As the 2025 World Series returns to Toronto for Game 6 on Friday, there’s no baseball tonight, and that’s a good thing because it will take us another day to top what Trey Yesavage accomplished on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old Blue Jays pitcher managed to rack up 12 (yes, twelve) strikeouts on just over 100 pitches during his Game 5 start at Dodger Stadium, breaking the Major League Baseball (MLB) record for most strikeouts by a rookie in a postseason game.
In fact, no one had surpassed that record since 1949, when Don Newcombe struck out 11. At the time, Newcombe was playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The team would eventually move to Los Angeles in 1957.
Even more than that, Yesavage is in a league of his own as the only pitcher in MLB history to record 12 strikeouts in a World Series game without issuing a single walk.
You heard that, zero walks. The only damage during his outing came from a solo home run in the bottom of the third inning.
Here’s another impressive statistic: Yesavage lasted seven innings on Wednesday, which is quite feat in the postseason.
Especially in this series, where the starters haven’t lasted long, save for the impressive all-around performance by Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 on Saturday.
Yesavage has logged 11 innings since the start of the World Series, after working three innings in Game 1.
All of this would be impressive on its own. But it’s even more surprising when you consider how new Yesavage is. Just six weeks ago he was still in the minor leagues.
He began the year playing low-A baseball for the Dunedin Blue Jays in Florida, and worked his way through several other minor league teams before being called up to pitch for Toronto in mid-September.
He made just three career starts with the Blue Jays before making his historic playoff debut in Game 2 against the New York Yankees during the American League Division Series.
The cheat code
It’s all very exciting for one of the people who saw Yesavage launch at a young age.
When I was a teenager playing for the Keystone State Bombers in Pennsylvania, the team had a nickname for Yesavage: The Cheat Code.
“Because every time you put Trey in a game, you won,” said Shaun Vernesoni, former Yesavage coach and co-owner of that team. “It’s great to see that translate to the highest level here.”
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage has always been a unique pitcher, says Shaun Vernesoni, co-owner of the Keystone State Bombers and Yesavage’s former pitching coach. “He’s always been the same guy: he’s been dominant.”
It’s something Blue Jays manager John Schneider understood based on Yesavage’s performance in the minor leagues.
“The fact that we were willing to throw him into the fire because we had confidence in the work he had done… says a lot about how we feel about everyone in the organization, not just the players, but the staff,” Schneider said.
All of that seems to have paid off for the Blue Jays as they continue to play for their first World Series title since 1993, a great decade before Yesavage was born.
Striking out the MVPs
A couple more numbers from Game 5: Yesavage induced 23 swings and missed on 52 swings, the most of any pitcher in a World Series game since tracking began, according to MLB.com.
Additionally, according to MLB, those 23 strikeouts Yesavage managed to generate represent the most of any pitcher in the World Series since Statcast began tracking in 2008.
Yesavage’s promotion came at a key time for the Blue Jays as they fight to beat the Dodgers, the defending champions who have one of the most impressive lineups in the league.
But the starting pitcher hasn’t been overly impressed by the Hall of Fame-bound stars on Los Angeles’ multimillion-dollar roster.
On Wednesday, Yesavage struck out every player in the Dodgers’ lineup at least once, including Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman. Ohtani is the winner of three MVP titles, while Freeman and Betts have one each.
“33 per cent of the hitters Trey faces are MVP winners, so I have to be honest with you, I get a little nervous when I see it,” Vernesoni told CBC News Network on Thursday.
Yesavage’s former coach recalled how the player reached 90 miles per hour for the first time at age 15, “which was quite a feat.”
Even at that age, Vernesoni says the young player had a release point and arm angle that made it difficult to hit.
Also impressive was his poise on the mound during Game 5 and his superior command of his pitches, including the split-finger fastball and slider, Schneider says.
“It’s historic, when you talk about that period and his numbers, getting ahead of a lot of hitters, tons of swings and misses,” the Blue Jays manager said. “The slider and splitter were electric.”
Toronto Blue Jays rookie pitcher Trey Yesavage had one of the most remarkable starts in franchise history when he dominated the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday. Yesavage, who is only 22 years old, began the season deep in the minor leagues.
Yesavage’s performance on Wednesday certainly chilled the Dodgers at the plate, but it also helped the Blue Jays move on to the next challenge, and they’re already focused on it.
The team is now just one win away from a World Series title. So what’s in store for Game 6 in Toronto?
“I can’t wait to see what the Rogers Center will look, feel and sound like,” Schneider said.
