This Blue Jays team is so good not even the Drake Jinx could slow them down

The Toronto Blue Jays can’t exactly say that nothing was the same on Friday night, not when they refused to let the dreaded ‘Drake jinx’ keep them from opening the World Series with a victory over the heavily-favored Los Angeles Dodgers. 

You’ll forgive us for being tempted to make as many Drake-related puns as possible, but can you blame us? Friday proved to be an excellent day for the Toronto-born rapper, who celebrated his 39th birthday at the Blue Jays’ first World Series game since 1993. 

Although the Blue Jays allowed the game’s first two runs, they soon scored 11 unanswered after the Rogers Centre jumbotron showed Drake to start the fourth inning. Blue Jays fans cheered as the five-time Grammy winner’s song “Trophies” played, and they kept their enthusiasm as Addison Barger, Daulton Varsho, and the Blue Jays’ dangerous offense pulled off an 11-4 victory.

“See the whole city came out tonight,” Drake said, via Major League Baseball’s official X/Twitter account. “Shout-out to the Jays. We’re down right now, but we’ve been here before.”

The Blue Jays’ X/Twitter page also shouted the hit musician out. Drake’s jacket is a reference to Rob Ford, the late Toronto mayor who passed away in 2016.

What is the Drake jinx, and should the Blue Jays be worried?

First off, the “Drake Jinx” has nothing to do with fellow rap superstar Kendrick Lamar and their high-profile feud. However, it’s fitting that Toronto is facing a Los Angeles-based team, seeing as Lamar hails from L.A.

Regardless, some fans and social media users have frequently accused Drake of jumping on a team’s bandwagon, sometimes dooming their favorite team to a failed championship pursuit. That doesn’t necessarily apply to Toronto teams, as Drake sat courtside during the Raptors’ 2019 NBA Finals run. 

Comedian Bill Burr nonetheless ripped Drake that year, arguing that the rapper is the “furthest thing from a superfan.”

“All of a sudden, Drake comes in, who’s a super bandwagon fan, to the point he has to wear a [expletive] wristband or a headband on his [expletive] arm because he’s got tattoos of the jerseys of the players on the other [expletive] team,” Burr vented on his podcast.

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal felt somewhat similarly at the time, except without all of the profanity. O’Neal believed that Drake genuinely was happy to see the Raptors in the Finals, but he also felt the “Headlines” rapper saw the team’s playoff run as an excellent marketing opportunity.

“Drake is a smart guy,” O’Neal said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

There’s no reason for the Blue Jays to be worried, though, partially because they handled the Dodgers with relative ease in Game 1. If the Blue Jays hold the Dodgers’ offense to six hits and strike out Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts twice each, then what damage can Drake really do?

(We apologize to the Blue Jays for inadvertently cursing them more than Drake ever could.)