The Dodgers are the Death Star, but the Blue Jays have nothing to lose

Toronto Blue Jays fans of a certain age will remember the last time the team went into a playoff series in which it seemed significantly overmatched.

It was 1989, a building called the SkyDome had just opened, and the Jays, in their second-ever postseason appearance, faced the Oakland Athletics in the American League Championship Series.

Much was different then. There were no wild-card teams, no division series, and the Athletics, long before their Moneyball era, were a swaggering menace. Oakland came into Game 4 leading the series 2-1, and the signature moment was Jose Canseco crushing a Mike Flanagan pitch into the fifth deck, where few balls have landed since.

But the real terror of that series, which Oakland won in five games, was leadoff man Rickey Henderson. He had six hits, seven walks, eight stolen bases, and a pair of home runs, which seemed frankly unfair given all the havoc he created on the bases. Henderson was unsolvable.

The Blue Jays of 2025 will confront a similar predicament in the World Series. Los Angeles Dodgers leadoff man Shohei Ohtani is such a unique talent that any superlatives you might apply seem silly. There are a lot of great players in the series. Ohtani is impossible: a tremendous starting pitcher who is also one of the most devastating power hitters in the game.

The Milwaukee Brewers kept him relatively quiet in the NLCS, right up until Game 4, when Ohtani struck out 10 batters and blasted three home runs - one of them literally out of Dodger Stadium.

The good news for the Jays is that they have some experience against teams with a power hitter so good that his position in the batting order must always be top of mind. And they managed to get past Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh even as both players dinged them for big home runs.

The bad news for the Jays is that Ohtani is far from the Dodgers' only threat. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, old friend Teoscar Hernández: the trouble spots in the lineup are many. Even the guys who might be unfamiliar to fans who don't watch a lot of National League baseball can hit, such as Andy Pages (27 home runs) and Will Smith (.901 OPS).

There is also the pitching. Los Angeles has four starters - Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Ohtani - who would be considered the staff ace on most MLB teams. They are so deep that they have effectively buried franchise legend Clayton Kershaw rather than risk him suffering another playoff meltdown, and they have converted Japanese star rookie Roki Sasaki, whom Toronto pursued unsuccessfully in the offseason, into a lights-out closer.

The Jays might have done the same with their rookie star, Trey Yesavage, except they needed him in the rotation. The only challenge the Dodgers have, meanwhile, is finding enough innings for their array of glittering arms.

L.A.'s strengths have not gone unnoticed. The Dodgers are better than 2-1 favorites despite not having home-field advantage, and they are overwhelmingly the choice in any World Series preview you might watch or read. ESPN published one of those "what the experts" say pieces Thursday and the predictions went 18-1 in favor of the Dodgers. The guy who picked the Jays didn't even sound all that convinced.

It is a daunting task. Take your pick of pop-culture analogies: The Dodgers are the fully operational Death Star; the Blue Jays are the plucky Rebel Alliance. The Dodgers are the Persian soldiers at Thermopylae; the Jays are the 300 Spartans. The Dodgers are the orc army of Mordor; the Jays are the hobbits. You get the idea.

Of course, sometimes the underdogs win. (Well, not the Spartans.) The script in which Toronto makes this a series likely involves wearing out some of those Dodgers starters. If manager Dave Roberts is forced to go to his bullpen, that could be an advantage for the Blue Jays.

They also might have a mood advantage. The Dodgers, with their astronomical payroll and loaded roster, have the burden of expectation. Losing the World Series, especially after breezing through the National League side of the playoff bracket, would be an embarrassing stumble at the finish line

The Jays, on the other hand, have been playing with house money for a while. No one expected them to win the AL East. On paper, they didn't have the power bats or the starting pitching to rival the Yankees or the Mariners, and yet they came out winners.

All season long, Toronto won games by following what became a familiar pattern: contributions from throughout the lineup, good defense, decent pitching, and the occasional big hit. Will that be enough to knock off the defending champions? You wouldn't want to bet your life on it, but it has gotten the Blue Jays this far.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.