Blake Snell, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ de facto ace starter, was on the mound for the first game of the World Series while the Blue Jays were turning to Trey Yesavage to kick things off at the Rogers Centre.

The pre-game predictions from pundits across national media outlets had the Dodgers solidifying their uncontested playoff run by winning the first game of the World Series. The Blue Jays were written off long before Friday night. But if there is a cardinal rule in baseball, it’s that pre-written scripts should be thrown out the door immediately.

Putting 22-year-old rookie Trey Yesavage in as a starting pitcher for the first game of the World Series was met with some backlash, as he laboured through an extremely disciplined Dodgers’ lineup. An offence that contained three MVPs (Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) was a tall task for a young pitcher. This wasn’t Yesavage’s sharpest outing, but the rookie kept the Dodgers’ bats at bay for most of the game.

The moment Los Angeles put two runs on the board heading into the bottom of the third, this was very much a game that was leaning in the Dodgers’ favour. Yesavage’s pitch counts only went up, and the Blue Jays fans collectively sat on the edge. In one of the strangest miracles, the Blue Jays got out unscathed, other than the two earned runs from the Pennsylvania native to exit the fourth inning.

To throw support behind Yesavage, the Blue Jays tried nearly every possible option. They loaded the bases to come out empty and ran the bases well until the over-ambitious strategy from Ernie Clement backfired early.

In a tense and close game, Alejandro Kirk’s single in the bottom of the fourth inning was a breath of relief and fresh air. Daulton Varsho was up to bat right after, and despite the left-on-left matchup, he wasn’t afraid of Snell. Sure enough, his confident swing sent the ball straight to the centre field. That one swing overcame what felt like a million-run deficit to tie the game and brought the crowd right back into it.

The question now was if the Blue Jays could crack Snell for the final time in this game and break an inning open, and the Blue Jays’ lineup responded rather quickly.

After Bo Bichette walked and Kirk singled to open up the bottom of the sixth inning, Daulton Varsho got hit by a pitch after working a full count to load the bases. Clement was looking for redemption after his baserunning miscue and singled against new reliever Emmet Sheehan to score a run and give the Jays a 3-2 lead. Nathan Lukes would replace Myles Straw in the batter’s box, and he would walk in another run. Andrés Giménez singled, George Springer hit an unfortunate force out at home, but the Blue Jays still loaded the bases with only one out.

With Sheehan on the mound, manager John Schneider turned to left-handed bat Addison Barger to play the matchup. This forced the Dodgers to bring in another reliever, Anthony Banda. Lefty-on-lefty match-ups historically favoured the opposing team when it came to Barger, and this was a good move on the Dodgers’ part, at least on paper.

In the fourth pitch Barger saw from Banda, he swung through hard and connected on a hanging slider, sending the offering 413 feet over the centre field wall. It was an unforgettable grand slam. No one had ever hit a pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history, but that was until Barger stepped into the plate on Friday night. All of a sudden, the Blue Jays were now up 9-2.

Toronto may have scored seven runs out of nowhere, but the team wasn’t quite done with the bottom of the sixth. With just one out, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. singled, and the rest was up to Alejandro Kirk, who naturally lobbed a home run against Banda to turn the score into 11-2.

For a second, Los Angeles made their best efforts to pull off a comeback, starting with Ohtani’s two-run home run off Braydon Fisher. That swing cut off the Blue Jays’ lead by seven runs, but that narrative didn’t faze the Blue Jays one bit as they closed out the game without giving up any other runs.

The offence may have been the biggest story for the Blue Jays, but behind every successful offence is solid pitching that understands how to silence opposing lineups’ bats. Had relievers like Mason Fluhatry, Dominguez, Braydon Fisher, Chris Bassitt, and Eric Lauer struggled to find their control, Toronto might have easily let the game slip away against a very experienced team.

There’s no other way to describe what the Blue Jays have accomplished in this game. Everyone knew how to set the table. The Blue Jays only struck out four times in this game and only swung and missed 15 times in 85 swings. They grinded and grinded and grinded until they slowly wore down the Dodgers. It’s plain and simple: the Blue Jays wrote their own script through their persistence and resilience.

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