New season brings new hope for Blue Jays after World Series heartache

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DUNEDIN, Fla. — For Davis Schneider, there was only one way to escape the ache, a bruising so deep he couldn’t stand being in Toronto a minute longer.

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The wound from that harrowing loss in the seventh and deciding game of the 121st World Series was so acute, the tears barely dried in the Blue Jays clubhouse, the frustration so profound, that Schneider had to get out of town.

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So it was pack his bag, load up his Ford-250 pickup and head to his New Jersey home, an all-night ride to flee the reality of the incredulity that had just unfolded.

“I drove home,” Schneider said in an interview with the Toronto Sun. “I just felt like I couldn’t really stay in the city and sulk, so I drove home for eight hours.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so it was just to get the drive over with. I figured I’d be more miserable driving back later in the day, so I left three hours after the game. I didn’t want to stay around Toronto and sulk.

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“But it was tough. That drive home really sucked.”

When Schneider arrived back in Berlin, N.J., he reclaimed his dog from his family and, in isolation, began the process of healing and dealing with the aftermath of what will be remembered as one of the greatest World Series games ever played.

That was just one man’s method of coping with the toughest of defeats that night at the Rogers Centre, a game in which, depending on how you choose to measure it, the Jays were two outs, mere inches, or one swing away from winning the third World Series title in franchise history.

An enticing opportunity that got away from the Jays in Game 6 was exacerbated with the extra-innings loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a Game 7 for the ages the following night.

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Like so many of his teammates, Schneider said that to this day he hasn’t been able to bring himself to watch the game-ending play in the extra-innings finale that gave the Dodgers back-to-back titles.

“I don’t think I ever will get over it, really,” Schneider said. “I mean, I see some plays of it when it’s on TV, but me going back and actually watching it, no.

“We lived it. I already know what it’s looking like. I know the outcome. But I’ve never personally wanted to look up the game and watch it.”

The scar tissues that afflict Schneider won’t go away, a shared feeling by so many in that tight-knit group that will attempt to replicate the feeling when the 2026 season gets under way this week.

None of the Jays we spoke with are in denial, no one is even suggesting it has been easy to turn the page. That in itself may make them stronger.

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With the memories ingrained, returning to Friday’s season opener at the Rogers Centre promises to be an emotional one for the fans, players and coaches so invested in that magical run.

They’ll be reminded of it in the official launch to the 50th anniversary season, a festive night that will include the raising of an American League championship banner and begin celebrating the milestone history of a franchise that just missed a joyous ending to one if its best chapters.

It was an epic run to be celebrated, even with the dissatisfying result.

A handful of players and coaches generously shared their own agonizing memories with the Toronto Sun, recollections of a Fall Classic that will not be soon forgotten. Here are some of their stories.

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Kevin Gausman: So close to the parade

For as long as Kevin Gausman is throwing baseballs — and beyond — it won’t be the agony Game 7 that stings in his recollections of the 2025 World Series, it will be the opportunity that slipped away the previous night.

With the Jays up 3-2 in the best-of-seven series, Gausman was primed to take care of history in Game 6 and pitched like a man driven to do just that.

“As a pitcher, that’s all you could ever ask for, right?” Gausman said of that tantalizing assignment. “It’s an opportunity to, if you win the game, the parade starts and ends with you.

“That sounds bad, but I’ll think about that forever knowing that we had a chance to something not many people can say they did. And to do it at home …”

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It was there for the taking and Gausman sure seemed ready. He began the game by striking out Dodgers megastar Shohei Ohtani, one of his six strikeouts of the first seven hitters he faced. The Rogers Centre was alive with the possibilities, a nation glued to their televisions in anticipation.

Unfortunately, when the Dodgers touched Gausman for three runs later in the third inning, it was all the offence they would need. They had their ace and World Series MVP, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, on the mound, after all, and the Blue Jays offence was held stymied in a 3-1 defeat.

That result was eerily familiar to Gausman, who pitched his guts out in his two World Series starts, but had the misfortune of facing Yoshinobu in both. In his two outings, Gausman struck out 14 Dodgers and allowed just two walks in his 12.2 innings of work.

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As it was with his teammates, the anguish was real for Gausman, the mental and physical recovery a heavy load over the weeks and months ahead.

“I would say it was about a week of just about every day going through the feelings of being upset that we didn’t win it,” Gausman said. “It takes a while to get over that. But then also physically, you’ve been going at it for nine months straight and that take its toll.”

As a veteran, the 35-year-old Gausman is well aware that the entire ordeal, as exhilarating as it was, could come at a cost.

“I think that’s why you don’t see as many repeat teams, because it’s hard to get back there,” Gausman said. “Going through it, you see what it takes and what you go through. It’s one of the reasons you don’t see many teams get there in back-to-back years.”

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Fittingly, Gausman will be the man tasked with the assignment of starting the long journey back. He’ll get the ball on Friday, his first opening-day start with the Jays in one of the franchise’s most highly anticipated seasons in decades.

John Schneider: ‘Dreaming of a different outcome’

Living in the moments of the World Series never truly phased the Jays manager. It was when the music stopped that Schneider was slammed hard.

“That’s the weirdest part because in the moment, you feel it obviously, but you just do your job whether you’re a player, manager or a coach,” Schneider said. “It wasn’t until afterwards, where you look back and go ‘holy (bleep), that was an unbelievable World Series that we were a part of and it just didn’t come out the way we wanted it to come out.

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“In the moment it’s almost not as stressful as afterwards, which sounds really weird to say.”

Schneider says he was determined not to let the moment get too big for him. Yes, he understood the magnitude. And yes, he was pulled in dozens of different directions through the epic seven-game set that seemingly went by in a flash.

But he had a clubhouse full of players to keep as even-keeled as possible. Doing so was the stoutest challenge of his managerial career.

“My goal going into it, my first one, was to try to stay out of the way,” Schneider said. “I feel like I did a pretty good job of that, and I kind of just managed the same way I did in the regular season.”

In the aftermath, the manager was in the can’t bear-to-watch camp, but he didn’t have to put himself through the pain — the games (or at least the biggest plays from them) were burned into his consciousness.

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“It took some time for sure,” Schneider said. “There were times where I’d wake up in the middle of the night and Jess (his wife) would say go back to bed. But you’re reliving Game 6 or Game 7, hopefully with a different outcome that never came, and trying to stay asleep, to try to have a different outcome.

“It never came.”

Schneider said there were some lingering feelings when spring training started, a healthy element of catharsis.

“Baseball has a way of taking care of that,” said Schneider, runner-up for AL manager of the year in 2025 and about to begin his fourth full season at the Jays’ helm.

“Now that you’re getting close to opening day, it’s a whole new set of expectations and a whole new set of opportunities so you can put (the World Series) in the background.

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“But it’s never going to leave us.”

Schneider prefers to believe there is strength that can come from defeat, a feeling he shared with his players when they reported to Dunedin.

“We all went through it together, good, bad or indifferent and it kind of bonds you together,” Schneider said. “I think until you win one, you’re always going to hold onto that, hold on to how close you were.

“You look at it and try to look beyond the twists and turns and you try to take things away that we did well and I love the way we played in the World Series.”

Just not the final verdict, obviously.

Pitching coach Pete Walker: ‘Do you ever recover?’

Like his dugout sidekick, veteran Jays pitching coach Pete Walker had some long nights in the offseason, coming to terms with the near miss.

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“I don’t know if you ever recover,” Walker said “You’re always going to have that feeling of what could have been. You’re so close so it’s never going to go away.

“You learn to deal with it and move on, but it’s always there. There’s still nights I still wake up and think we won.”

The subject isn’t taboo, but in Walker’s view, Jays players have done a good job of transitioning from lament to motivation.

“The players have been good this spring about putting it behind them, staff included,” Walker said. “You just have the mindset to go out and get after it again.”

There was no avoiding the topic in the offseason, which may have kept the memories fresh but also recognized the accomplishment.

“You hear from fans, you hear from people close to you and it hits you again that you were a part of something pretty cool, something that doesn’t come along very often,” Walker said. “So I take a lot of pride in that.

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“As a country, I think there’s so much pride in this team across Canada. And the guys feel that and are ready to roll on March 27.”

Daulton Varsho: ‘I hit the ball hard’

By no means is Daulton Varsho alone in rueing the ones that got away in Game 7.

As John Schneider noted, there were so many big plays throughout the Series that could have been defining moments in the right way.

But that ground ball with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth inning — the one that resulted in Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas gunning down Isiah Kiner-Falefa at home — was tough to purge from his memory.

“I probably didn’t move on until I came back here,” Varsho said. “Everything on my twitter or Instagram always came up with Game 7. On TV as well. It was all right, I need to move past this.

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“But obviously, people constantly ask you about it. When we got to spring, being around the guys, meeting the new guys, you kind of wash those little memories away a little bit.”

To his point, the Jays centre fielder has been a force this spring, leading the team with five home runs and spraying the ball all over the field. Grapefruit League play, sure, but Varsho has been one of the most impressive Jays in February and March.

As for that ninth-inning at-bat the previous time the Jays played at the Rogers Centre, Varsho may regret the outcome but not the effort.

“I did my job. I hit the ball hard, tried to use the middle part of the field and (Rojas) made a great play,” Varsho said. “I wish I could have hit it higher, I was just trying to put the ball in play.”

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Healthy and confident, Varsho is pumped to get back to the scene of the crime for Friday’s gala, which will include an American League championship banner-raising.

“It’s going to be cool for the fans, man. It’s going to be electric,” Varsho said. “We did a lot of things that not many people thought we were capable of so we proved a lot of people wrong.”

When close doesn’t count

The excitement is high for the return of a team that stacks up as contenders in the American League — quite the ascent from 12 months ago ago when the Jays were coming off a last-place season.

But as John Schneider noted in his early spring address, nothing is guaranteed. That’s why he implored his team to approach 2026 with a “we’re not defending anything” clean slate.

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“We expected to win it, we wanted to win it and obviously we didn’t,” Davis Schneider said. “We fell short.

“Yes, we did have a good year and we definitely exceeded expectations. Yes, we took it to Game 7 and that was an achievement in its own right but that wasn’t the goal.

“And that was one of the worst ways to lose Game 7. If you lose in four games, that’s one story, but losing Game 7 is a whole different beast.”

No, the Jays will never get that one back, but is it possible the near miss will make them stronger?

“We all went through it and I talked about this with the guys,” John Schneider said. “It’s like there’s not going to be any more pressure or any more high stakes than what you’ve already done.

“So hopefully that helps, myself included.”

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