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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Gabriel Baumgaertner at Rogers Centre in Toronto

The Blue Jays flipped the World Series script on baseball’s biggest spenders

Addison Barger of the Blue Jays rounds the bases after hitting a grand slam against the Dodgers during the sixth inning of Friday’s Game 1 of the World Series.
Addison Barger of the Blue Jays rounds the bases after hitting a grand slam against the Dodgers during the sixth inning of Friday’s Game 1 of the World Series. Photograph: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Before the first pitch of the 2025 World Series on Friday night, it had been 32 years and one day since the greatest day in Toronto Blue Jays history and the last time that the franchise hosted a World Series game.

On 23 October 1993, outfielder Joe Carter hit the second ever walk-off home run to clinch a World Series championship on a pitch thrown to Philadelphia Phillies catcher Darren Daulton. On 24 October 2025, the first Blue Jays home run hit in a World Series game since Carter’s was by outfielder Daulton Varsho, whose father, Gary, named his son after his former Phillies teammate … Darren Daulton. Two innings later, outfielder Addison Barger hit the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history, the keynote of a nine-run sixth inning, which was the highest-scoring World Series inning since 1968.

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