2025 World Series Game 7: How Dodgers beat Blue Jays - ESPN

The defending champs are the defending champs again!

With their absolutely wild Game 7 defeat of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2025 World Series and became the first team to go back-to-back since the 2000 New York Yankees.

Here's how their historic victory went down, with our in-game analysis and postgame takeaways.

The moments that decided Game 7:

• The Blue Jays load the bases with two outs in the bottom of the second, but Shohei Ohtani strikes out Andres Gimenez swinging on a 99-mph fastball up and in. It was the first time all season Ohtani had faced a hitter with the bases loaded. But he had also thrown 42 pitches through two innings, clearly having trouble with his command.

• George Springer leads off the third against Ohtani with a base hit. After a sacrifice bunt and wild pitch, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts elects to intentionally walk Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Just like Jays manager John Schneider's intentional walk to Ohtani in Game 6 backfired in a big way, so does this one: Bo Bichette blasts a first-pitch slider for a monstrous 443-foot home run to center field.

• Toronto's clutch defense comes up big in the fourth. With runners at first and third and one out, Teoscar Hernandez hits a blistering line drive to center with an expected batting average of .660, but Daulton Varsho makes a spectacular diving catch. A run scores, but if he dives and doesn't make the play, it's at least a triple for Hernandez — meaning three runs score instead of one and the game is tied. Guerrero then ends the inning when he makes a diving catch of Tommy Edman's line drive over first base.

• The tension is building and it's only the fourth inning. Justin Wrobleski barely knicks Gimenez's elbow guard, which