It’s here. The World Series — the 121st, if you’re counting — begins tonight, and it is a doozy.
You have the defending champion Dodgers, with past MVP Award winners Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Clayton Kershaw (in his last games ever) and, of course, Shohei Ohtani, who is fresh off what was just, oh, the greatest baseball game anyone’s ever played.
And you have the Blue Jays, a team with the best record in the American League (and home-field advantage in this Series) that had not reached the Fall Classic in 32 years — but it has felt like this was the year ever since star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed an extension with the team in April. This is the good stuff.
Throughout this postseason, I’ll be previewing the next day’s action, game by game. Here are three storylines for tonight’s World Series Game 1.
Which LCS MVP will put an immediate stamp on this Series?
It is rather convenient for our purposes here that each team’s biggest star, its franchise player, just won his respective LCS MVP Award. Ohtani had actually been struggling throughout the NLDS and the first half of the NLCS, but, it’s fair to say, when you hit three homers in a game and strike out 10 dudes on the mound, you can no longer be classified as “struggling.” He won’t be pitching in Game 1 — that won’t happen until the series is back in Los Angeles — but he will still be the first batter we see in this game and this Series. The guy has 12 leadoff homers this season, and it sure would be something if he hit another one in Game 1 (maybe even on the very first pitch).
But — and we hope this isn’t Shohei blasphemy to say this — Guerrero has been better this postseason. He launched three homers and posted a 1.330 OPS in the ALCS, and that number actually lowered his OPS for the postseason. On the whole this October, Vladdy is hitting .442 with six homers and a 1.440 OPS over 11 games. MLB.com’s Thomas Harrigan makes a compelling argument that Vlad Jr. is having one of the best postseasons ever. Here’s a great chart from that piece:
Highest OPS in single postseason, won World Series
Min. 60 PAs
1. Alex Rodriguez, 2009 Yankees: 1.308
2. David Ortiz, 2004 Red Sox: 1.278
3. David Freese, 2011 Cardinals: 1.258
4. David Ortiz, 2013 Red Sox: 1.206
5. David Ortiz, 2007 Red Sox: 1.204
Guerrero: 1.440 OPS over 51 PAs in 2025
That’s baseball royalty right there.
These teams have the biggest stars around. It’s our gift that we get to watch them on the grandest stage possible.
Can the Blue Jays’ bats get to Snell?
Snell is one of the best pitchers of the last two decades. This isn’t much of a question: He has won two Cy Young Awards (one of only 22 pitchers in MLB history to do that) and signed a huge contract last offseason based on how dominant he has been throughout his career. But he has never been better than he is right now. Snell has been unhittable this postseason, going 3-0 in his three playoff starts, throwing 21 innings, giving up just two runs (including none in his two most recent starts), giving up just six hits and striking out 28 batters.
Perhaps most impressive, in his last start, he didn’t walk a single batter, which is something you rarely saw from Snell even when he was winning those Cy Youngs. In the NLCS, the Brewers looked completely helpless against him, consistently muttering to themselves as they retreated back to the dugout over and over and over.
If Snell pitches in Game 1 like he has so far this postseason, the Rogers Centre crowd isn’t going to have much to cheer about. But if the Jays hit like they have so far this postseason, that won’t be an issue.
Will home-field advantage play a role?
To read or watch much of the commentary about this World Series, you would think the Dodgers have every possible advantage and the Blue Jays are just this team that’s happy to be there. I’m pretty sure that’s not true, and I’ve got some immediate proof: The Jays had the better record this season, and they’ve got the home-field advantage to show for it.
Game 1 isn’t at Dodger Stadium, with an early start that people are trying to beat traffic to show up on time to catch. It’s at Rogers Centre, with a Toronto crowd that has been waiting 32 years for this game and is going to be jumping out of its collective skin. Do you realize how loud it’s going to be inside that place at first pitch? (Just remember how loud it was at the peak of ALCS Game 7.) There are all sorts of people who haven’t watched a Blue Jays game this year who are going to be blown away by the noise those fans can make in that place: Your ears are going to be ringing all night.
It’s a huge advantage for the Jays, and it’s one, if they’re going to win this Series, they very much need to hang onto. There are three-plus decades of pent-up excitement that will be released in Ontario tonight. The Blue Jays best squeeze them for all they are worth.
