
LOS ANGELES — In a star-studded World Series, attended by royalty and played by baseball royalty, with a pair of rosters that combine to cost $876 million, in which the faces of two or three nations compete nightly for camera time, it was a young man who basically lives out of his Toyota Tundra who sent the Dodgers’ season to the brink.
The Blue Jays’ Trey Yesavage baffled the Los Angeles lineup in a 6–1 victory in Game 5 of the World Series to send his team back to Toronto one win from glory. He produced seven sparkling, 12-strikeout innings; allowed one run; and broke the hearts of the 52,175 in attendance who by the end were all but silent despite the exhortations of the preposterously loud speaker system. As he trotted from the bullpen to the mound to begin the game, he thought about how he had opened his season pitching in front of 327 people against the Jupiter Hammerheads. He hoped to send this crowd home upset.