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The road to becoming the first repeat World Series champion in 25 years was not a smooth one for the Dodgers, who captured their ninth championship in franchise history when they knocked off the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in 11 innings of a Game 7 for the ages.

After winning nine of their first 10 postseason contests, the Dodgers had to slog through a seven-game World Series that included two extra-inning wins — one in 18 innings — and consecutive losses at home that put their season on the brink.

Read more:Complete coverage: How the Dodgers won the 2025 World Series

But in the end, the Dodgers emerged with their second consecutive championship and third in six seasons. How did they make it happen? Here are some moments that galvanized the Dodgers' run to another World Series triumph.

A great escape, with a wheel man

Mookie Betts broached the idea of running the wheel play as the Dodgers tried to hang on for dear life in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Ballpark. In a tribute to executing the fundamentals, Max Muncy pounced on a bunt and Betts tagged out the lead runner at third base to help the Dodgers survive the ninth inning and grab a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series.

Ohtani's iconic performance

Based on the first inning alone, Shohei Ohtani would've produced an unforgettable performance in Game 4 of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers, striking out three in a row following a leadoff walk as the Dodgers' starting pitcher and then homering as his team's leadoff batter to stake himself to an early lead. But Ohtani homered twice more — including a 469-foot blast over the right-field pavilion — and went on to strike out 10 in six innings to help the Dodgers secure their second consecutive NL pennant.

Another complete game by Yamamoto

Yoshinobu Yamamoto had already thrown a complete game in Game 2 of the NLCS, the first one by a Dodgers pitcher since José Lima in 2004. But Yamamoto went into more rarefied air when he threw another one in Game 2 of the World Series in a 5-1 win over the Blue Jays — becoming the first Dodger to throw consecutive postseason complete games since Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Kershaw's moment

The anguish and heartbreak of Clayton Kershaw's postseason history is well known, and the Dodger Stadium crowd braced itself when he entered Game 3 of the World Series with the bases loaded and two outs in the 12th inning. In an eight-pitch battle with the Jays' Nathan Lukes, Kershaw induced a soft grounder to second baseman Tommy Edman that he had to charge and scoop over with his glove to first baseman Freddie Freeman to escape the jam.

The Will Klein Game

As Game 3 of the World Series dragged into the 15th inning, the Dodgers turned to Will Klein, the last reliever in their bullpen — though Yamamoto was later warming for a potential 19th inning. Klein, acquired by the Dodgers in a minor trade on June 2, threw 72 pitches — the most he's thrown as a professional — over four scoreless innings to keep the Dodgers in it.

Freeman, the walkoff sequel

In a World Series Game 3 that featured 19 pitchers, 25 position players, 609 pitches thrown and 153 trips to the plate, it was something familiar that won it for the Dodgers in the 18th inning: a Freeman walk-off home run. One year and two days after his iconic walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series, Freeman smashed a solo shot to center field to lift the Dodgers to a 6-5 win and a 2-1 series lead.

Kiké Hernández, October hero

Left fielder Kiké Hernández added another chapter to his October legacy in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6 with the Dodgers trying to hang on to a 3-1 lead and keep their season alive. With runners on second and third and one out, Hernández played shallow and was in good position to catch a sinking line drive by Andrés Giménez before firing a throw to second baseman Miguel Rojas, who caught it on a bounce to double off the runner at second and force a Game 7.

Miguel Rojas ninth-inning hero

Rojas became the ninth-inning focal point in Game 7 as he came up to bat with the Dodgers trailing 4-3 and two outs away from losing the World Series. Rojas, who had one homer since the All-Star break, worked the count full before hammering a game-tying shot to left. In the bottom of the inning, with the bases loaded and the infield in with one out, Rojas fielded a grounder cleanly and came up firing to force the runner out at home and preserve the tie.

The Catch

One batter later and with the bases still loaded, it was Andy Pages' turn to be the defensive hero. Inserted mid-inning at center field for his strong arm, Pages found himself using his legs to cover a lot of ground on a deep fly ball to left-center that Hernández was trying to catch over his shoulder before colliding with Pages as the center fielder secured the ball to carry the game into extra innings.

Will Smith, home run hero

As Game 7 entered the 11th inning, it was catcher Will Smith who was in the right place at the right time. Smith, who'd worked his way back into the lineup after suffering a hairline fracture in his right hand in September, turned on a 2-0 slider for his second home run of the series to put the Dodgers in front for the first time in the game.

Yamamoto with the exclamation point

Entering Game 7 during that ninth-inning jam that Rojas and Pages helped him escape, Yamamoto retired the Jays in order in the 10th and then worked around a leadoff double in the 11th, fiedling a sacrifice bunt and then walking a batter before inducing a double play to seal the Dodgers' repeat championship. For Yamamoto in the World Series, the final tally was three wins, the last coming in relief after throwing 96 pitches the night before in Game 6, and the MVP award.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

I have been a diehard baseball fan for more than 60 years, and this year’s Dodger team is the toughest, gutsiest and most resilient team I have ever seen. Toronto is an absolutely fabulous baseball team, and would’ve beaten anybody else in all of baseball without much stress.

And as for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, that young man ought to be on Mt. Rushmore.

Let’s go for a three-peat in ‘26!

Drew Pomerance
Tarzana

No doubt about it. The best team won the World Series. The Dodgers found ways to win without great hitting. Their pitching and defensive skills exceeded our expectations. Thank you everyone for another amazing baseball season.

Cheryl Creek
Anaheim

How wonderful to see grown men acting like little boys during their victory celebration. While I am not a fan of the gyrations on the bases after a hit (even when way behind), the pure joy emanating from the players at the end was to be cherished. How sports enables us to forget our problems is what has made me a lifelong sports fan.

Mark Kaiserman
Santa Monica

Who would imagine that Games 6 and 7 would both end on double plays while the losing team had men in scoring position? One different swing of the bat would have reversed the outcome of the games and series. How suddenly agonizing and euphoric. How uniquely baseball!

Mel Spitz
Beverly Hills

The Toronto Blue Jay fans taunted Shohei Othani early in the series, "We don't need you!" I guess they did!

Edward Jimenez
Whittier

Consideration should be given to incorporating the Japanese flag into the design of the 2025 World Series ring.

Greg Thompson
Chatsworth

It took until Games 6 and 7, but the 2025 World Series lineup needed to include Miguel Rojas.

Ken Feldman
Tarzana

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts' haters and naysayers can take a seat. Whether it was confidence in the starting rotation, masterful management of the bullpen, being unafraid to tinker with the lineup or making brilliant defensive replacements, every lever Roberts pulled in Games 6 and 7 ultimately resulted in another championship.

Ron Yukelson
San Luis Obispo

As my fellow Monday morning baseball critics always say, "Dave Roberts is a genius. Mookie is great at short. Last year no starting pitchers. This year no bullpen."

So many contributed big plays. Constant tension, excitement, tenacity and, ultimately, exhilaration. Thank you Dodgers for a playoffs and World Series for the ages. Encore!

Rafael Serna
Hacienda Heights

While we bask in the euphoria of the Dodgers' World Series win, let's not overlook but sing the praises to the last man standing! Without the heroics of Will Klein, there might not have been a Game 6 or a Game 7.

Stan Shirai
Torrance

The World Series finished on Dia de los Muertos, but our Dodgers lived to win again. Against all odds in Game 7, the Dodgers solidified a dynasty. What a game. What a series. What a team. So many clutch moments and players. This one will be enjoyed and cherished FOREVER.

Michael Lee Manous
San Dimas

A phrase that will never be used in the same sentence with Yoshinobu Yamamoto: “load management.”

Dave Ring
Manhattan Beach

Orel, meet Yoshi!

Brian Lipson
Beverly Hills

Fanfest next time?

More than four million Dodger fans attended games this season. As a thank you, couldn’t the Dodgers have shown appreciation for the support by providing tickets to the celebration free of charge and offer parking at $10 per car?

Seems like a nice thank you for supporting the team!

Rob Parra
Rowland Heights

On the flip side

I hope the amazing Blue Jays performance doesn't get lost in all the cheers for the Dodgers. I wish there was a place they could have received a silver trophy and basked in the well-earned cheers of the crowd. And I hope our fellow Angelenos and the media will show humility and recognize we just got the lucky flip of the coin toss.

Don McKinney
San Fernando

Hats off to the Toronto Blue Jays for an incredible World Series. They gave the Dodgers a fierce run for the money. It took everything we had to come out on top and it could have gone the other way 100 times. I hope Toronto gave them a fabulous parade. They deserve it.

Sarah Tamor
Santa Monica

Improve the product

UCLA should not relocate to SoFi Stadium. The Rose Bowl is the shrine of college football and a great place to tailgate and celebrate the Bruins.

The venue is not the problem, it’s the product on the field. It’s obviously the results, but also includes the opponents over the last several years — South Alabama, Coastal Carolina, North Carolina Central, Bowling Green and Alabama State.

William Morris
Pasadena

High expectations

The Times' reporter wrote that the Lakers "stars slogged through" much of their win over the Miami Heat at Crypto this week. Slogged? Luka Doncic recorded a triple-double, Austin Reaves scored 26 and the team finished with 130 points. And I thought expectations for the baseball team in this town are high!

Hank Rosenfeld
Santa Monica

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Email: sports@latimes.com

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

For Natalia Molina, a lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a third-generation Mexican American, the crowning moment of baseball’s World Series didn’t come in last Saturday’s nail-biting finale, when her team performed one death-defying escape act after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two of the team’s second-tier players, Kike Hernández, who is from Puerto Rico, and Miguel Rojas, from Venezuela, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended the many negative stereotypes Donald Trump has been touting about Latinos since he first ran for president a decade ago.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to chalk up another, game-winning out on the same play. Rojas, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a Blue Jays runner barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn’t just a great sporting moment, perhaps the decisive shift in momentum in the Dodgers’ favor after looking for much of the series like the weaker team. For Molina it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos, and for Los Angeles, after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the streets, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from the White House.

“Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative,” said Molina, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. “The world saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They’re bombastic, they’re yelling, they’re taking off their shirts.

“It was such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It’s so easy to be demoralized right now.”

Not that it’s exactly simple to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up faithfully to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium’s 50,000 seats each time.

When the Trump administration began conducting aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles in early June and sent national guard troops and marines into the city to respond to the ensuing protests, two of the city’s soccer teams quickly put out statements of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

The team president, Stan Kasten, has said the Dodgers want to steer clear of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the fact that a sizable minority of the fans, including Latinos, are Trump supporters. (Under considerable public pressure, the team later pledged $1m in support for families directly affected by the raids but made no public criticism of Trump’s administration.)

Related: If the Dodgers are bad for baseball, why was the World Series so much fun?

Three months earlier, the team did not hesitate in accepting Trump’s invitation to celebrate their 2024 World Series victory at the White House – a move that the Los Angeles Times sports columnist Dylan Hernandez described as “pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical”, given the Dodgers’ pride in having been the first major league team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequentinvocations of that legacy and the values it embodies by executives and present and former players. Several team members including the manager, Dave Roberts, had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during Trump’s first term but either changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from team management.

A further complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, include a stake in the GEO Group, a private prison corporation that operates ICE detention centers. Guggenheim’s leadership has said many times that it wants to stay out of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the GEO investment – are their own form of acquiescence to Trump’s agenda.

All of that adds up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year’s hard-won World Series victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

“Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?” local columnist Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on “Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our hearts”. Galindo couldn’t ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have brought the team the luck it needed to win.

Many fans who share Galindo’s misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to support the team and its roster of international players, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the team’s corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of Roberts and his players but booed Kasten and Mark Walter, the chief executive of Guggenheim Partners.

“These men in suits don’t get to take our boys in blue from us,” Molina said. “We’ve been with the Dodgers longer than they have.”

The problem, though, runs deeper than just the team’s current owners. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city razing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill above downtown and then selling the land to the team for a fraction of its market value. A song on Ry Cooder’s 2005 album Chavez Ravine, which chronicles the story, has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he lost to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California’s most widely followed Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos of baseball, “a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos” that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

“They’ve put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it,” Arellano wrote over the summer, when calls to boycott the team over its lack of response to the ICE raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a nightly curfew.

Separating the team from its corporate owners is not a simple matter, not least because it was Guggenheim that committed more than a billion dollars last year to bring Ohtani and the dominant pitcher of the World Series, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, to Los Angeles. Guggenheim has been in the forefront of internationalizing the sport more generally, finding so many business opportunities through rights and merchandising that, according to some reports, it has already recouped the eye-popping $700m investment it made in Ohtani alone.

Indeed, there was talk across baseball, even before Los Angeles snagged its second World Series in a row, that the Dodgers were ruining the sport with their financial muscle, snapping up so many star players that it was unfair to everyone else. Perhaps the greatest gift of the brilliant, compulsively watchable series with the Blue Jays, though, was how vulnerable the Dodgers looked and how hard they had to scratch and claw to save themselves through both concluding, must-win games.

Karen Bass, LA’s mayor, is not alone in seeing parallels with a singularly rough year in the city’s history, starting with January’s devastating wildfires that destroyed entire neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people. “The city has been on pins and needles,” she told the New York Times. “Given the year we’ve had, we can use this burst of adrenaline, this burst of good will.”

The players themselves, meanwhile, clearly see a connection between their performance on the field and the community at large, and the feeling is mutual. Hernández, the Puerto Rican left fielder who plays multiple other positions, endeared himself to many fans by making his own statement condemning the ICE raids over the summer. “I may not be [an Angeleno] born and raised,” he wrote, “but … I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart.”

Roki Sasaki, the youngest of the team’s Japanese superstars, won the hearts of Latino fans from the moment he chose a catchy Spanish-language dance number, Báilalo Rocky, as his walk-up music before he pitches. (The song, he explained, was suggested to him by Rojas.)

All this is grist to the conversations that Latino fans have with each other before, during and after games. Many say they would no sooner stop loving the team known in Spanish as “los Doyers” as they would stop loving the mothers and fathers who first brought them to games and gave them their taste for baseball.

“What do you do when you feel something, and it’s complicated?” Molina asked. “For many Latinos, the Dodgers are how they connect to an American identity. It’s the most American institution most immigrants in LA feel connected to.”