There was every possibility that the Toronto Blue Jays season would end in heartbreak – it’s just that no one figured it would be in April in the form of Jose Reyes in tears being taken off the field on a cart.
I’m not a doctor, but like many, many others who watched how the Blue Jays shortstop’s left ankle bent so awkwardly sliding into second base in the sixth inning last night, I play one on Twitter sometimes.
I’ll be shocked if Reyes is back in the Blue Jays lineup before the MLB All-Star Game on July 15. I won’t be shocked if it’s much longer than that.
And in one stray, strange instant, a slow start became the worst start imaginable. I think it’s okay for Blue Jays fans to worry now: a possible season-ending injury to your best player might be a small sample size, but it’s all you need.
There are no guarantees in sports, which makes it fun in a pay your money, take your chances kind of way. The opportunity to win, and win big, brings with it the chance to get your fingers slammed in the car door called losing games when they matter most.
So for all the off-season giddiness and the Las Vegas odds-making validation, there still remained the reality that you have to play the games, and with it the fact that things always don’t work out as planned.
September 1987 comes to mind.
But that was a price every single Blue Jays fan would gladly pay after 20 years of frustration and indifference. Lose a Wild Card spot in extra innings on the final day of the season? Bring it on.
Get swept in the World Series? Sounds good.
Lead the division only to fade miserably in September? At least you had five good months.
But Friday night in Kansas City there was a harsh reminder that no one would have wanted to think about when the R.A. Dickey trade was made, putting the finishing touch on what had already been a remarkable makeover.
There is the possibility that the whole thing just might not work at all.
For the first largely crappy nine games of the season, that was kind of the sub-current that lingered behind every analysis of every short-coming in this hastily arranged pennant contender.
Through nine games in which the Blue Jays couldn’t hit, couldn’t field and couldn’t pitch – seriously, how did they win three games again? – that was the bogeyman lurking in the dark psyche of every fan, whether they wanted to admit it or not; that things would keep going wrong and the Blue Jays would make like the Florida Marlins or the Philadelphia Phillies or whoever else that simply did not get it done despite talent on paper.
But one of the main reasons to stay optimistic through the first two weeks has been the revelation that is Jose Reyes. In that short space of time, he’s worked his way into the hearts of the average Jays fan as easily as Roberto Alomar did two decades ago. It’s been about that long since Toronto has had a player with a comparable level of talent who plays the game with similar all-around style.
Reyes was on base Friday night after slapping a two-out, two-run single into centre field. It extended his hitting streak to 10 games and he entered the game hitting .412. The stolen base was his fifth in five tries. He was playing the game as advertised.
“He’s not only a terrific teammate and one of the most gifted players I’ve ever been around,” Blue Jays starter R.A. Dickey wrote of Reyes in his autobiography, in reference to his then teammate with the New York Mets. “His exuberance and energy are unmatched and so is his ability to win games with his bat, his glove and his legs.”
Reyes was just beginning to demonstrate all of those aspects, and they shone like a beacon at the top of the order as proof that eventually everything would right itself and the Blue Jays would perform the way everyone hoped.
But there may have been some fate tempting. Was it really necessary for Reyes to steal second with the Blue Jays leading 8-4 in the sixth? Would it have been necessary if Blue Jays third base coach Luis Rivera tried to score Adam Lind from first on a double by Mark DeRosa? It was the second bad send in as many days, following Melky Cabrera getting thrown out at the plate on Thursday in Detroit. And what was Reyes thinking on that weird, half-hearted slide anyway?
First, Ricky Romero couldn’t find his game in Spring Training and then Brett Lawrie misses the last two weeks of Spring Training and likely the first three weeks of April with a tweak to his side.
Then the starting pitching makes the case that they should all be joining Romero in Dunedin to find their collective mojos, and run producers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion start the year a combined 10-for-66.
At least R.A. Dickey – who doesn’t have an ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow – won’t need Tommy John surgery ever.
Reyes’ injury doesn’t automatically sound the death knell for a season that hadn’t even found its legs. A team good enough to win a World Series should be good enough to withstand an injury to any single player.
But it does mark the end of any possibility that that the season of unprecedented promise won’t have its share of tears too.
We got that out of the way early.