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Dodgers celebrate becoming first repeat WS champ in 25 years

TORONTO (AP) — In a World Series for the ages that went back and forth again and again, Will Smith delivered the biggest swing of all for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Smith connected in the 11th for the first extra-inning homer in a winner-take-all title game, and Miguel Rojas became the first player to hit a tying home run in the ninth inning of a Game 7. On a roller-coaster night of see-sawing emotions, the Dodgers outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 Saturday to become the first repeat champion in a quarter century.

“You dream of those moments,” Smith said after the 4-hour, 7-minute thriller. “I’ll remember that for forever.”

In the type of dramatic Game 7 that kids conjure in backyards, the Blue Jays led 3-0 on Bo Bichette’s third-inning homer off Shohei Ohtani and 4-2 before Max Muncy’s eighth-inning solo homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage.

Toronto was two outs from its first championship since 1993 when Rojas, inserted into the slumping Dodgers lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman and stunned the Rogers Centre crowd of 44,713.

“I’ve cost everybody in here a World Series ring,” Hoffman said.

Rojas hadn’t homered since Sept. 19.

“I had a conversation with my wife,” he said. “She told me something big was waiting for me.”

World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom half, and Toronto reliever Seranthony Domínguez stranded three Dodgers runners in the 10th.

Smith, who hit a go-ahead homer in Game 2, sent a 2-0 pitch from Shane Bieber into Toronto’s bullpen in left field, where it bounced into the seats and gave the Dodgers their first lead of the night. Running between first and second, Smith raised his arms in triumph.

“He hung a slider,” Smith said. “I banged it.”

Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner, was making his first relief appearance since 2019.

“He was looking for it and I didn’t execute,” he said.

Of course, there had to be even more drama in just the sixth winner-take-all Series game to go extra innings. It matched the Marlins’ 3-2 win over Cleveland in 1997 as the second-longest Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3, 12-inning victory against the New York Giants in 1924.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled leading off the bottom of the 11th and was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk hit a broken-bat grounder to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-6-3 double play. It was only the second double play to end a Series, after the Yankees turned one in 1947 against the Dodgers.

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