The Toronto Blue Jays are heading to the World Series
The Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners entered Monday night with a simple mission: win one game, and you get to play in the World Series.
With Game 7 of the American League Championship Series taking place at the Rogers Centre, two teams that entered the MLB together as expansion franchises had a chance to make history for their respective franchises.
But it was the Jays who pulled it off, buoyed by a massive three-run home run from George Springer in the seventh inning. One swing of the bat turned a two-run deficit into a one-run lead. That’s how the game ended, with a 4-3 win.
The World Series begins Friday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
How the Blue Jays and Mariners scored their runs in Game 7
The game wasn’t exactly the most high-scoring affair, with neither team getting more than a single run in the first six innings.
Josh Naylor’s single scored Julio Rodriguez to give Seattle a 1-0 lead in the first inning. In the bottom half of the inning, Daulton Varsho singled on a ground ball up the middle to get the Blue Jays back on the board.
Rodriguez homered in the third inning to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead.
Toronto starter Shane Bieber didn’t have the greatest outing, going 3.2 innings while giving up seven hits. But he avoided leaving the game in a disastrous state for reliever Louis Varland, who got Toronto out of the inning down just 2-1.
But after getting out of his first jam, Varland allowed a fifth-inning homer to likely American League MVP Cal Raleigh — a playoff nemesis of the Blue Jays — that gave the Mariners a 3-1 lead.
Toronto starters Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt both made relief appearances, keeping the score close.
Springer cemented himself as a Blue Jays playoff legend in the seventh inning, launching a three-run bomb to give Toronto a 4-3 lead they would not give up.
George Springer: BIG TIME PLAYER #SpringerDinger pic.twitter.com/pnkTKB7OOA
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) October 21, 2025
Jeff Hoffman was tasked with closing out the game in the ninth, and he didn’t disappoint, striking out all three batters he faced, including Julio Rodriguez, to send the Jays to the World Series.
How did the rest of the series go?
The seven-game series couldn’t have been much tighter, despite each game entering Monday night being decided by at least two runs. Seattle took the first two games of the series at the Rogers Centre before Toronto stormed back with two games of their own on the road to even things up. Toronto took a 2-1 lead into the eighth inning of Game 5, but a massive rally from the Mariners pushed the Jays to the brink with a 6-2 win.
Toronto won a 6-2 game of their own on Sunday night to force Monday’s winner-take-all Game 7.
With this massive win on Monday night, the Blue Jays have punched their ticket to the World Series for the first time since 1993.