Blue Jays star sends message to doubters with Toronto on brink of World Series

The Toronto Blue Jays are on the brink of their first championship since 1993.

With World Series Game 6, (and if necessary Game 7), at home, the odds are stacked in their favor. Despite such a promising setup, the baseball world is far from counting out the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

The man starting on the mound for Toronto on Friday evening, right-hander Kevin Gausman, sent a message to those who don’t believe in his Blue Jays, and how that notion isn’t new to him.

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“No one gave us a chance all year, so nothing’s changed,” Gausman said via USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. “We’ve learned to kind of block out what people think about us, good bad or whatever. What people write about us, what people say about it, it doesn’t really matter.

“We’ll see what people are saying when it’s over.”

After an impressive Game 1 win, the Blue Jays dropped Game 2 of the Fall Classic — and as the series went back to Los Angeles, they came up short in an 18-inning marathon. Their response to Games 4 and 5 before heading back to Canada was 12 total runs on 20 hits.

Blue Jays reliever Eric Lauer spoke on what it means to battle back from such a devastating (and historic) way to lose.

“Baseball is a game of failure; you know you’re going to fail at some point,” Lauer said. “It’s all about how well you can respond after getting punched in the mouth. We took a punch. And we punched right back.”

Gausman’s last outing was 6.2 innings, as he allowed three earned runs off a pair of home runs in addition to six strikeouts. Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto tossed a complete game (his second in a row), allowing one earned run off of four hits, striking out eight along the way.

Game 6 should be another battle for both teams, but with a championship on the line, expect Toronto to do whatever they can to make sure that there is no Game 7.

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