As it gets later into October, baseball fans got to experience one of the craziest weeks of the 2025 playoffs. From game-winning home runs to domination on the mound, the ride from the League Championship Series to the World Series has fans rekindling their love for the sport.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays were the winning teams in their respective leagues, making an anticipated World Series matchup that will begin later this week.

National League Championship Series: Dodgers vs. Brewers

In the NLCS (National League Championship Series), the Los Angeles Dodgers faced the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that had dominated in the National League with regular-season victories. What had been expected to be a long, difficult series instead turned into Dodgers domination, as Los Angeles swept the Brewers 4-0 to return to the World Series for a second year in a row.

The Dodgers’ bullpen was nearly impossible to beat. In the course of the 4 game sweep, the Dodgers’ starting pitchers allowed just two earned runs and had a combined total of 35 strikeouts. Japanese ace pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched arguably the best game of his career in Game 2 of the series. He delivered a complete game shutout, a rare thing to happen in modern-day baseball postseasons.

The true main event of this series, which will go down in baseball history, was in game 4, when Shohei Ohtani had the performance of a lifetime. Ohtani, who is a baseball legend already, at the plate and on the mound, homered three times and also threw six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts. His two-way display of power hitting and mound domination sealed the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory and completed the series.

This was the first time in Major League history that a player had three home runs and struck out ten batters in a single postseason game. Those results earned Ohtani the NLCS MVP and served as a reminder of why he’s so widely considered a generational talent.

American League Championship Series: Blue Jays vs. Mariners

The National League Series ended in a quick sweep, but the ALCS (American League Championship Series) between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners offered the excitement that the fans crave. This was a series that went on for the full seven games, with the two teams battling until finally Toronto won an edge-of-your-seat game on October 20th.

Seattle came in hot, taking the first two games with their strength of good pitching and breakout hitting by the young sensation, Julio Rodríguez. The Mariners were on the cusp of making history, their first World Series appearance in the history of their franchise after being the only team that has never had an appearance in the World Series.

But the Blue Jays refused to give up. On the strength of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s home run affair and some outstanding pitching by the rookie Trey Yesavage, Toronto battled their way back into the series. Their game 6 6-2 victory, carried by Guerrero and Addison Barger’s home runs, won the do-or-die game 7, winning the series over the Mariners.

In this final game, George Springer provided the highlight of this game. With two on and two outs in the 7th inning, Springer hit a 3 run homer to left field, reversed the score, and silenced the eager Seattle fans. The Blue Jays bullpen shut it down from there, earning a 5-3 win and their first trip to the World Series since 1993.

The World Series: Blue Jays vs. Dodgers

The 2025 World Series begins Friday, October 24, in Los Angeles. Blue Jays and Dodgers fans prepare to collide and are in for a clash between the two best teams in baseball. Both teams enter this World Series with something to prove. The Dodgers look to lock themselves in as a baseball dynasty of the franchise, while the Blue Jays seek to end their over 3-decade-long drought of a World Series win. 

This year’s playoffs have reminded fans why October baseball is unlike anything else. Every inning, every pitch, and every swing carries weight and emotion and makes all the difference. As the lights brighten at Dodger Stadium and the world tunes in to watch, fans everywhere wait to see whose story will be written in the history of sports. With power at the plate, strong bullpens, and incredible defense, the champion to be is yet to be known.