TORONTO – More than three decades after Joe Carter touched them all, George Springer gave the Toronto Blue Jays another home run for the ages, vaulting them into the World Series for the first time since they won their second consecutive championship in 1993.

And then there were two. The 2025 World Series matchup is set, bringing together the defending champion Dodgers and a Blue Jays club making its first Fall Classic appearance since 1993. It’s a showdown few could have seen coming at the start of the season.

The Toronto Blue Jays are back in the World Series for the first time since 1993 and the Los Angeles Dodgers will try to to become the first repeat winner in a quarter century.

Canada’s only major league team will have an entire country behind it during the World Series and has a chance of claiming the championship of America’s pastime at a time when U.S.-Canada relations remain near historic lows.

In the regular season, no team's batters had a lower strikeout rate than the Blue Jays, and no team's pitchers struck out more batters than the Dodgers. Sometimes, the World Series narratives write themselves: Can the Blue Jays make enough contact against a pitching staff specifically designed to eliminate contact?