey Yesavage](https://www.edgepedia.org/trey-yesavage), who struck out 12 Dodgers without walking anyone in Game 5. The 12 strikeouts were a rookie record for a World Series game, breaking the 76-year-old mark of Don Newcombe, and Yesavage had never walked anyone in his hitless postseason debut earlier in the playoffs against the Yankees.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) • [8](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/) Yesavage, at 22, had been the youngest World Series Game 1 starter since 21-year-old Ralph Branca in 1947.[8](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/) The Blue Jays' hitters also set records in defeat: [Vladimir Guerrero Jr.](https://www.edgepedia.org/vladimir-guerrero-jr) and [Ernie Clement](https://www.edgepedia.org/ernie-clement) tied the record for most hits in one postseason at 29, and Clement and Addison Barger set a record with 24 hits by two teammates in a single World Series.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) Reliever Louis Varland pitched in 15 of Toronto's 18 postseason games, a record for a single postseason.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series)
## Games 6 and 7: the Dodgers close it out
Yamamoto threw six innings in Game 6, a 3-1 Dodgers win, then returned the next night for two and two-thirds innings of relief, the most of any Dodgers pitcher in Game 7, and was the winning pitcher in both games. His 2025 pitching workload, complete games and back-to-back appearances included, ran against the era's strict pitch counts and relief-specialist usage.[8](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/)
Game 7 went to extra innings tied, and [Will Smith](https://www.edgepedia.org/will-smith)'s 11th-inning home run decided it, 5-4, giving Los Angeles its second straight title.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) • [1](https://www.mlb.com/postseason/history/2025) Yamamoto, named Series MVP on zero days' rest, tied the record of three wins in one World Series and became the first to do so since Randy Johnson in 2001.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) • [1](https://www.mlb.com/postseason/history/2025) The Series also produced the first game-ending 7-4 double play in World Series history.[3](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46824017) Blue Jays hitters struck out a World Series-record 72 times.[10](https://www.si.com/mlb/eight-lessons-learned-from-dodgers-blue-jays-2025-world-series/)
## Viewership and reception
The Series drew record audiences on three continents. Fox's Game 7 coverage reached 27.33 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes, and streaming platforms, the highest-rated Series finale since 2017, and Major League Baseball reported a combined 51.0 million average viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan, the most for any MLB game since Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.[5](https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/epic-world-series-game-7-delivers-27-3-million-viewers) • [11](https://www.axios.com/2025/11/04/mlb-world-series-ratings-2025) In Canada, nearly 11 million people watched the English-language broadcast of Game 7, a record for any Sportsnet broadcast, with an average of 7.5 million across the seven games and 600,000 in French.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) In Japan, Game 6 drew 13.1 million viewers, an all-time record for the country, and Game 7 drew 12 million.[4](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series) The Series' average global audience of 34 million was the largest since 1992.[12](https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2025-11-05/dodgers-blue-jays-world-series-ratings-record)
Commentators placed the Series among the best ever played. The Atlantic wrote that the 2025 postseason "stands with any in baseball history,"[8](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/) ESPN called the Dodgers-Blue Jays Series "a series for the ages,"[3](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46824017) and Sam Miller concluded the 2025 World Series could not be ranked lower than fourth all-time.[13](https://pebblehunting.substack.com/p/stakes-story-and-spin)
## References
1. [2025 Postseason History, MLB.com](https://www.mlb.com/postseason/history/2025)
2. [2025 MLB Playoffs: Full postseason schedule, updated World Series odds, how to watch, rules, NBC Sports](https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/2025-mlb-playoffs-full-schedule-how-to-watch-format-bracket-rules/)
3. [2025 World Series: Dodgers-Blue Jays was a series for the ages, ESPN](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46824017)
4. [2025 World Series, BR Bullpen, Baseball-Reference.com](https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/2025_World_Series)
5. [World Series Game 7 Delivers 27.3 Million Viewers, TV Technology](https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/epic-world-series-game-7-delivers-27-3-million-viewers)
6. [Blue Jays in World Series for first time since before Ohtani was born, while Dodgers seek to repeat, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/43453e53c8531918903bc483f3691b0a)
7. [2025 World Series, Baseball Almanac](https://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr2025ws.shtml)
8. [The Best Postseason in Baseball History?, The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/11/world-series-dodgers-blue-jays/684796/)
9. [Freeman's homer in 18th inning lifts Dodgers over Blue Jays 6-5 in World Series classic, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/ec8b7b457a436ab899c322255bd4ef03)
10. [Eight Lessons Learned From an All-Time Great 2025 World Series, Sports Illustrated](https://www.si.com/mlb/eight-lessons-learned-from-dodgers-blue-jays-2025-world-series/)
11. [MLB's 2025 ratings resurgence, Axios](https://www.axios.com/2025/11/04/mlb-world-series-ratings-2025)
12. [The Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series had record-setting ratings, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2025-11-05/dodgers-blue-jays-world-series-ratings-record)
13. [Stakes, Story & Spin, Pebble Hunting (Sam Miller)](https://pebblehunting.substack.com/p/stakes-story-and-spin)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Sports, games, and recreation › Other team and ball sports › Baseball and related bat sports › Professional baseball in the Americas › MLB seasons and year-in-baseball chronology › World Series editions*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Last review: Oct 21, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license