Toronto’s veteran starter Max Scherzer came out of the game with the lead still 3-1 in the fifth inning, and the Dodgers rallied in the sixth when Tommy Edman’s sacrifice fly scored Mookie Betts to reduce the deficit to one run.
Back came the Blue Jays, when Ernie Clement’s stolen base put him in position for Gimenez to drive him in with a right-field double.
As is common in a World Series game seven, both sides made frequent pitching changes, even turning to starting pitchers from earlier in the series.
Trey Yesavage, who had started games one and five for Toronto, gave up Muncy’s solo shot in the eighth, before Rojas’ last-gasp effort off Jeff Hoffman levelled the scores.
Toronto loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth but failed to conjure a run, and the Dodgers did the same in the 10th as expectation mounted, but both sides fluffed their lines.
It was only the sixth time in history that a World Series game seven had gone to extra innings, and Smith’s homer put the Dodgers within sight of the title.
The Blue Jays were tantalisingly close to taking it to a 12th inning or even winning it with a walk-off, but Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers’ winning pitcher from games two and six, picked up another win in relief and was named as the series’ Most Valuable Player.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that contaminated fuel may have been a factor in the U.S. Navy’s loss of an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and an F/A-18F Super Hornet in the South China Sea on Sunday. In a very strange chain of events, the two aircraft, both assigned to the supercarrier USS Nimitz, went down within 30 minutes of each other while on separate missions. The crews of the Seahawk and the Super Hornet were both safely retrieved.
“They’re gonna let me know pretty soon,” Trump told reporters while flying aboard Air Force One on Monday. “I think they should be able to find out. It could be bad fuel. I mean, it’s possible it’s bad fuel. Very unusual that that would happen.”
Asked whether he thought “foul play” led to the crashes, Trump said “I don’t think so,” and reiterated his contaminated fuel theory.
“We don’t believe it was anything nefarious,” a U.S. Navy official told The War Zone.
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz experienced two aviation mishaps in a short span of time in the South China Sea on Sunday. (USN) USN
U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLEET), which oversees naval operations in the South China Sea region, declined to comment on Trump’s statements about the crashes and referred us to the White House. We have yet to receive a response and will update this story with any pertinent information provided.
The first of the two mishaps occurred about 2:45 PM local time, according to PACFLEET.
That’s when the Seahawk, assigned to the “Battle Cats” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 73 (HSM-73), “went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from” the Nimitz, a PACFLEET release stated. “Search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11 safely recovered all three crew members.”
U.S. Navy sailors conduct maintenance on an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter, attached to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 73, on the flight deck of the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. (Official U.S. Navy photo) Seaman Chad Hughes
A half hour later, an F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter assigned to the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron 22 (VFA-22) “also went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from Nimitz,” PACFLEET announced. “Both crew members successfully ejected and were also safely recovered by search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11. All personnel involved are safe and in stable condition. The cause of both incidents is currently under investigation.”
An F/A-18F Super Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 22, launches from the flight deck of the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) during flight operations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. (Official U.S. Navy photo) Petty Officer 2nd Class Jaron Wills
While the particular circumstances of the recent mishaps in the South China Sea remain under investigation, fuel contaminated with water and/or other foreign substances, or that otherwise falls below specifications, can present serious problems for aircraft, including causing engines to fail in flight. Checking fuel quality is a common part of an investigation following any aviation mishap, military or civilian.
In addition, carrier-based aviation operations present unique conditions when it comes to the transfer of fuel, both into storage tanks on the ship to begin with, which can occur while the carrier is underway at sea, as well as in port, and then into aircraft. Personnel aboard all Navy carriers perform regular fuel quality checks at multiple steps in the fuel distribution process.
Navy sailors seen inspecting a fuel sample taken from an aircraft aboard the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in 2005. USN
Trump’s comments about the mishaps came as the President is traveling throughout Asia. He is scheduled to have a meeting on Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss trade issues.
Nimitz, the Navy’s oldest carrier, is on its final cruise before its planned decommissioning next year. The flattop is currently in the process of returning to its home port in Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State after having been deployed to the Middle East for most of the summer, primarily as part of the U.S. response to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial shipping.
An armed Super Hornet launches from the USS Nimitz, sailing somewhere around the Middle East in June 2025. USN
Also known by its hull number CVN-68, the Nimitz, which was first commissioned into service in 1975, is the lead ship in its class. The vessel’s design built on the Navy’s prior experience with its pioneering nuclear-powered supercarrier, the one-of-a-kind USS Enterprise (CVN-65), which served from 1961 to 2012.
The Navy began preparing for the Nimitz’s demise in 2023, which you can read more about here. The Newport News Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls Industries has received multiple contracts already to begin laying the groundwork for removing the nuclear fuel from the carrier’s reactors and other aspects of the disposal process.
Whether contaminated fuel turns out to be a factor in, or even the root cause of the Seahawk and Super Hornet going down in the South China Sea, remains to be seen. U.S. military aviation accidents typically take weeks if not months to complete.
OK, no more nostalgia about 1990s ‘Girl Power,’ but the times they are a-changing and then some.
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The Red Roses won the Rugby World CupCredit: Shutterstock Editorial
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The Lionesses went back-to-back in the EurosCredit: Getty
The Red Roses blossomed last weekend as the England women’s rugby team won the World Cup in front of a record 82,000 Twickenham full-house.
That came hot on the heels of our Lionesses’ back-to-back European Championships successes and proves that women’s sport is here to stay.
Rewind two or three decades and women, when mentioned in the same breath as football, was something approaching a dirty word. Just look at the history books.
In 1921 there were over 150 women’s football clubs playing games in front of 40,000-plus gates.
So what did the FA do? They banned it, saying it was “unsuitable for females.”
It only took nearly five decades for the FA to change their minds and growth in the women’s game in the 70s and 80s was slow.
In fact, the national team had to wait until 1998 to have its first full time coach, Hope Powell.
The 2012 London Olympics handed the women’s game a massive boost. TeamGB were watched by over 70,000 at Wembley against Brazil and footie for females was finally freed.
Last year, an FA study revealed a 56 percent rise in the number of women and girls playing football in the previous four years.
The number of registered female football clubs has more than doubled in the last seven years and just look at crowds in the WSL.
Seven seasons ago the highest gate at any game was 2,648 for Chelsea against Manchester City. Last season it was nearly 57,000 for the North London derby.
A new sponsorship deal with Barclays is worth £15million a year and WSL clubs’ revenues soared 34 percent in 2023-24 alone. So from the grassroots all the way up, women’s football is on the up.
Thankfully, that kind of progress is being repeated in other sports and not just rugby, where there has been significant growth in recent years to the tune of a 60 percent rise in registered players since 2017.
What about cricket? Our girls took a pasting against the Aussies, but the World Cup is upon us with England aiming for a fifth title.
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Georgia Hunter Bell and Keely Hodgkinson re stars of the trackCredit: AP
In other sports, women do us proud. From netball’s Jade Clarke to tennis star Emma Raducanu, to athlete Keely Hodgkinson and world champion boxer Lauren Price… the list is long and shows just how women are flourishing.
Having said that, I was stunned to read that middle-distance runner Georgia Hunter Bell still worked full-time in tech sales just a few months before winning a bronze at last year’s Paris Olympics.
I cannot imagine a male elite athlete doing the same.
Georgia won silver at the World Championships last month and hopefully being a 24-7 athlete will help her go one better next time.
I’m obviously aware of the lack of female representation in the corridors of power within football and other sports, but I hope that is slowly changing.
Both the FA and PL chairs are women — Debbie Hewitt and Alison Brittain — and are doing a fine job.
Right now, though, I’d rather concentrate on the progress that has been made in a relatively short time.
The WSL is in rude health and will get bigger and better, underlining the fact that we, as a nation, are leading the way in the men’s and women’s game.
We should celebrate that because ‘girls just wanna have fun’.
