World Series Game 7, November 1, 2025 - Dodgers @ Blue Jays, 8PM

[Mehar]

I went back and watched parts of the game last night. The ninth inning was crazy in particular to the bottom of the night. I thought back to five moments during the n ninth inning when I initially an initially anticipated this could be the moment we won the World Series.

Number one was the fly ball that Vlad hit on the 3-0 count. it felt pretty nice at the moment of contact

Number two was the moment Dalton put the ball into play and then when you notice Rojas do some sort of double pump motion to get his body back in position to make the throw

Number three was when ihey first showed us the replay of Will Smith not touching home and that initial realization that we might win this by video replay

Number four maybe number five and maybe number six all in one play was first when the ball left Clements bat then see Kiki Hernandez really struggling with his route to get back to the ball and then seeing Pages come into the screen out of nowhere and thinking these two guys are going to collide with each other

I had been pretty calm watching the entire game, but after that innning I had to go outside to get some cold air because I could physically feel my blood pressure rising.

I watched all these plays live. demoralizing isn't even the word. I almost died and I already suffer from bad anxiety. not to mention i had these bozo father and son dodger fans behind me

All this is a moot point, if your Closer does not allow a home run to a scrub like Miguel Rojas. It is the equivalent of allowing a home run to Myles Straw in the 9th. Hoffman gets Ohtani and Smith out afterwards, but not Miguel Rojas (SMH).

[Raps in 4]

I went back and watched parts of the game last night. The ninth inning was crazy in particular to the bottom of the night. I thought back to five moments during the n ninth inning when I initially an initially anticipated this could be the moment we won the World Series.

Number one was the fly ball that Vlad hit on the 3-0 count. it felt pretty nice at the moment of contact

Number two was the moment Dalton put the ball into play and then when you notice Rojas do some sort of double pump motion to get his body back in position to make the throw

Number three was when ihey first showed us the replay of Will Smith not touching home and that initial realization that we might win this by video replay

Number four maybe number five and maybe number six all in one play was first when the ball left Clements bat then see Kiki Hernandez really struggling with his route to get back to the ball and then seeing Pages come into the screen out of nowhere and thinking these two guys are going to collide with each other

I had been pretty calm watching the entire game, but after that innning I had to go outside to get some cold air because I could physically feel my blood pressure rising.

I watched all these plays live. demoralizing isn't even the word. I almost died and I already suffer from bad anxiety. not to mention i had these bozo father and son dodger fans behind me

All this is a moot point, if your Closer does not allow a home run to a scrub like Miguel Rojas. It is the equivalent of allowing a home run to Myles Straw in the 9th. Hoffman gets Ohtani and Smith out afterwards, but not Miguel Rojas (SMH).

All season we joked on here about how we were going to lose the WS on a Coughman 1-run blown save via HR. And then it happened.

It was the most obvious blown save in the history of blown saves. Only a FO like ours wouldn't see it coming, and wouldn't take action to avoid it, despite having months to do so.

[PushDaRock]

I watched all these plays live. demoralizing isn't even the word. I almost died and I already suffer from bad anxiety. not to mention i had these bozo father and son dodger fans behind me

All this is a moot point, if your Closer does not allow a home run to a scrub like Miguel Rojas. It is the equivalent of allowing a home run to Myles Straw in the 9th. Hoffman gets Ohtani and Smith out afterwards, but not Miguel Rojas (SMH).

All season we joked on here about how we were going to lose the WS on a Coughman 1-run blown save via HR. And then it happened.

It was the most obvious blown save in the history of blown saves. Only a FO like ours wouldn't see it coming, and wouldn't take action to avoid it, despite having months to do so.

Yeah and I'm sure it was obvious he would blow game 6 and 7 against the Mariners as well right?

[PushDaRock]

I went back and watched parts of the game last night. The ninth inning was crazy in particular to the bottom of the night. I thought back to five moments during the n ninth inning when I initially an initially anticipated this could be the moment we won the World Series.

Number one was the fly ball that Vlad hit on the 3-0 count. it felt pretty nice at the moment of contact

Number two was the moment Dalton put the ball into play and then when you notice Rojas do some sort of double pump motion to get his body back in position to make the throw

Number three was when ihey first showed us the replay of Will Smith not touching home and that initial realization that we might win this by video replay

Number four maybe number five and maybe number six all in one play was first when the ball left Clements bat then see Kiki Hernandez really struggling with his route to get back to the ball and then seeing Pages come into the screen out of nowhere and thinking these two guys are going to collide with each other

I had been pretty calm watching the entire game, but after that innning I had to go outside to get some cold air because I could physically feel my blood pressure rising.

lol so many moments where it felt like we won the game, which was what made the loss that much more demoralizing

[TheDunc]

I watched all these plays live. demoralizing isn't even the word. I almost died and I already suffer from bad anxiety. not to mention i had these bozo father and son dodger fans behind me

All this is a moot point, if your Closer does not allow a home run to a scrub like Miguel Rojas. It is the equivalent of allowing a home run to Myles Straw in the 9th. Hoffman gets Ohtani and Smith out afterwards, but not Miguel Rojas (SMH).

All season we joked on here about how we were going to lose the WS on a Coughman 1-run blown save via HR. And then it happened.

It was the most obvious blown save in the history of blown saves. Only a FO like ours wouldn't see it coming, and wouldn't take action to avoid it, despite having months to do so.

The team chemistry got us very far but i have a feeling it might of cost us the final game. All season long they had a bet on themselves attitude so even when Hoffman was playing bad they still trotted him out because of the belief they all had. At some point they should of looked at results and seen Hoffman wasnt getting it done and ask themselves is Hoffman who we want to bring out in a 1 run game?

To me Louis Varland is who im bringing out to close a game in a 1 run game this playoffs no one else, should of kept him for later in the game.

[JN]

I went back and watched parts of the game last night. The ninth inning was crazy in particular to the bottom of the night. I thought back to five moments during the n ninth inning when I initially an initially anticipated this could be the moment we won the World Series.

Number one was the fly ball that Vlad hit on the 3-0 count. it felt pretty nice at the moment of contact

Number two was the moment Dalton put the ball into play and then when you notice Rojas do some sort of double pump motion to get his body back in position to make the throw

Number three was when ihey first showed us the replay of Will Smith not touching home and that initial realization that we might win this by video replay

Number four maybe number five and maybe number six all in one play was first when the ball left Clements bat then see Kiki Hernandez really struggling with his route to get back to the ball and then seeing Pages come into the screen out of nowhere and thinking these two guys are going to collide with each other

I had been pretty calm watching the entire game, but after that innning I had to go outside to get some cold air because I could physically feel my blood pressure rising.

Sorry for my grammar, which is not good to begin with, being way off in this post.

I tried using the voice to text function for that post, as I was sitting in my bed restless last night trying to fall asleep. I corrected a few things on my phone after being done, but it still came out quite messy.

[Raps in 4]

All this is a moot point, if your Closer does not allow a home run to a scrub like Miguel Rojas. It is the equivalent of allowing a home run to Myles Straw in the 9th. Hoffman gets Ohtani and Smith out afterwards, but not Miguel Rojas (SMH).

All season we joked on here about how we were going to lose the WS on a Coughman 1-run blown save via HR. And then it happened.

It was the most obvious blown save in the history of blown saves. Only a FO like ours wouldn't see it coming, and wouldn't take action to avoid it, despite having months to do so.

Yeah and I'm sure it was obvious he would blow game 6 and 7 against the Mariners as well right?

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs given up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. No serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

[TheDunc]

Losing a heartbreaker hurts way more in the moment but with time and perspective i prefer this kind of loss over a blowout. In a blowout you start questionning the whole roster but in a close loss i think you can pin point exactly which player be replaced

[PushDaRock]

All season we joked on here about how we were going to lose the WS on a Coughman 1-run blown save via HR. And then it happened.

It was the most obvious blown save in the history of blown saves. Only a FO like ours wouldn't see it coming, and wouldn't take action to avoid it, despite having months to do so.

Yeah and I'm sure it was obvious he would blow game 6 and 7 against the Mariners as well right?

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs goven up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. Np serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

Who would you rather have had closing games for us?

[Raps in 4]

Yeah and I'm sure it was obvious he would blow game 6 and 7 against the Mariners as well right?

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs goven up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. Np serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

Who would you rather have had closing games for us?

Literally anyone other than Little. Hoffman was statistically our second worst reliever this season.

[PushDaRock]

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs goven up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. Np serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

Who would you rather have had closing games for us?

Literally anyone other than Little. Hoffman was statistically our second worst reliever this season.

September: 0.84 ERA 0.58 WHIP
Playoffs: 1.46 ERA 0.83 WHIP

He was literally our hottest pitcher these last 2 months. Decent chance we don't even make it to that game 7 if someone else was closing in his place.

[JN]

All this is a moot point, if your Closer does not allow a home run to a scrub like Miguel Rojas. It is the equivalent of allowing a home run to Myles Straw in the 9th. Hoffman gets Ohtani and Smith out afterwards, but not Miguel Rojas (SMH).

All season we joked on here about how we were going to lose the WS on a Coughman 1-run blown save via HR. And then it happened.

It was the most obvious blown save in the history of blown saves. Only a FO like ours wouldn't see it coming, and wouldn't take action to avoid it, despite having months to do so.

The team chemistry got us very far but i have a feeling it might of cost us the final game. All season long they had a bet on themselves attitude so even when Hoffman was playing bad they still trotted him out because of the belief they all had. At some point they should of looked at results and seen Hoffman wasnt getting it done and ask themselves is Hoffman who we want to bring out in a 1 run game?

To me Louis Varland is who im bringing out to close a game in a 1 run game this playoffs no one else, should of kept him for later in the game.

Hoffman was the clear best option, like it or not.

Varland was solid in the playoffs, but we can't overlook that he had a 3.94 ERA, and a FIP of 5.01, because he gave up 4 home runs in 16 innings. I would love to be able to count on Varland as a high leverage reliever next year - I like his demeanor, and his velocity. But he has the some home run issue as Hoffman did this year that he has to work in.

Hoffman had pitched 11 excellent innings in the playoffs before the final game. Some certainly very high leverage ones but thankfully for the fans blood pressure less than expected given that many of our 10 wins had nice margins. So the margins were nice.

In 11 innings before game 7
1 run
O hr's
16 K / 4BB
WHIP of 0.82

He was clearly the right choice to go to during game 7, whether you like him or not (and can certainly understand the nots). Even if he felt like a ticking time bomb because of his regular season.

You can certainly argue that we could have made a better choice at the deadline by acquiring someone. Or maybe that that we could have veered to someone in the regular season in August/September -- although i have no clue who that would have been.

But the simple facts are we chose to go with Hoffman as the closer in the playoffs, and he had executed well in that role in the playoffs. Taking him out of that role, and veering to another home run machinin game 7 would have been crazy .

[linery88]

Why was Hoffman using so many sliders.A well located fastball would have taken care of Rojas,instead of a meatball slider.Maybe a high fastball SMH.

[Mehar]

Yeah and I'm sure it was obvious he would blow game 6 and 7 against the Mariners as well right?

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs goven up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. Np serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

Who would you rather have had closing games for us?

Jhoan Duran. It came out after the deadline that the Twins wanted Nimmala and two lower tier prospects (forgot their names) in a package as the main asset back to get their Closer. I would have done that deal, given how Nimmala struggling at times also this year. Apparently the front office thought different.

[JN]

Why was Hoffman using so many sliders.A well located fastball would have taken care of Rojas,instead of a meatball slider.Maybe a high fastball SMH.

I was listening to the Baseball Today podcast and I agreed with their take that Kirk/Hoffman probably out thought themselves on that 3-2 pitch.

Everybody in the ball park, including Kirk/Hoffman/Rojas knew that worse case scnario was walking Rojas with Ohtani on deck. So they knew Rojas was thinking fastball, and they tried to get cute,. It was not the time for that - they should have pounded the zone and made Rojas execute on a fastball rather than what turned out to be a hanging slider.

[PushDaRock]

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs goven up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. Np serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

Who would you rather have had closing games for us?

Jhoan Duran. It came out after the deadline that the Twins wanted Nimmala and two lower tier prospects (forgot their names) in a package as the main asset back to get their Closer. I would have done that deal, given how Nimmala struggling at times also this year. Apparently the front office thought different.

I think the price would have been Yesavage and Nimmala. They got 2 top 100 prospects right around the same range as those guys in return for Duran, so I doubt Nimmala and some lower tier guys would have done it. The price for closers was insane.

[PushDaRock]

Why was Hoffman using so many sliders.A well located fastball would have taken care of Rojas,instead of a meatball slider.Maybe a high fastball SMH.

I was listening to the Baseball Today podcast and I agreed with their take that Kirk/Hoffman probably out thought themselves on that 3-2 pitch.

Everybody in the ball park, including Kirk/Hoffman/Rojas knew that worse case scnario was walking Rojas with Ohtani on deck. So they knew Rojas was thinking fastball, and they tried to get cute,. It was not the time for that - they should have pounded the zone and made Rojas execute on a fastball rather than what turned out to be a hanging slider.

This is what I've been saying, just pump fastballs and if he hits that out, good for him. He was late on all of them that AB. You can't throw your wipe out slider there and risk walking him, so that makes it more prone to hang it.

[PushDaRock]

Why was Hoffman using so many sliders.A well located fastball would have taken care of Rojas,instead of a meatball slider.Maybe a high fastball SMH.

He threw a couple of fastballs that he fouled off, maybe wanted to go back to it because they got a whiff on it from the first pitch. The 2-2 slider needed to be better though, that was the one where you could get him to whiff on. 3-2, everybody knows you have to throw a strike.

[JN]

He's been pitching BP out there all season. Dude is a HR waiting to happen. It won't happen every game, but it happens way too often to use him in high leverage.

He should have been demoted from the closer role months ago. Most HRs goven up by a reliever. Awful ERA and peripherals. Negative WAR. Np serious FO would have had a guy like that closing a WS game 7 with a 1-run lead.

Who would you rather have had closing games for us?

Jhoan Duran. It came out after the deadline that the Twins wanted Nimmala and two lower tier prospects (forgot their names) in a package as the main asset back to get their Closer. I would have done that deal, given how Nimmala struggling at times also this year. Apparently the front office thought different.

I have a feeling that the organization thought that Varland could have possibly made it all the way to the closer role on this 2025 team. His first few games they put him right into the top setup role position. It was a bad miscalculation - Varland was not ready for that, or even the primary set up role. He was solid in the playoffs, but not closer material either. I hope he can find a way to address his hard hit ball tendencies, because he has the demeanor and velocity to be a high leverage guy if the can figure out a few things.

As I said another thread, I think they were satisfied with the quantity/quality of their bullpen overall after the deadline, except for that final closer spot. And at the deadline I was too... but 3 things set them back from a quality of depth perspective. Rodriguez and Little who had been absolute studs in the first half, regressed significantly in the second half. Yimi Garcia not coming back also hurt. Just an observation outside of the closer discussion, that didn't work out either.

I will also add this. No doubt would I have clearly felt much more comfortable with a Duran entering Game 7 or during 2026, or after August 2025. But in the 11.0 innings Hoffman pitched before Game 7, Duran could have done no better than Hoffman. Heck its even possible that Duran gives up 1 run more in those situations and we don't make it game 7. Duran did walk 4 batters in his 3.2 innings of work in the playoffs ... I didn't watch there games so not sure of the context behind those walks.

[Randle McMurphy]

I don't think the 3-2 slider was necessarily a bad pitch choice to Rojas there, but he certainly didn't execute it. Hanging sliders had been a season long problem and he did it in that moment. The possibility of him blowing a huge game on a HR was brought up repeatedly as the season went along and it just turned out to be game 7 of the WS.

It's fair to say that Hoffman choked in the biggest inning of his career, it cost him and this team a WS and we're just gonna have to hope he recovers from it (because he's not going anywhere and he's not losing the closer's job).