TORONTO — Four wins stand between the Dodgers and legitimate debate about a dynasty.

Of course, a team playing with an entire country’s hopes and dreams behind it will have something to say about that, too.

Back in the World Series for the fifth time in the last 10 years, the Dodgers will begin their quest to claim a third title in the last six years — and become the first team to win back-to-back championships since the 1998-2000 Yankees — on Friday night against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.

“Winning and then coming back is another animal because the target’s always on your back,” Mookie Betts said Thursday. “But it’s also fun to play like that. There’s an art to it, there’s a mindset to it, and it’s something that a lot of us Dodgers have learned to embrace. I think it’s what we enjoy.”

Spending nearly half a billion dollars to bolster their roster after beating the Yankees in the World Series last October only made the target bigger, but the Dodgers have handled it well enough to this point.

“We underperformed throughout the whole regular season, but we always knew that when it came October, that’s all that mattered,” said Kiké Hernández, the poster child for elevating his game in the postseason no matter how the regular season looked.

While the Blue Jays, with the fifth-highest payroll in the game (still over $100 million less than the Dodgers), may not exactly be David, they are going up against a Goliath.

“I think the one thing we cannot do is look over there and say that is Goliath,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “That is a beatable baseball team that has its flaws, and that has its really, really good strengths. How we expose each of them will determine who wins the series. And I got all the confidence in the world in my guys.”

The matchup pits a dominant Dodgers rotation against a relentless Blue Jays lineup; a pitching staff that had the second-highest strikeout rate (24.8 percent) against an offense that had the lowest strikeout rate (17.8); and a franchise that has a chance to establish itself as a dynasty against one that is in the World Series for the first time since 1993.

For the most part, the Dodgers insist they have not taken much time to think about what winning another championship this year would mean in the bigger picture. But the noise surrounding it has only gotten louder with each passing win, first over the Reds in the wild-card series, then the Phillies in the NLDS and Brewers in the NLCS.

“Just to be in this spot, last week you’re starting to get the word dynasty thrown out and things of that nature,” Freddie Freeman said. “If that’s being thrown out, it means the organization’s doing a really, really good job. So just to be in this spot is extremely hard to do. But to win it and potentially win it two times in a row, it’s pretty cool.”

Of course, the last team before the 1998-2000 Yankees to win consecutive World Series? The Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993 before the franchise spent the next 32 years chasing another, which led them to Friday.

“I think not having the history of winning also makes it more special,” former Yankee and current Blue Jays infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa said. “When you’re able to deliver something they haven’t had is why we got the reaction we did [winning the ALCS]. … No one really talked about [the championship drought] because it felt like it was so impossible to do. Now that we’re here, it’s all back up and I think it’s great for the country.”

After the Dodgers swept the NLCS, manager Dave Roberts joked that his club was four wins away from “ruining baseball” — poking fun at the critics who claimed that their massive spending was bad for the sport. But the hefty payroll only guarantees so much.

“I’ve been asked the dynasty question about 10 times already — my answer to that is I feel truly blessed to have been part of a culture that other people are starting to hear about, find out about and they want to come in and join,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “That, to me, is a dynasty in its own. The culture we have created as the Dodgers, that people know when you come in, it’s all about winning. How are you going to get better? How are you going to help the team win? What at-bat are you going to sacrifice to move a guy over to third base? Are you going to put your body on the line to help win a game?

“That’s something that everyone in the organization has bought into. That’s always started, to me, with [Clayton] Kershaw.

“Money can’t buy that.”