TORONTO — They are the $500-million man and the injured pending-free-agent shortstop awaiting his payday. They are prized free-agent signings, a 41-year-old future Hall of Famer and a 22-year-old wunderkind who flew up five levels to shine in the playoffs. They are trade acquisitions, minor-league free agents, draft picks, an international signing serendipitously discovered while scouting a different player and a waiver claim. Together they turned the Toronto Blue Jays around after an 88-loss 2024 season to win the American League East, beat the New York Yankees in the ALDS and push a riveting ALCS against the Seattle Mariners to seven games.
And then, just when it looked like they’d enjoyed the last of their comebacks in a season full of them, George Springer, still hobbled by the fastball off his right kneecap in Game 5, conjured up yet another moment of October magic, sending an Eduard Bazardo sinker 381 feet to left field for a three-run homer as a crowd of 44,770 made Rogers Centre shake.
The seventh-inning drive — the latest entrant into the franchise’s pantheon of greatest swings alongside those of Joe Carter, Ed Sprague, Roberto Alomar, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion — sent the Blue Jays to a nervy 4-3 win that secured their first trip to the World Series since the second of back-to-back championships in 1993.
Game 1 against the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, featuring Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, old friend Teoscar Hernandez and so many others, is Friday in Toronto (8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+). And Springer, signed in January 2021 to a $150-million, six-year contract to help create a new set of enduring moments for the club, did just that to make it happen.
“I love this team so much,” Springer, American League champion hat on backwards, tarp off, drenched in champagne and beer, said amid the celebratory post-game mayhem. “I had a headache from screaming. I remember how loud the stadium was. I’ve watched the Bautista moment over and over again. It felt like it was that loud. I wasn’t there for that. Just an incredible moment.”
Incredible only begins to describe it, as the Blue Jays rallied from deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 in the best-of-seven series and then from 3-1 down through 6½ innings to slay their various organizational demons, while sending the Mariners, who were eight outs away from their first ever World Series, to yet another playoff trauma.
Authors of 49 comeback wins during the regular season plus two more in the playoffs heading into Monday’s Game 7, only the second in franchise history, the Blue Jays as they so often have had the bottom of the lineup get things started on an Addison Barger walk, an Isiah Kiner-Falefa single and an Andres Gimenez sacrifice before Springer came up.
With the base open, the Mariners opted to pitch to Springer, who had continued to grind even though he really looked like someone trying to hit on a right knee that had been struck by a 95.6 m.p.h. fastball only three days earlier. He took a sinker in from Bazardo for Ball 1 before the right-hander doubled up on the pitch, had it run back over the heart of the plate and watched Springer send it to Mariners agony, and Blue Jays ecstasy.
“That’s the coolest moment of my career,” said Kiner-Falefa. “I’ve watched him do it in the post-season multiple times on TV, but to be on base when he did that, incredible. I’ve never heard a stadium erupt like that. George showed up for the team when we needed him most. The reason he’s in Toronto is to carry us to the World Series. He did that.”
Said Nathan Lukes, who was watching from the on-deck circle: “That’s the best thing I’ve seen in person on a baseball field. I was ready for (the at-bat). He deserved it. Everything that he’s gone through over these past two years — it was always him. This entire year, it was always him. He put us in the World Series.”
Said Daulton Varsho, whose RBI single in the first cashed in a Springer leadoff walk to tie the game 1-1: “That’s what he does. It’s ridiculously hard. He got a pitch he could drive and he didn’t miss it.”
Said Bo Bichette, who is making progress from his right knee sprain and vowed to be ready for the World Series: “I had no doubt in my mind. His ability to slow it down, things can speed up on you when the crowd gets like that. I wasn’t surprised at all and I had no doubt.”
In the Blue Jays dugout, manager John Schneider followed a season-long superstition by sitting beside hitting coach David Popkins when the team was in need of runs. They were thinking through what they would do if the Mariners walked Springer and brought in lefty Gabe Speier to face Lukes.
Instead, they watched Springer send them to their latest and greatest comeback this year yet.
“Pop said it’s really good that we’ve had a lot of practice at this, this is the moment we’ve been working on all season,” said Schneider. “Never count us out. I’ve said to you guys it’s almost unbelievable at times. But right now, it’s pretty (expletive) believable.”
Said Popkins: “Every single one of those comebacks builds confidence in being behind. It’s easy to be ahead a lot and cruise. But to feel that pressing desire to score and the urgency is hard. Luckily, we had a lot of reps throughout the whole year.”
Also with a lot of reps, not only this year but throughout his career, is Springer. Some Blue Jays saw a poetic justice in the moment finding him, after Mariners fans cheered when he was hit in Game 5 and booed as he limped to first base before coming out.
“As soon as they didn’t walk him, to me they were (expletive). Karma always collects,” said Popkins. “They were cheering when he was hurt. This game remembers everything. I knew it was his time.”
The home run was Springer’s fourth of the 2025 post-season and the 23rd of his career in the playoffs, tying Kyle Schwarber for third-most ever, behind only Manny Ramirez’s 29 and Jose Altuve’s 27.
This one became instant lore, too, destined to be a staple of broadcast highlight packs and social media algorithms. Springer has done it so often and with such ease that it belies how difficult succeeding in such pressure-cooker moments actually is.
“For a normal person, it’s extremely hard,” said Popkins. “Extremely hard because you have to control the physiological effects on your body, on your mind, your heartbeat, when you have all this noise. They’re hard. They’re stressful. But he knows how to zoom all that stuff out and lock in. He’s the best in the world at it.
“A lot of it is innate. A lot of it comes from experience. That’s all him,” he continued. “He’s very blessed to be able to handle those moments. He was built for this game, built for those moments, built to play at the highest of levels.”
Added ace Kevin Gausman, who pitched a scoreless seventh during an all-hands-on-deck day: “That’s what he’s been. The big moment, he just raises his game. To see him come through with the knee, he doesn’t feel great right now, in the moment, was huge.”
Also huge was the way the Blue Jays locked down the lead Springer’s swing provided.
Chris Bassitt ripped through Randy Arozarena, Eugenio Suarez and J.P. Crawford in a brilliant and necessary lockdown eighth. Jeff Hoffman, fresh off two innings and 35 pitches to close out Sunday’s 6-2 win, then struck out Leo Rivas, pinch-hitter Dominic Canzone and Julio Rodriguez, whose solo shot in the third off Shane Bieber had given Seattle a 2-1 lead, in a powerhouse ninth, getting mobbed on the mound as the dome went berserk.
The victory, like so many others during this most remarkable of Blue Jays seasons, was a product of the collective. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., a force throughout the seven games batting 10-for-26 with three doubles, three home runs, three RBIs and four walks, was a deserving pick as ALCS MVP. But none of the Blue Jays’ success this season could have happened without Springer, who at 36 rebounded from a dismal .220/.303/.371 season last year to bat .309/.399/.560 with 32 homers and 84 RBIs in one of the best seasons of his career.
And when all was on the verge of coming to an end, he made sure his team was one of the final two standing.
“This is just the cherry on top and hopefully there’s a bigger cherry on top in the World Series but there are a lot of people that wrote George Springer off,” said Bassitt. “And for him to work as hard as he’s worked, to have the season he’s had and then to have a moment in the playoffs that’s historic, I could not be more proud or happy for George. He handled himself like an absolute pro and for him to have that moment was really special.”
And now another World Series, the third for Springer and the third for the Blue Jays, a group that time and again has become a greater whole than the sum of its parts, awaits.
