The strength-vs-strength battle that will decide the World Series
In the regular season, no team's batters had a lower strikeout rate than the Blue Jays, and no team's pitchers struck out more batters than the Dodgers. Sometimes, the World Series narratives write themselves: Can the Blue Jays make enough contact against a pitching staff specifically designed to eliminate contact?
It’s an interesting story, and it will matter. It’s also not nearly the entirety of it, because the Jays have been pounding the ball all October, not just getting the bat to it. They are outslugging the Dodgers by nearly 100 points and everyone else by a lot more than that. That actually undersells it by more than a little; the Jays' offense has been one of the best-slugging playoff groups, well, ever.
Go back to 1969, more than a half-century ago, the first year when there were playoff games played prior to the World Series. Since then, nearly 200 teams have played at least seven games in a particular postseason. Look at where this year’s Toronto hitters rank among all of those teams:
2025 Jays batters had the sixth-highest OPS (.878) and fourth-highest slugging (.523) of any postseason team that played at least seven games, since 1969.
Cont’d
https://www.mlb.com/news/dodgers-pitching-vs-jays-hitting-in-world-series