As Dodgers try to become first repeat champion in quarter-century, Roberts hopes he's not a villain

“I was just having a little fun with people that said that about the Dodgers,” he explained Thursday, a day ahead of the World Series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays, “but I hope I’m not the villain.”

Los Angeles is the first defending champion to reach the World Series since the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies, who lost to the New York Yankees. No team has won consecutive titles since three in a row by the 1998-2000 Yankees, and no NL team has achieved the feat since Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in 1975-76.

“The one thing we cannot do is look over there and say that is Goliath,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “That is a beatable baseball team that has its flaws, and that has its really, really good strengths. How we expose each of them will determine who wins the series.”

Led at the plate by Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, and on the mound by Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers are 9-1 in the postseason despite starting every series on the road. They are 14-1 over the past month.

“Just to win once is hard and now be this close to being able to do it two times in a row, I don’t know if I’ve really grasped the weight of it," Freeman said. “Last week you’re starting to get the word dynasty thrown out and things of that nature. And if that if that’s being thrown out, that means the organization’s doing a really, really good job.”

Been a long time

When the World Series was last played outside of the United States, Toronto won its second straight title in 1993 when Joe Carter hit a ninth-inning homer off Philadelphia's Mitch Williams in Game 6, the second Series-ending home run after Pittsburgh's Bill Mazeroski against the New York Yankees in Game 7 in 1960.

Since then, the Blue Jays became Canada's sole Major League Baseball team when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C., for the 2005 season.

Toronto's home was renamed from the SkyDome to Rogers Centre in 2005, a year after Rogers Communications Inc. became the Blue Jays' sole owner. The ballpark's capacity was cut from 52,000 to just under 45,000 and more upgrades are planned ahead of 2026.

Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney attended Blue Jays batting practice.

“We represent this entire country and we’re this country’s team, so we want to go out there and do everything we can to make this country proud of us,” said Trey Yesavage, the 22-year-old who opens the Series on the mound for Toronto in just his seventh big league start.

Ohtani preps on the field

Ohtani usually prefers to take batting practice in an indoor cage, but he took BP on the field on Thursday, hitting drives off the batter's eye behind the center-field fence like a basketball player making bank shots. He also sprayed balls off the flight deck fan area and the scoreboard above.

In a 2-for-25 slump, Ohtani also took on-field BP last Thursday, then had a three-homer game against Milwaukee the next day while pitching six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts.

Snell returns to the Series for first time since 2020

Left-hander Blake Snell will start for Los Angeles in his first Series appearance since 2020, when he started Game 6 for Tampa Bay against the Dodgers.

Trying to overcome a 3-2 Series deficit, Tampa Bay was ahead 1-0 when Snell allowed a one-out single to Austin Barnes in the sixth inning on his 73rd pitch. Rays manager Kevin Cash brought in Nick Anderson, and the Dodgers rallied to win.

“Probably for like a week I was thinking about it, what could have been different, what I could have done, the ups and downs of just feelings," Snell said. “But then ultimately it led to — if I would have done more early on in my career to gain his trust, it would have been a different outcome I think.”

Given a 5-0 lead in Game 2, Snell was removed after allowing Chris Taylor's two-run homer in the fifth followed by a walk and a single.

“Learn from it and ultimately it made me a better pitcher,” Snell said, "just because I understand the game more than just myself, just the pieces, the parts and how it all works.”

Snell spent 2021-23 with San Diego and 2024 with San Francisco, and the two-time Cy Young Award winner signed a $182 million, five-year contract with the Dodgers.

“I’ve matured. I’ve grown up. I was kind of a kid still in 2020,” said Snell, who turns 33 in December. “I know I only have so much time left. I’m not young .I don’t really think about the ending. For now I’m just more appreciative of the moments, the time and what these mean for my career.”

Rust vs. rest history appears to show off time is disadvantage

Since the League Championship Series were extended to seven games in 1985, the four matchups between teams coming off seven-game series and four-game sweeps all were won by the teams who played the lengthier pennant playoffs: the 1988 Dodgers over Oakland, the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals against Detroit, the 2007 Boston Red Sox over Colorado and 2012 San Francisco Giants against the Tigers.

Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. enters hitting .442 with six homers and 12 RBIs in 11 postseason games.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb