A lot has been made of Blue Jays rookie Trey Yesavage's ascendence in 2025 -- FOX has hardly been able to go two innings without reminding everyone of it -- but, to be fair, it has been astounding.
Yesavage was a first-round pick in 2024. He started 2025 in Single-A but was promoted after a month. He was in High-A for all of two weeks, then Double-A for two months, then Triple-A for three weeks before he got his major league debut. He had a 3.12 ERA across the minors, a 3.21 ERA in three regular season starts, and then he no-hit the Yankees through 5 1/3 innings with 11 strikeouts in the ALDS.
Dodgers fans have to respect it, even if Yesavage absolutely pummeled LA's offense into the ground on Wednesday night. They only got three hits off of him through seven innings (one was a solo homer for Kiké Hernández) and struck out 12 times.
His much more experienced counterpart on the Dodgers' side paled in comparison. Blake Snell pitched 6 2/3 innings and gave up five runs (though Anthony Banda was actually responsible for two of them), including two homers -- one on his first pitch of the game and the other on his third.
Where has the Dodgers' supposedly fearsome rotation gone? Snell now has a 7.71 ERA in the World Series. In his Game 3 start, Tyler Glasnow was knocked out after 4 2/3 innings. Shohei Ohtani was bullied by Vladimir Guererro Jr. (We all know that Yoshinobu Yamamoto is exempt from criticism, at least for now.)
Of course, it's not all the rotation's fault. The offense should be able to make up five-run -- even two-run deficits -- but they looked completely uncompetitive in Games 4 and 5.
It's just the fact that Yesavage, a rookie with three starts worth of major league experience by the time he became the ace of the Blue Jays' postseason rotation and is making league minimum, has made the Dodgers' billion dollar rotation -- and, for that matter, their billion dollar roster altogether -- look foolish.
The Dodgers' rotation was supposed to be the biggest strength heading into the World Series; the offense didn't click in the NLDS or NLCS either. It certainly hasn't been their greatest weakness, but it's impossible to feel good about the Dodgers' chances when the one thing they were supposed to really have going for them has come apart like this as the Blue Jays' inferior unit has been more successful.