TORONTO (Reuters) -The Toronto Blue Jays left the World Series empty-handed but having set a “new standard,” Toronto manager John Schneider said on Sunday, after losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a Fall Classic that defied expectations and captivated fans.
Many experts had predicted a “David versus Goliath” series, with the Blue Jays playing in the Fall Classic for the first time since they won in 1993, against the star-studded defending champions Dodgers.
What fans got, instead, was an epic battle through seven games playing out against a dramatic geopolitical backdrop that pundits are already declaring among the greatest-ever World Series.
“We have set a new expectation and a new standard here and did it with a lot of hard work,” said Schneider at his post-game press conference in the wee Sunday morning hours after the Dodgers’ 5-4 Game 7 win.
“Going back to the beginning of the series when people were calling it David versus Goliath, it’s not even close.”
INTERNATIONAL APPEAL DRIVES RATINGS
The series’ international appeal, with Canada’s only team playing the Dodgers’ team headlined by Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, sent ratings soaring for Game 1, where Toronto sent a message with an 11-4 win.
The game averaged 32.6 million combined viewers in the U.S., Canada and Japan, the largest combined audience for an MLB game from those three countries since 2016.
After the Dodgers leveled it in Game 2, the two sides battled through 18 grueling innings in Game 3, tying the record for the longest-ever World Series game, with the Dodgers winning with first baseman Freddie Freeman’s dramatic walk-off home run.
“It’s one of the greatest World Series games of all time,” the Dodgers’ exhausted manager Dave Roberts said afterward.
More than 14.5 million viewers tuned in to U.S. broadcaster Fox for Game 5 as the series took on a frantic tone and with Saturday’s Game 7, the sport’s long-time veterans were ready to declare it an instant classic.
It was another extra-innings epic, with unlikely hero Miguel Rojas tying it in the ninth inning and Will Smith sending the decisive run over the wall in the 11th.
“There has never been a better Game 7 than we got in Toronto,” wrote longtime commentator Mike Lupica. “And there has never been a better World Series than this one.”
‘GUTTED’
The defeat had a familiar sting for Canada, whose Stanley Cup drought extends as far back as their World Series dry spell.
Connor McDavid, whose Edmonton Oilers lost to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2024 and in Game 6 earlier this year, told reporters he was “completely gutted” for the Blue Jays.
“Obviously we know what that feels like,” said McDavid. “They’ve given Canada a lot to cheer about and they should be very, very proud.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, writing by Amy Tennery in New York; editing by Diane Craft)
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