{"id":238470,"date":"2025-10-25T04:36:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T04:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/238470\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T04:36:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T04:36:06","slug":"trey-yesavage-sets-blue-jays-single-post-season-strikeout-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/238470\/","title":{"rendered":"Trey Yesavage sets Blue Jays single post-season strikeout record"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Standout rookie starter Trey\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0didn’t have his best stuff but limited the Los Angeles Dodgers to two runs over four innings for the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night. Toronto rallied\u00a0for an 11-4 win.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0was making just his seventh major league appearance. He became the second-youngest pitcher to start a World Series opener behind Brooklyn\u2019s Ralph Branca, who was 21 years, 267 days old for Game 1 in 1947 at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an insane experience that I\u2019ll remember for the rest of my life,\u201d\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0said. \u201cI wish personally I could have done a little bit better, but that\u2019s why this is a team sport, and we have nine other guys on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yesavage’s best pitch during a breakout post-season has been his splitter, but he used it sparingly against Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers. Just 10 of his 80 pitchers were splitters, and he instead leaned on his slider while allowing five hits, striking out five and walking three. His fastball velocity was down nearly 1 mph from his usual average.<\/p>\n

His five punchouts surpassed David Price for most strikeouts by a Blue Jays pitcher in a single playoff run, with 27.<\/p>\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t have as much of a feel for it as I have in previous starts,\u201d he said of the splitter, adding that with five righties in Los Angeles’ lineup, he thought the slider would be more effective.<\/p>\n

Left-hander Mason Fluharty replaced\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0to begin the fifth with Ohtani and the top of the Dodgers’ order due up.<\/p>\n

It was Yesavage’s fourth post-season start after just three regular-season outings. A first-round draft pick in 2024 who made his major league debut at Tampa Bay on Sept. 15, he became only the second pitcher to make a World Series start that raised his post-season start total above his regular-season career total, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.<\/p>\n

Yesavage\u00a0opened the game by striking out Ohtani, then retired Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman on grounders.<\/p>\n

The right-hander walked the leadoff batters in the second and third innings, leading to two runs. Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez hit an RBI single in the second, one of three straight singles, but\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0escaped a bases-loaded jam by striking out Andy Pages and getting Ohtani to ground out.<\/p>\n

Will Smith made it 2-0 with an RBI single in the third, but Freeman got caught in a rundown on Smith\u2019s hit. Smith advanced to third on Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s grounder before\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0struck out Max Muncy to end the inning, the first of three straight swinging strikeouts for\u00a0Yesavage.<\/p>\n

Selected 20th overall in last year\u2019s amateur draft from East Carolina University,\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0is the youngest player in this year\u2019s World Series. He began the season at Class A Dunedin, was promoted to High-A Vancouver on May 20, then Double-A New Hampshire on June 12 and Triple-A Buffalo on Aug. 12.<\/p>\n

Yesavage\u00a0went 1-0 with a 3.21 ERA in three starts in September, striking out 16 in 14 innings. He beat the Yankees with 5 1\/3 scoreless and hitless innings in Game 2 of the Division Series as he struck out 11, a franchise post-season record. He lost Game 2 of the American League Championship Series against Seattle when he allowed five runs in four innings, then won Game 6 on Sunday when he gave up two runs in 5 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

Yesavage\u00a0has challenged hitters with an unusual arm angle. His 69 per cent release angle is the highest among right-handers in the post-season \u2014 90 per cent is over the top and zero is sidearm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Standout rookie starter Trey\u00a0Yesavage\u00a0didn’t have his best stuff but limited the Los Angeles Dodgers to two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-238470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}