Blue Jays Spring forward, deep into the fall

George Springer's 3-run blast continues his comeback season. Now, he revisits the Dodgers.

George Springer hits the series-winning HR

Baseball thought it had seen the last of George Springer. The Dodgers did, too. They haven’t forgotten a single sling and arrow of the 2017 World Series, which they still believe was stolen from them by Houston Astros bearing spyware and garbage cans.

But Springer, whose five home runs in that Series won him the MVP, came into this season 36 years old, his career graying. In 2024 he had hit .220 with 54 RBIs for Toronto. Trading him wasn’t an option, since nobody particularly wanted to pick up the final two years of his contract, which was paying him $24 million per.

Descending players don’t usually pull the ripcord and get back onto the plane. And Springer wasn’t the only suspect. The Blue Jays were pondering whether to give Vladimir Guerrero oligarch money, and whether Bo Bichette could be healthy and functional again, and whether a portly catcher named Alejandro Kirk, with his five home runs, was the answer. Daulton Varsho was a .215 hitter. John Schneider was an unknown quantity as a manager. The Jays won 74 games in 2024, were 13th in American League home runs and 11th in runs scored.

But on Monday night Springer energized ten provinces, three territories and a hysterical Rogers Centre (a/k/a Skydome) when he launched a 3-run, 7th-inning homer. The Blue Jays, down 3-1 at the time, rode that blast and their own surging relief pitching to a 4-3 win in Game 7 of the A.L. Championship Series. They will begin the World Series at home against the Dodgers, and on Monday night Springer will return to Dodger Stadium, where the Astros did not have their surveillance equipment or their waste receptacles but won Game 7 in 2017 anyway, with Springer homering. He will be booed, and maybe bench coach Don Mattingly, the last Dodger manager before Dave Roberts, will be too. Warning: Some Seattle fans actually cheered in Game 5 when Bryan Woo fired a fastball into Springer’s right knee, sending him into horizontal agony. That was not forgotten when Springer, who had offered shaky, imbalanced swings for most of the next two games, came up in the seventh inning Monday, right on cue.

Springer had a terrific, if clandestine, season. His .959 OPS was third in the majors, behind only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani and ahead of Cal Raleigh. The year before, it was .674. He hit .309, which was third in the league behind Judge and Bichette, and stroked 32 home runs with 84 RBI. And he hadn’t forgotten what October felt like. Springer now has 23 postseason home runs and an OPS of .883.

He does more designated-hitting these days than outfielding, but he is credited with raising the clubhouse temperature, with reminding the Blue Jays that the umpire says Play Ball, not Work Ball, as Willie Stargell once said. Toronto isn’t an easy gig. Travel is a hassle, few of the players live there year-round, and there is the palpable pressure of an entire country, without equivalent acclaim. Springer was left off the All-Star team this year, for example.

But when Springer is dancing to videoboard music and feeling the rhythms, he can still lead. Batting coach Dave Popkins, another Dodger alum, said that Springer was feeling for the ball too much last year. He urged Springer to think of himself as a Ferrari and actually turn it loose on vulnerable pitches. Point taken, and when Guerrero got his 14-year, $500 million deal in April and when Bichette recovered his groove and when kids like Addison Barger and Matt Lukes found comfort in the A.L. East race, the Blue Jays were able to win 94 games and tie the Yankees for first place. They also hit .293 with runners in scoring position, and Springer was a .500 hitter in RISP situations during the ALCS. They were second in runs, second in OPS and sixth in homers.

But they were down and almost out Monday night. Woo, Seattle’s best regular-season pitcher, was relieving George Kirby, who had muscled his way through four innings. The first harbinger was Woo’s leadoff walk to Barger. Isaiah Kiner-Falefa guided a base hit up the middle. Andres Gimenez bunted the baserunners to second and third. Then came Springer, and out came Seattle manager Dan Wilson, bringing in Eduard Bazardo.

Wilson had three options. Door #1 was to leave Woo in the game. It wasn’t like the Jays had pounded him. Door #2 was to fetch Andres Munoz, one of baseball’s best closers, who was rested for an eight-out scenario. Door #3 was to pick Bazardo, who had been outstanding as a setup man. However, he had already faced the Jays three times in the series, and they had seen 64 of his pitches. Wilson opened the third door.

It wasn’t really a bad call, probably not as bad as removing Kirby was. Bazardo threw a sinker for ball one, then tried another. As Raleigh later said, “It leaked a little bit over the plate,” and Springer cranked up the Ferrari. The home run touched off the most joyful noise in the building since Joe Carter’s Series-winning homer off the Phillies’ Mitch Williams in 1993, as play-by-play man Tom Cheek yelled, “Touch ‘em all, Joe. You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life.”

It might not be safe to say the same thing about Springer, just as it wasn’t safe to bring down the gavel on his career. He’s always had that quirky resilience. Growing up in Connecticut he became a big Hartford Whaler fan and sometimes wears blue and green batting gloves, even though the Whale left for Carolina as he was growing up. His grandfather came to Connecticut from Panama and pitched for Central Connecticut, and later became the president of the New Britain NAACP chapter. His father, George Jr., founded his own law firm. His mother, Laura, originally from Puerto Rico, played softball in college, and his sister Lena pitched at Ohio State and became a college coach. So there’s too much inventory for one dismal year to exhaust.

Springer also has overcome a stuttering condition that made his high school life difficult. One of his mentors is Torii Hunter, who was coming through the Twins’ system at New Britain when Springer was a kid. Hunter agreed to play catch with him at one point, the two reunited when Springer became a minor leaguer, and Hunter sometimes talks Springer off whatever ledge he’s on.

Nobody reasonably expects the Blue Jays to hang on when the World Series arrives on Friday. The lordly Dodgers have given up one run apiece in their past five games. Most of them weren’t around in 2017 when Springer rose above the Series. Since then the Dodgers have won two championships and have remained immune to ghosts. In fact, a Toronto victory would be the biggest Series upset since the ‘88 Dodgers took out Oakland’s Bash Brothers in five games, with a boost from a slugger whose every step made his knees cry for mercy. In a year so improbable that it levitated George Springer, can the impossible happen?