America’s Pastime has reached its championship round, with the 2025 World Series beginning on Friday. The Toronto Blue Jays will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers, with Toronto searching for its first championship since 1993, while the Dodgers are looking to become the first team to repeat as World Series champions since the New York Yankees won three straight (1998–2000). Here is everything you need to know about the Fall Classic.
World Series Trends
Los Angeles is coming off a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS, while Toronto is coming off a seven-game ALCS victory over the Seattle Mariners. This is the fifth World Series, ever, in which one team is coming off an LCS sweep and the other enters off an LCS seven-game series. In each of the previous four instances, the team that won the seven-game LCS went on to win the World Series. Two of those were World Series sweeps, while the other pair were decided in five games.Matchup History
This will be the first postseason meeting between the teams, but they did meet three times in the 2025 MLB season. The Dodgers won two of those three games in an August series in Los Angeles. All-time, the Dodgers are 19–11 versus the Jays, with a winning record both at home (9–6) and on the road (10–5).Dodgers Notes
Eight times a winner of the Fall Classic, a ninth World Series championship would tie the Red Sox and Athletics franchises for the third-most in MLB history. Los Angeles is also seeking to become the first National League repeat champ since The Big Red Machine of the Cincinnati Reds won back-to-back in 1975–1976.Even with three MVPs in their batting order with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, it’s the mound which is the biggest reason why the Dodgers are back in the World Series. Counting both the regular and postseason, Los Angeles’ pitchers lead all of baseball in strikeouts per game and rank second in batting average against. After dealing with injuries to starters all year, Los Angeles finally got healthy at the right time and enter the 2025 World Series with having allowed 1 ER or fewer in five straight games, which is tied for the longest streak in MLB postseason history.
