Source: Yahoo Sports
Rookie pitcher saves Blue Jays’ season. How is Trey Yesavage doing this?Gabe LacquesUSA TODAYShow CaptionHide CaptionHow Los Angeles Dodgers made it to third World Series in six yearsUSA TODAY Sports’ Gabe Lacques breaks down how the Dodgers dominated the Brewers en route to another World Series appearance.Sports PulseTrey Yesavage got the win in ALCS Game 6, his sixth career MLB start.The 22-year-old right-hander was a first-round pick in 2024.Yesavage draws rave reviews from veteran teammates Max Scherzer and Kevin Gausman.TORONTO — Julio Rodriguez took ball four, tossed his bat away, clapped twice and exhorted his teammates in theSeattle Marinersdugout. Sure, they were in a two-run hole in the third inning of Game 6 in thisAmerican League Championship Series, but Cal Raleigh, the likely AL MVP, was coming to the plate and the bases were loaded.The score was fixing to be flipped with one swing from a man who’s hit 64 home runs through the playoffs. Just one hanging splitter or mislocated fastball or cement-mixer slider from a 22-year-old rookie who was in Class AAA ball a month ago, and the Mariners would be on track for their first trip to the World Series.Yet theToronto Blue Jayswere thinking something entirely different: Trey Yesavage, with all of six major league starts behind him, is no ordinary newcomer.“When he has the ball,” Max Scherzer, the 41-year-old future Hall of Fame right-hander tells USA TODAY Sports, “we all believe in him.”And so Yesavage threw just one split-finger fastball to the MVP, and Raleigh scorched a 100-mph worm burner right to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., beginning a fundamentally gorgeous 3-6-1 double play that finished with Yesavage blindly finding the bag with his right foot.It ended the threat and began an almost absurd sequence of three double-play grounders in three innings, guiding the Blue Jays toward a 6-2 victory that squared this series 3-3 and set the stage for the most pulsating delight in the sport.Game 7, winner to the World Series, loser left with a winter of regrets.For now, that loser won’t be the Blue Jays, who overcame adesultory Game 5defeat to keep their season alive.Give some flowers to Guerrero and Addison Barger for their home runs and Barger’s three RBIs, and closer Jeff Hoffman for his two near-perfect innings of relief.But know this: The Blue Jays are a win away from their first World Series since 1993 because of a kid drafted 20th overall barely more than a year ago, who started the year in lowest Class A, climbed the ladder all the way to Toronto in September and has faced down October’s biggest demons to gain the trust of a veteran clubhouse and, in Game 6, the entirety of Canada’s baseball-watching population.But how?“He has this silent confidence,” says Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman. “He’s kind of jokingly said he’s pitched in a lot of big games before (turning pro), and it’s funny that he thinks those were super-big games. But he really looked back on those and how he went about these, jus…
Published: 2025-10-20T05:38:54
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