Multiple Dodgers Admit They Expected to Lose World Series Game 7 to Blue Jays

The Los Angeles Dodgers emerged victorious over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 3 of the 2026 World Series in an18-inning thriller to take a 2-1 series lead. After six hours of baseball, Freddie Freeman called game with his walk-off homer.

The Dodgers quickly lost momentum as the Blue Jays roared back with back-to-back victories in Games 4 and 5. That left LA in a poor spot heading back to the Rogers Centre for an elimination game.

Then, the Dodgers kept their season alive by forcing a Game 7 with a 3-1 victory over Toronto in Game 6. While the defending champions reached the finale, the Dodgers were down from the start following a three-run homer from Bo Bichette.

Things didn't look good for the Dodgers — and they knew it.

“I think everybody in the world thought that [we were gonna lose], so I’d be lying if I didn’t,” Mookie Betts said to the California Post. “I mean, obviously, you don’t wanna have those bad thoughts. But I mean, who doesn’t have that thought in that situation?”

World Series hero Miguel Rojas also felt the concern as the Dodgers faced an uphill battle after Bichette's blast.

“I can’t really lie, saying that I wasn’t worried,” Rojas said. “Being down 3–0 in a World Series game, where you know it’s all hands on deck from their bullpen … you’re kind of wondering, like, ‘Hey, is this gonna be it?’”

Little did he (and everyone else watching Game 7) know that he would hit the game-tying home run in the ninth inning as the Dodgers' No. 9 hitter.

But beyond Rojas' heroics, there were so many other instances where it seemed like the odds were stacked against the Dodgers. For one, their offense never found its rhythm throughout the Fall Classic.

The Dodgers lineup hit a combined .203 against the Blue Jays pitching staff in the World Series. As if that wasn't enough, the Dodgers also faced problems with their pitching staff toward the end of Game 7.

After exhausting the bullpen, manager Dave Roberts turned to starters Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to fend off Toronto's explosive lineup. Snell tossed 1.1 scoreless innings in relief for the Dodgers.

Then, Yamamoto — on zero days' rest — closed the door on the Blue Jays with 2.2 shutout innings in Game 7.

Freeman admitted the Dodgers could have lost the World Series finale at so many different points in the extra-inning thriller, but miraculously found a way to roll with the punches time and time again.

“There were so many different times we could’ve lost,” Freeman said. “And it was just like, ‘Wow, we got out of that one. We got out of this one.’ … I’m sure if we sat down, you’d probably count on multiple hands, ‘How did we get out of that?’”

On Monday, the back-to-back World Series champions returned to the place where they left it all on the field. The Blue Jays are hosting the Dodgers at the Rogers Centre in a three-game series in a World Series rematch just five months after the epic finale of the 2025 season.

The Dodgers picked up where they left off, dominating Toronto in Game 1 by a score of 14-2.