MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
The American League champion Toronto Blue Jays have rarely been considered a plucky team. After all, how can a team with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the middle of its lineup be plucky?
On top of that Toronto is the equivalent of the No. 6 metro area in Major League Baseball, meaning the World Series, which begins Friday night, will pit the No. 6 market against the No. 2 metro market in the defending world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, marking the fifth straight year that no team outside the top 10 markets is involved.
Of the past 10 World Series, three of the 20 teams, just 15%, have been outside the top 10, even though 53% percent of the MLB teams rank 11 or lower.
Still, there are those who insist there is parity in Major League Baseball.
The Dodgers, who swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS, will have had over a full week of rest when the first pitch is thrown on Friday, and, frankly, look unbeatable as their starting pitching has been unhittable and, oh yeah, because of that guy Shohei Ohtani, who fueled the L.A. sweep with perhaps the best game ever played by an MLB player. And that’s no Mike Greenberg hyperbole.
Of course, many other teams come to mind that entered the World Series looking unbeatable, with, for instance, the 1919 Chicago White Sox, the 1960 New York Yankees, the 1969 Baltimore Orioles, the 1981 Yankees, the 1988 and 1990 Oakland Athletics and any one of a handful of those Atlanta Braves teams walking away empty handed.
Although in ‘81, George Steinbrenner did walk away with a broken hand.
The Dodgers, in fact, opened as overwhelming favorites to win this Series despite not having home-field advantage. Their -215 odds imply a 68.25% chance of victory, with the Blue Jays’ +180 implying 35.71%.
Then again, the Baltimore Colts were the 18-point favorite to win the third Super Bowl and, yes, there’s another Baltimore reference.
The Blue Jays, while not plucky, really kind of are. They’re a wounded team, as evidenced by George Springer circling the bases with a noticed limp following his game-changing and eventual game-winning home run in Game 7. They have also made this entire postseason run without one of their best players and one of the best hitters in the American League, shortstop Bo Bichette, who has a sprained knee, and is questionable for the Series, though still under consideration depending on his knee.
Then, of course, there is our old friend Anthony Santander, the former Orioles star, who, with the Orioles’ blessing, signed a five-year, $92.5 million free-agent deal in January with the Blue Jays, fresh off a 44-homer campaign with the Orioles.
It was a sad, but expected, parting of the ways for Santander, who, after being selected in the Rule 5 draft, grew up on the Orioles big-league roster and made himself one of the top players in the league over eight seasons.
Other than general manager (or whatever he calls himself now) Mike Elias, who wanted to make room for Heston Kjerstad (which didn’t work out too well), nobody in Baltimore wanted to see Santander go, because he was one of the most well-liked and respected players on the team. But nor did anyone believe the Orioles would give him the long-term deal he would be asking for after hitting 44 home runs. Not at age 30 (he turned 31 Sunday), and the Orioles didn’t.
As it turns out, it’s difficult to imagine a more frustrating start to Santander’s Blue Jays career. He looked like the power threat the Blue Jays needed, but a slow start was quickly made worse by a shoulder injury that cost him more than three months of the season.
Santander rehabbed in time to return for the final week of September and the postseason, but was removed from the roster prior to Game 4 of the ALCS due to back tightness. Any injury removal also makes a player ineligible for the next series. Thus, the 2025 season that had been pretty cruel to Santander ended for him last week.
Santander finished with a .175 batting average and a .565 OPS in 54 regular-season games, with similar numbers in the postseason, none of which was envisioned by Santander or the Blue Jays when they hooked up in January.
Toronto reliever Seranthony Dominguez appears to be the only former Oriole playing in this Series, although Toronto starter Max Scherzer, who talked with the Orioles over the winter, will be there. The Orioles also talked with starter Justin Verlander, who signed with the Giants. Both were reportedly seeking a one-year $15 million deal, which the Orioles instead gave to Charlie Morton, which, of course, didn’t work out either.
Oh, and then there’s Toronto closer Jeff Hoffman, who actually agreed to a deal with the Orioles until the Orioles said he failed his physical (and this was even post-Dr. Angelos); but apparently it looked good to the Toronto doctors and now he’s pitching in the World Series.
But at least Baltimore fans will have the Ravens to watch this weekend.
Oh, wait. That isn’t working out too well either.
Well, with the NBA having started its season last night …
Oy! Thank goodness the Bullets left.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT