Worst World Series Losses
Rehashing the most heartbreaking losses in MLB’s Fall Classic
About the game of baseball, former MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti had this to say, “[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You can count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”
The Toronto Blue Jays had Game 7 of the 2025 MLB World Series at home. They had a 3-0 lead after 3 innings. They had a 1-run lead with 1 out in the ninth inning. The Blue Jays had the bases loaded with 1 out in the ninth but failed to score. Toronto had the tying run at third base with 1 out in the 11th and also failed to score. All told, the Blue Jays left 14 runners on base and couldn’t plate a run in the game’s final 5 innings. And when it was all said and done, Toronto lost Game 7 by a score of 5-4 in 11 innings and lost the World Series 4 games to 3. It’s difficult to get as close to winning the World Series as Toronto did and not actually win it. But, as the quote from Bart Giamatti above indicates, that’s baseball.
Toronto may have lost an agonizing World Series game, but they are not the first team to do so. And they certainly won’t be the last. In this week’s article, I’ll go over some of the most crushing losses in World Series history.
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