Buzzkill Blue Jays throttled by Dodgers in World Series rematch

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Blue Jays manager John Schneider and his players can fill you with all the bunk they want about Monday’s date with the Los Angeles Dodgers being just another game.

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It was anything but, of course, despite such protestations.

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Not for the manager. Not for the reeling Jays. And especially not for an hopeful-turned-anxious crowd of 40,991 at Rogers Centre for the first of three against the World Series champs.

Instead of redemption and closure from that gutting Game 7 loss 157 nights previous, it was a dispiriting rout at the hands (and bats) of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Yes, on Monday night the powerhouse champs took advantage of whatever is ailing the Jays — physically and otherwise — romping to a 14-2 victory in what their broadcast partner Sportsnet was heavily billing as “The Rematch.”

For the Dodgers, it was more about meticulously taking care of business as they ruthlessly booted the Jays towards a fifth consecutive loss, matching the longest such streak in all of 2025.

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“This is gonna happen over the course of the year,” Schneider said afterwards. “This bad offence, bad defence, bad pitching, giving up homers … it’s gonna happen.

“It just seems like right now, the baseball world is trying to throw it all at us at once. If we back down from that, we’re in trouble.

“Everyone in there and every coach in there is not going to back down from it.”

Scherzer leaves game early

The game was as good as over when Max Scherzer exited after just two innings, victimized by a mystery ailment that led to a procession of bullpen arms that haplessly began with a pair of minor leaguers — Josh Fleming and Joe Mantiply.

Even with the excuses, it was a kick in the pants to the Jays, who at 4-6 have started the new season looking nothing like the one that ended 2025.

Sure, for public consumption the game may have meant more to the fans than the players — Game 9 of 162, after all — but it also was played on the same field where many of them had suffered the most crushing loss of their lives back in November.

An illness sweeping through the Jays clubhouse may have sapped them of much of their energy. Getting throttled by the Dodgers will only add to the misery and to the challenge that awaits in two more games in the series.

Yes, it’s only nine games and yes, throughout so many of their previous 49 seasons the Jays have been habitual and notorious slow starters.

Given the expectations that preceded 2026, few of them have felt worse than this.

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Are the mighty Dodgers even mightier?

Working on their own mini sample size, the Dodgers improved to 8-2 with their fourth consecutive winning, a pummelling that followed a weekend in Washington in which they put up 31 runs in a three-game seep of the Nationals.

Playing a hobbled opponent or not, the Dodgers clearly fancy coming to Toronto and flashing offence. This is a team, little need of reminder, that had 58 hits and 10 home runs in its four World Series games here last fall (Games 1,2,6 and 7) and arrived in their lone Canadian visit ready to inflict more damage.

That assault continued on Monday with five more homers — including one each from superstar Shohei Ohtani, former Jays fan fave Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman plus a pair from Dalton Rushing. The Dodgers smacked out a whopping 17 hits and 14 runs.

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Whether the Jays waved the white flag or not after Scherzer exited there was no other way to paint it: A humiliating night all around.

What’s going wrong?

How much time do you have?

Starting pitching is hobbled, one of their best players is out for weeks and possibly months and a flu bug is running rampant in the clubhouse.

And after getting swept by last year’s worst team in the American League (the White Sox) and losing two of three to the worst team in all of MLB (the Rockies) the Jays returned home looking to save face against the Dodgers.

It didn’t end well.

Through seven innings, the Dodgers got at least one run across in all but the second, scoring multiple runs in four of those frames.

The Jays bats remain a concern, of course, as the still dormant offence has yet to fire with any authority, managing just one run in their previous two games. They only had one run on four hits before Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sent out position player Miguel Rojas to mop things up in the ninth.

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Pitching is approaching crisis state, particularly on the starting side, but the bullpen is getting overused and worn down. Even with Trey Yesavage and Jose Berrios working towards a return, the potential exists for a rough ride one the next week or more.

Put another way: the Jays have used 18 different pitchers thus far, a total that according to Sportsnet matches a club record through the first 10 games of a season.

Tough start to season

While Schneider alluded to the illness — which certainly could be debilitating, to his credit he acknowledge that the Jays dodgy start has been concerning.

Injuries and illness are one thing — sloppiness and inefficient at-bats are another.

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“Baseball happens,” the manager said of his team’s poor play prior to Monday’s game. “Whether it’s guys getting off to a slow start offensively, defensively or on the mound, it always gets heightened in the beginning of the season.

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“If you hit a rough patch in July, you move on. We just have to do that right now.”

Schneider, who was pointedly critical of his players in Chicago, is optimistic that it will turn around, not that he has a choice but to believe it.

“The guys are really good on that,” Schneider said. “Our job is to remind them of that and just make sure they get on track and worry about Toronto Blue Jays baseball.

“But (is the poor start) uncharacteristic? Yeah. Mistakes are going to happen and the quicker we can just move on, the better we’re gonna be.”

The Jays will have two more chances against the Dodgers and will do so with their top drawer starters Kevin Gausman followed by Dylan Cease. The difficulty, of course, is that the Dodgers will counter with their Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Ohtani.

Finally on Monday, for comic relief, Schneider had catcher Tyler Heineman discard his gear and to come in and pitch the ninth. Remarkably, it was Heineman’s second pitching appearance in 10 games, an entertaining 1-2-3 inning.

“It was a tough, tough night overall,” Schneider said.  “From the mound to the batter’s box. “We’ve got to rely on moving on to tomorrow.”

As challenging as it will be to avoid the team’s longest losing streak since 2024.

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