We were spoiled with World Series Game 7s last decade, though we probably didn’t full appreciate it at the time. Fall Classics went seven in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019. We haven’t gotten to see one since then. That is, until Saturday night in Toronto. The Dodgers won Game 6 Friday night, 3-1, with a big boost from a guy who had been lost all series.
It was the top of the third. The Dodgers had already scored one run, but would that really be enough against this feisty Blue Jays team? Earlier in the inning, Shohei Ohtani was intentionally walked. After Will Smith doubled, that left first base open. Jays starter Kevin Gausman was very obviously pitching around Freddie Freeman after he fouled off the first pitch, throwing four straight balls that weren’t close.
Mookie Betts came to the plate with the bases and two outs, the optimal situation for a former MVP, but he hadn’t looked like that of late. Not even close. He’d already been dropped from No. 2 in the lineup to No. 3 and now, in Game 6, batting cleanup, the lowest he’d hit since 2017.
“I’ve just been terrible,” Betts said after Game 5. “I wish it was from lack of effort. I don’t have any answers.”
His struggles actually went back to the NLCS. Through the first two rounds of the playoffs, Betts was raking. He hit .385/.429/.577 with three doubles and a triple in the Dodgers’ first six playoff games this year. But from Game 1 of the NLCS through Game 5 of the World Series, he was 5 for 38 (.132) with only one extra-base hit (.158 slugging percentage).
Then Friday happened. Betts came through with the biggest hit of the game, a two-RBI single that provided the Dodgers with all the breathing room they needed.
It was such a great sign, too, seeing him square that one up for a line drive. He’d been swinging through plenty of pitches, but also had far too much weak contact in the last two series, whether weak fly balls or grounders. This one was squared up and was the third-hardest ball he’d hit in the series at 98 mph.
Manager Dave Roberts said he never considered giving up on Betts, even as he struggled.
“He’s one of our guys,” Roberts said after Game 6. “I’m going to, as they say, ride or die with him. So I felt that putting him in the 4 slows things down, let’s the game come to him. But I’m not going to run from Mookie Betts. He’s just too good of a player, and so that was not a consideration.”
Betts has had plenty of ups and downs in 2025. It wasn’t just the playoffs. He went through extended slumps multiple times. Across a 44-game stretch from June 9 through Aug. 4, he hit .173/.234/.254. It was around that time that Betts got into what he called a better headspace.
“We’re always making adjustments and you’re always trying to find something that works, but I think the main thing that changed is my headspace,” Betts told CBS Sports in mid-September. “I’m not trying to salvage the season. I’m not trying to get my numbers back to where I wanted them to be. You know, because everyone sets goals before the year and whether you reach them or not is not the point. You set a goal as something that you can work towards. I think once I saw that it’s not attainable, it kind of switched my headspace into just winning.”
The good Mookie is still lurking in there, ready to bust out at any moment. After Aug. 4, he closed the season hitting .317/.376/.516 with 34 RBI and 32 runs in his last 47 games.
We saw that same guy have the biggest moment of Game 6 and the Dodgers are now one game away from being the first repeat champion since 2000. Does he have another big moment in hit for Game 7? Don’t be surprised.
