Blue Jays can draw on '93 championship for inspiration as World Series heads to LA

Despite Game 2 simply not going the way the Toronto Blue Jays wanted, most people around the team feel confident as the series heads to Los Angeles. Many of the postgame comments from the Blue Jays players and staff were along the lines of, "hey, we got beat by a really good pitcher we've never seen before and we split the first two games, so lets get after it,"

While that's some paraphrasing from several interviews, it's not shocking to hear that the team that had the most come back wins in baseball in 2025 seems rather unphased by losing one of the first two games to the defending World Series champions. And that's exactly the kind of attitude they need with Game 3 getting underway on Monday night in Los Angeles.

In fact it's an attitude that's very reminiscent of the one that was portrayed by the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays, who beat the Philadelphia Phillies in that years World Series six games.

Blue Jays can draw on '93 championship for inspiration as World Series heads to LA

In a very fitting nod to that '93 group, who the 2025 team will now try to emulate, Joe Carter threw out the first pitch of the game and then was made an honorary member of the Home Run Jacket Club as he returned to the dugout. A touching tribute for Touch 'em All Joe!

Unfortunately, Carter was the only one that got to wear that jacket in Game 2, as the Blue Jays could barely touch anything Yoshinobu Yamamoto was serving them, as he pitched a complete game, four-hit masterpiece in the Dodgers 5-1 win over the Blue Jays to even the series at 1-1. But as Carter knows, there's nothing wrong with splitting the first two games of a series, even if the opposing starting pitcher made your offense look really bad.

During the '93 World Series the Blue Jays jumped out to a 1-0 series lead, touching up Phillies staff ace Curt Schilling for seven runs (six earned) in 6.1 innings, including two home runs. Similarly, the 2025 Blue Jays knocked out the Dodgers Game 1 starter Blake Snell earlier than anticipated. Snell allowed five earned runs in five innings, while giving up one home run.

But in Game 2, it was the Phillies bouncing back behind a strong performance on the mound from veteran starter Terry Mulholland. Mulholland was nowhere near as dominant as Yamamoto was for the Dodgers, but the crafty lefty was given an early 5-0 lead to work with and he did more than enough to maintain that advantage over an intimidating Blue Jays lineup.

The Blue Jays boasted a lineup that featured just one left handed batter that night (John Olerud) and several switch hitters and yet the Blue Jays managed just three runs off Mulholland in 5.2 innings, while striking out four times. Mulholland scattered seven hits throughout his outing and managed to dance out of trouble a few times.

The end result was a 6-4 Philadelphia win, as the Phillies weren't intimidated by the steely stare of Dave Stewart. It was a win that became of the utmost importance as the Blue Jays would take the next two games on the road in Philadelphia.

It will by no means be easy to make that happen against a Dodgers team that was 52-29 at home during the regular season and has only lost twice this season, with one of those losses coming at the hands of the Blue Jays. However, that other loss was almost 20 days ago, when the Dodgers fell 8-2 at home to the Phillies in Game 3 of the NLDS.

Toronto can bring the series back north of the border by taking just one game in Hollywood.