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MLB 2025 World Series “You’ve got a guy going seven innings and punching out 12 in the World Series. I mean, that's incredible, " Max Scherzer said of Trey Yesavage's Game 5 outing. Patrick Smith / Getty Images LOS ANGELES — Where the heck did he come from? How could this be happening? Sports are awesome. Baseball is beautiful. Unlikely stories are the best part. But there are all those other stories, and then there is Trey Yesavage. Five months ago, he was pitching in the Low-A Florida State League, facing a bunch of kids right out of high school, college and San Pedro de Macoris. Wednesday night, he was striking out 12 Dodgers in the World Series. Advertisement That is wild. And that is weird. But before we get to all the reasons for that, let’s just say the important part out loud. This shouldn’t be a thing that is happening to a real 22-year-old person, in real life. But here we are. “It’s a crazy world, ” this Blue Jays phenom was saying Wednesday night, after spinning off arguably the greatest rookie pitching performance in World Series history, in the Blue Jays’ 6-1 Game 5 win. “Crazy world. Hollywood couldn’t have made it this good. ” Those scriptwriters in Hollywood are famous for their vivid imaginations. But who imagines this? Who imagines an October dominator practically dropping out of the sky to lead the Blue Jays to within one game of a place they have never been in Yesavage’s lifetime — that place where World Series champions hang out? “Absolutely incredible, ” said Yesavage’s 41-year-old teammate, Max Scherzer. “You’ve got a guy going seven innings and punching out 12 in the World Series. I mean, that’s incredible. ” But then this whole night was incredible. This was what it looked like at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday: • The first two Toronto hitters, Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. , pounding two solo home runs before Dodgers starter Blake Snell had thrown his fourth pitch. • A sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium spending the next three hours watching in what passes for semi-silent shock in a park with a PA system so thunderous, you could possibly hear it in Wyoming if you listened hard enough. • The Blue Jays then running up a 6-1 wipeout of the mighty Dodgers to take a three-games-to-two lead in this World Series, as everyone heads back to Toronto. So now that we have all that covered, it’s time for the World Series Weird and Wild column to fire off eight fun facts that will help explain just how cool, shocking and unforgettable the story of the Blue Jays’ 22-year-old starting pitcher has become. When we tell you this was the greatest rookie pitching exhibition in World Series history, we need to provide evidence. Advertisement So feel free to check out the box score from Game 1 of the 1949 World Series. That day, a rookie pitcher for the Dodgers, Don Newcombe, piled up 11 strikeouts against a Yankees lineup that included Joe Di Maggio and Yogi Berra. Newcombe set the World Series rookie strikeout record that day. And all you need to know about how impressive that was is that it held up for 76 years …. until the Blue Jays pointed Yesavage to the mound Wednesday. It took him 22 hitters to blow away Newcombe’s record. And along the way, he also broke the record for most strikeouts by a rookie over a single postseason, with 39 in four starts. “What a night, ” said Jays ace Kevin Gausman, who will start Game 6 on Friday. “What a postseason he’s had already. ” Yesavage didn’t reach the big leagues until Sept. 12, and he is already up to 39 postseason strikeouts. Jacob de Grom reached the big leagues in 2015, and he hasn’t struck out 39 hitters in October in his whole career. With all due respect to the Mariners, the Jays’ ALCS opponent, I think we can state that two Yesavage starts this October have already altered his life and career forever. Oct. 5 against the Yankees — 5 1/3 innings, 11 strikeouts, zero hits. Wednesday against the Dodgers — seven innings, 12 strikeouts, three hits (two of them infield singles by Teoscar Hernández, never before confused with Juan Pierre). This wasn’t against the Rockies. This wasn’t against the Pirates. This wasn’t against the Daytona Tortugas. This was against the Yankees and the Dodgers — in October. Try to comprehend the total domination from those two starts, against two lineups packed with seven former MVPs: 42 batters faced, 23 strikeouts, three hits allowed. Who does this? I posed that question to STATS Perform. How many pitchers in history have had a double-digit strikeout postseason game against both the Yankees and Dodgers at any point in their careers? Advertisement The stunning answer: Exactly one — Cliff Lee, who also did both in one postseason, for the 2009 Phillies, then added another 10-K game against the Yankees the following October for the 2010 Rangers. And that … is … it. Lee and Yesavage. Wow. “It’s amazing, ” said the Blue Jays’ backup catcher, Tyler Heineman. “His first start, in Game 2 (of the ALDS) against the Yankees, was about as electric as it gets. ” Heineman smiled as he recalled how the Yankees complained about the shadows that day. “You know, there were no shadows today, ” he said. “And it was just utter dominance. It was a privilege to watch. ” For a moment, we’re going to leave age out of this … and rookie status … and any Dodgers/Yankees factor. Let’s just try to digest the bottom-line facts here: We just watched a human swing-and-miss machine rack up two double-figure strikeout games in the same postseason. Would you like to hear about some of the pitchers who never did that? How about Nolan Ryan … and Roger Clemens … and Steve Carlton … and Pedro Martinez … and lots more. But check out who is on this list. PITCHERS WITH 2 POSTSEASON GAMES OF 10+K IN SAME YEAR

(Since 2000) 2025 — Trey Yesavage

2025 — Tarik Skubal

2019 — Gerrit Cole

2017 and ’19 — Stephen Strasburg

2013 — Max Scherzer

2012 and ’13 — Justin Verlander

2009 — Cliff Lee

2003 — Josh Beckett

2001 — Randy Johnson That’s a lot of aces, friends. But if you’ve paid any attention to the way Yesavage’s splitter and slider dart and dive, you know: He fits alongside all of them. “He strikes out the world, ” Heineman said, almost matter-of-factly. Every Trey Yesavage number is amazing. But this time of year is about so much more than a number on a stat sheet. And nothing matters more than this: At 22, this dude is changing everything. About his team. About this season. About stuff that will leave a mark on the lives and legacies of so many people. Advertisement As I watched him carve through the Dodgers’ star-studded lineup Wednesday, it reminded me of two other young starters who once carried their teams to heights no one expected — the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner and the Marlins’ Josh Beckett. Well, look who turned up on this list — of pitchers, 25 or younger, who have had even one double-digit strikeout game in the World Series (since the divisional era began in 1969): 2025 — Trey Yesavage

2014 — Madison Bumgarner

2003 — Josh Beckett

1997 — Livan Hernandez

1981 — Dave Righetti

1970 and ’71 — Jim Palmer The road map to glory in October is drawn by pitchers like this. They throw it. Nobody can hit it. And their season-altering impact is undeniable. So I asked Scherzer if it was fair to compare Yesavage to someone like Beckett. “You’re talking about a World Series MVP, ” Scherzer said. “And that might be the pinnacle. So I’m going to be careful. I’m going to watch my words in how I’m making that comparison. But we saw him go out tonight and make an absolutely dominant performance, striking out 12 guys, going right after them. It was amazing. ” The nine hitters in the Dodgers’ Game 5 lineup have contracts that will pay them more than $1. 5 billion. The starting pitcher for the Blue Jays struck out all nine of those guys Wednesday. Does that seem hard? We suggest you answer yes — since only two other pitchers who ever lived have done that in a World Series game. Here are those two, according to the Elias Sports Bureau: Bob Gibson (Game 1, 1968)

Randy Johnson (Game 2, 2001) Whoever they are! Let’s not stop name-dropping yet. This is too much fun. So how about this: Yesavage has had two starts in this postseason with at least 11 strikeouts and no more than one walk. (He walked zero Wednesday, but did issue one in that ALDS start against the Yankees. ) Ready for the list of pitchers who had more than one start in a single postseason with 11-plus strikeouts and one walk or none? See if you’ve heard of these guys. Advertisement Tom Seaver, 1973

Randy Johnson, 2001

Cliff Lee, 2010

Trey Yesavage, 2025 (Hat tip: Katie Sharp, Baseball Reference) We almost forgot to mention this. Yesavage actually only tied his career strikeout high Wednesday, of 12. He also had a 12-whiff day on May 13, versus Axiel Plaz’s Bradenton Marauders of the Florida State League. Announced attendance that day: 494. Announced attendance Wednesday at his other 12-strikeout game: 52, 175.             So pretty much the same thing, wouldn’t you say? “You know what? ” Heineman said. “If you look at his composure on the mound, I don’t know. Maybe it was exactly the same. ”  That wild tidbit reminds us of Yesavage’s unlikely journey to the World Series stage. How did he get here? Here’s how. He made seven starts in the Florida State League (Low A). … He made four starts in the Northwest League (High A). … He made seven starts and one relief appearance in the Eastern League (Double A). … And he made four starts, plus two relief appearances, in the International League (Triple A). So that led to yet another fascinating question for my friends at STATS: How many pitchers have ever started a game in Low A, High A, Double A, Triple A and the World Series in the same year? I couldn’t wait for the answer. To find it, STATS’ Sam Hovland ran a search of all starters in the wild-card era, which comprises the last 30 seasons. Now here come all the pitchers who started a game at each of those levels and the Series in the same season: Trey Yesavage. That’s all, folks! But really, this guy is already chiseling out a claim to fame all his own. He is fearless. He is unhittable. And he is making his own kind of history. Our friends from STATS had one more classic note from Game 5: In postseason history, they said, there have been only two postseason games in which … • A pitcher struck out 10 or more. Advertisement • That pitcher struck out at least five hitters in a row. • That pitcher struck out at least half the batters he faced. • And that pitcher allowed fewer than five men to reach base via a hit, walk or hit-by-pitch. Those two games were pitched by … the same man. And it’s Trey Yesavage, who did it against the Yankees and Dodgers, no less, over the last three weeks or so. “He’s a different animal, ” Gausman said. “He’s just something special. And we’ve seen it over and over again. ” Now let’s run through some more World Series weirdness and wildness … The best part of baseball, as we like to say around here, is it makes no sense.  And that was as true as ever Wednesday, in the first inning at Dodger Stadium. How did this game start? Not in a way anyone (meaning us) would have logically predicted. BACK. TO. BACK. Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. start Game 5 with a bang, and Toronto leads 2-0 early ? ? @MLB pic. twitter. com/nbrdj1Cq Sn — The Athletic (@The Athletic) October 30, 2025 That’s back-to-back homers by Schneider and Guerrero. And who saw that coming? If you’re claiming you did, you’re ignoring all of this: • In three seasons in the big leagues, Schneider had never hit a leadoff homer. • The Blue Jays hadn’t started any game with back-to-back bombs by the first two hitters in more than four years — since Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette turned this trick against the Phillies on May 16, 2021. That was so long ago, the Jays were still playing post-pandemic regular-season games at their spring training park in Florida back then. • Blake Snell, who served these up Wednesday, had never given up homers to the first two batters of any regular-season game he’d ever pitched. In fact, he gave up no back-to-backers in any inning this season. • The last time a team started a game like this at Dodger Stadium was almost 30 years ago — when Thomas Howard and Hal Morris went back to back for the Reds on Sept. 9, 1996, off Ramon (Brother of Pedro) Martinez. Advertisement • And biggest of all is this: This is the 121st World Series, but no World Series game in history had ever started with back-to-back leadoff homers. But all those trends went up in smoke … when back-to-backers busted out in shell-shocked Chavez Ravine. Who knew! Did we just witness the worst relief outing in World Series history Wednesday? There’s a case for it. The perpetrator: Dodgers reliever Edgardo Henriquez. His day went like this: He threw 15 pitches … and exactly four of them were strikes! He walked the first man he faced (Guerrero) — and ball four was a run-scoring wild pitch that missed its spot by miles, from here to Santa Monica. He ran a 3-and-1 count on the next hitter he faced (Bichette) — then gave up an RBI single. He then walked Alejandro Kirk — on four pitches. And that, mercifully, was that. So Henriquez turned a 3-1 game into a 5-1 game in 15 pitches, got nobody out and threw possibly the wildest pitch of the postseason. So we’re not buying his no runs allowed line in the box scores, because he allowed two of Snell’s runs to score. The question is: Has there ever been a worse relief outing in World Series history? And after dutiful deliberation, I’m going to rule that the answer is … yes! Only one pitcher in Series history has ever had a wilder outing than 15 pitches, four strikes … but it’s close: I think our winner is still Ryan Speier, for the Rockies in Game 1 of the 2007 World Series — 16 pitches, four strikes and an outing consisting of three bases-loaded walks in a row. So how do you spell relief? Not like those two guys! Finally, amid all this Dodgers gloom, here’s the good news: Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitches Friday. And in case you missed it, he’s pretty good. The headlines will remind you he is coming off two straight complete games — a feat last accomplished in the postseason by Curt Schilling, 24 years ago. But that’s not even the Weird and Wild part. Advertisement The Weird and Wild part is, from the fifth inning on in those two Yamamoto complete games, the poor hitters he’s been facing have gone a combined 0-for-30, with one walk. And that felt practically impossible. So how could I not do my darndest to find out how incredibly rare that is? I ran it past the great Katie Sharp of Baseball Reference. And here’s what she found: No Johnny Vander Meer!  My first guess was that we’d learn that Yamamoto was the first pitcher to fire up an 0-for-30, in back-to-back complete games, since Vander Meer was twirling his legendary consecutive no-hitters in 1938. Nope! Thanks to a pickoff, he never made it past 0-for-29. No postseason for you!  Yamamoto was the first pitcher in postseason history to pull off this rare feat, because of course he was. Why stop at 30!  Believe it or not, due to various box-score oddities, three pitchers since 1912 actually wound up running an 0-for-31 over the final five innings. Those three: Orel Hershiser in 1984, Mike Norris in 1982 and Ferdie Schupp in 1916. Then there was good old Van Lingle Mungo, who created so much traffic with five walks that he actually needed an 0-for-32 to make it through the last five innings of his two games. All that Dazz!  But in the annals of those Baseball Reference play-by-play files back to 1912, Katie found one pitcher who truly topped Yamamoto — by holding the opposing hitters to an 0-for-30, with no walks.  That was Dazzy Vance, who pulled this off as recently as 100 years ago,  in September 1925. Then, a century later, along came Yamamoto, to join this club in the midst of the postseason pressure cooker. And that’s a special category all its own. This is one of those cool feats that only the Weird and Wild column would get all worked up over. But we’re glad we did — because you know what finding these hidden gems reminds us? Of everything we love about … Baseball! Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Jayson Stark is the 2019 winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for which he was honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jayson has covered baseball for more than 30 years. He spent 17 of those years at ESPN and ESPN. com, and, since 2018, has chronicled baseball at The Athletic and MLB Network. He is the author of three books on baseball, has won an Emmy for his work on "Baseball Tonight, " has been inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame and is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year award. In 2017, Topps issued an actual Jayson Stark baseball card. Follow Jayson on Twitter @jaysonst