TORONTO — Nothing beats Game 7 of the World Series. It is sheer, unfiltered entropy, this jewel of a game gone gonzo, an out-by-out mess of nibbled nails and frazzled hair and stomachs set on perpetual loop-de-loop. If baseball is the ultimate thinking man’s game, then Game 7 is the final of its 800-level course, the definitive test of strategy and self-determination and ability to go spelunking in the deepest part of yourself and emerge with the best version. It is sports distilled to perfection.
Whether Game 7 of the 121st World Series, which will take place Saturday at 8 p.m. ET at Rogers Centre and feature the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers, turns an excellent series into an all-timer is not the point. It is the mere possibilities that so penetratingly tantalize. For all of the givens of baseball — the mound is 60 feet, 6 inches away, and the plate is 17 inches wide, and the ball is 5¼ ounces — Game 7 throws the remaining normalcy to the wolves.
There is no such thing as a pitching role; there are merely out-getting cogs whose collective output must add up to 27. There is no spot in the lineup more important than another; heroes can emerge from the No. 9 hole or bench just as easily as leadoff or cleanup. Baseball is unique in this regard, the prospect of the game being lost at any point forcing both managers to operate as they never would otherwise, with urgency bordering on folly. Game 7 is a march to glory or to doom, the most acute binary imaginable.
Other sports’ Game 7s are great, of course, but none flips the game on its head quite like baseball. In the NBA, the decision-making doesn’t change: get the ball to the best players and let them cook. In the NHL, the scheming does not differ demonstrably from the previous six games. The best lines might stay out an extra 15 seconds for their shifts, but it’s essentially the same sport with a little twist.
“Even the Super Bowl, there’s a lot of things that happen, but you’re essentially running the same playbook in one game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Baseball’s different.”
Roberts knows. He managed Game 7 of the 2017 World Series against the Houston Astros. Eleven pitches in, the Dodgers trailed 2-0. By the middle of the second inning, the Astros had ambushed Los Angeles for another three runs. The game wasn’t over, but the degree of difficulty for the Dodgers had increased exponentially. They lost that night. The pain still sears beyond Houston’s cheating that season. It was there — history, at their literal fingertips — and then it wasn’t.
This time around, opportunity beckons. The Dodgers plan to start Shohei Ohtani, the greatest talent to ever play the game, on three days’ rest for the first time in his career. How his arm responds is this Game 7’s greatest unknown. Regardless, Roberts learned that night in 2017 that he must meet the game where it’s at, to make uncomfortable choices with unflappable resolve. Maybe it’s a pitching change, and maybe it’s a pinch runner, and maybe it’s sticking with those that brought the Dodgers to the verge of their second consecutive World Series title and third in six years. He doesn’t know. He can’t until the game unfolds.
“There’s certain guys I trust,” Roberts said. “You’ve got to be proactive in Game 7, but you can’t be overly aggressive in certain spots. That’s the beauty of Game 7. It’s gonna be so much fun, dude.”
Roberts’ counterpart is giddy at the prospect, too. A dozen days ago, John Schneider piloted the Blue Jays through Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against Seattle. The peril of do-or-die baseball manifested itself explicitly that night. Instead of treating the game with the rightful exigency, Mariners manager Dan Wilson stuck to his standard script, leaving his best available pitcher, closer Andrés Muñoz, in the bullpen and turning to Eduard Bazardo to hold a 3-1 advantage in the seventh inning with two runners on and George Springer at the plate. One swing later, the Blue Jays led 4-3, and six outs later they were soaking one another in bubbly. The Mariners were resigned to a forever of what-ifs.
Now the Blue Jays find themselves in another must-win situation, only with eight days of energy-sucking World Series baseball behind them. Toronto blitzed the Dodgers with a nine-run inning in a Game 1 win. Los Angeles countered with a Yoshinobu Yamamoto master class in Game 2. The madness of the Dodgers’ 18-inning Game 3 win will live forever. Ohtani couldn’t replicate his legendary Game 3 performance in Game 4, as Toronto evened the series. Rookie Trey Yesavage carried the Blue Jays with a no-walk, 12-strikeout Game 5. Yamamoto went god mode again in Game 6, aided by a fortuitous lodging of an Addison Barger double into the outfield fence that kept a run from scoring and then a catastrophic baserunning mistake by Barger to end the game on a double play.
Now comes Game 7, where anything can — and will — determine who spends the offseason getting fitted for rings and who is left to a winter of regret.
“It’s where legends are made, and it’s where second-guessing can happen,” Schneider said. “I’m going to try to do the former, not the latter. Just let the players put themselves in good spots and go do it. It’s crazy that nine months ago we started this and it comes down to one game, but we wouldn’t have it any other way, and I really think that we’ve had enough guys that are in this situation to where they’ll be able to navigate.
“You don’t want to leave any stone unturned. You don’t want to not fire any available bullets. But I really think going through it against Seattle, you want to try to stay normal and not just get too trigger-happy one way or another. Someone will have to make big pitches, and someone will have to make big swings. That’s just what it comes down to. Numbers objectively, people subjectively, you make the best decision and ultimately the players decide.”
Which players get to make those decisions is the fun of it. How long of a leash does Ohtani get? And when he leaves, who replaces him? Is it Blake Snell, whose entry could prompt Schneider to pinch hit for left-handed hitters in his lineup? Or Tyler Glasnow, who recorded the first save of his professional career in Game 6 and is ready to pitch again in Game 7? Or Roki Sasaki, the starter-turned-closer ready to pitch any inning, first through ninth?
Toronto will counter with Max Scherzer, the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer, who subsists on know-how as much as stuff. He no longer possesses the arsenal to compete with any of the Dodgers’ arms, but he brings experience in this form, having started Game 7 in 2019. Scherzer went five innings and allowed 11 baserunners but just two runs. He exited down 2-0, only for his Washington Nationals teammates to smack a pair of seventh-inning home runs that gave them a 3-2 lead they would not cede.
This version of Scherzer will be policed by the baserunner, and Schneider won’t be afraid to turn to his other starters, be it Yesavage, Shane Bieber or even Kevin Gausman, who threw 93 pitches in Game 6.
“Trey’s available. Shane’s available,” Schneider said. “I mean, if we go 20 innings, Kev will be available. We’ll worry about next year in the offseason.”
Schneider sipped a Left Field Greenwood IPA out of a paper cup and planned to knock back a couple more as Friday turned to Saturday and he went home with his wife, Jessy, and his sons, Gunner and Grayson. He would play some Xbox with the boys before going to bed, rising and heading back to Rogers Centre at 12:30 p.m. sharp like always.
As much as Game 7 can fray nerves, Schneider wants to approach it as if it’s any other day — a noble, if unrealistic, goal. Because this isn’t normal. Forty times baseball’s championship has been decided in a Game 7, and for the handful of duds, more often it gilds everlasting moments. Luis Gonzalez walking off Mariano Rivera, and Edgar Renteria breaking Cleveland’s heart, and Bill Mazeroski hitting the only championship-clinching home run in a winner-take-all game. The Cubs breaking a 108-year drought and the 1924 Nationals needing 12 innings to beat the Giants. Jack Morris’ 10-inning gem and Madison Bumgarner going five shutout innings on two days’ rest.
“It’s chaos,” Roberts said.
Beautiful, glorious, unbeatable chaos.
Game 7 is here. Cherish it. Sports gets no better.