The Toronto Blue Jays return to the World Series—just how inevitable are they? 

The World Series starts Friday, the first on Canadian soil in 32 years, and pits a superteam aiming to cement an era against a club gloriously rediscovering its ceiling at the perfect time. The fan within me wrestles with what I believe more right now: that the Los Angeles Dodgers are invincible, or that the Toronto Blue Jays are inevitable. The Dodgers are Major League Baseball champions, and the first in 17 years to earn the right to defend in the World Series—the 2000 New York Yankees were the last to successfully do so, indicative of how baseball is about catching lightning in a bottle but losing it in the blink of an eye. When Canadians last attended a World Series game en masse, the Jays were hammering home a second straight title. It was not much apparent their season would extend Monday until Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson incoherently summoned a set-up reliever rather than a shut-down closer to deal with two men on base and one man out in the seventh inning of the seventh game. At bat was George Springer, the Houston Astros MVP of the 2017 World Series against the Dodgers—that series with the big asterisk in many minds, of pounding garbage cans and sending electric jolts to batters to signal the next pitch. He is now a reformed, resurgent, redeemed 36-year-old who looked last year like he was a spent force, booed on the road in a career twilight. Two pitches in on Monday night, one ball was into the stands as a souvenir, Rogers Centre was the epicentre of the sports world frenzy, and a 3-1 Jays deficit that looked unshakeable was now a 4-3 Jays lead. The home run into the first row of left field doesn’t rival Joe Carter’s three-run, walk-off homer to win the Series in 1993, but it will stand as a legendary moment in the 49-year franchise history. Rather than icing on the cake of a champion, Springer’s dinger was more about taking a great recipe out of the oven for our delicious consumption. There were still two testy innings to sweat through, though, and the Jays turned to their most enigmatic arms—Chris Bassitt, who has about nine different pitches as a starter and was baffling in relief in the eighth, then the closer Jeff Hoffman, who toggles between superhuman and superhorrid. The Mariners, who joined the major leagues the same year as the Jays, were up in the series 2-0, then 3-2, then up in the decisive game with nine outs to go—to go to the Series for the first time. They have the second-best batter, home run king Cal Raleigh, with an unfortunate nickname as The Big Dumper, and he was on deck as Hoffman made Seattle star Julio Rodriguez fish for a pitch for the final strike. It was epic drama, sweet because it was in front of a generation of frustrated fans, not on the road. And it wasn’t as if it were destined to be. The Jays had a mediocre start, a meteoric second half, but a meh last month. They lost to injury their most consistent offensive player, Bo Bichette, but banished the Yankees and Mariners with a style of baseball that emphasizes team above all else. Toronto fans have reason to despise and envy the Dodgers. They are the team that signed world-best Shohei Ohtani instead of the Jays (even if we thought he was flying to town to join forces); who signed pitching phenom Rōki Sasaki instead of the Jays (even if the Jays took Myles Straw’s contract off Cleveland’s hands in exchange for international money to bid for him); and who landed slugger Teoscar Hernandez after the Jays traded him to Seattle, then gave him enough love to sign him a second time—when you could tell Toronto wished to have him back. Now, before we stake out the parade route—pronounced root, not rowt up here—let’s be realistic that, even with a slightly better season record, the Jays are serious underdogs. They won one of three games against LA this year, 5-4, but only because of a bullpen meltdown; they were outscored 9-1 and 5-1 before that. Much depends Friday and onward on two sons of hall of famers: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the franchise face, and Bichette, as he returns to the lineup. Vladdy’s bat was cold at season’s end, but he has been inspired by the experience of playing for all the marbles. The two sons will need their best, because the Dodgers’ offensive arsenal is incessant: Ohtani, the world’s best player, Hernandez, Mookie Betts, Freddy Freeman, and more. If the Dodgers are Rodeo Drive, the Jays are constructed more like Kensington Market—lots of littler elements, smart shopping, and a day-by-day discovery of a new thing that fits and works. In their 50-plus comeback wins this season (a baseball best), there seemed to be about 250 ways they did it. Pitching is what typically decides October ball, and here there are some great story lines. Both teams have an ace (Blake Snell for LA, Kevin Gausman for Toronto), but the decisive factors in the first two series for the Jays were two pitchers a generation apart: 41-year-old Max Scherzer, who bullied the manager into keeping him on the mound in game four, and the extraordinary 22-year-old Trey Yesavage and his intimidating overarm delivery. It helps, too, that Toronto acquired a rental star pitcher at the trade deadline, Shane Bieber. So, despite the nearly $100-million payroll gap ($350 million versus $255 million), the edge in banners in the outfield, the larger stadium, and the lengthier history, this has the potential to not be the shellacking most of the expert class suggest. The Jays are exactly the kind of under-the-radar team Canada likes when it has the opportunity to tweak the American nose. In 1993, the Jays and the Montreal Canadiens were champions. Since then, all American champs. Who would have thought there would ever be a better drought-ending chance of returning the World Series than the Stanley Cup to a Canadian team?