TORONTO – In the happiest moment of his still-young career – remember, he was injured last post-season – Devon Travis went to what must surely now be the darkest of dark places for Toronto Blue Jays fans.
Life without Eddie.
“You know … I don’t even want to think about what it would be like to be in a clubhouse knowing that he is on the opposite side,” Travis said, shaking his head as Edwin Encarnacion walked past him en route to the interview room at Rogers Centre, goggles propped on his head and champagne bottle clutched in his hand.
You couldn’t plan this any better, Toronto. The Blue Jays couldn’t. Baseball couldn’t. Eddie or Jose Bautista couldn’t, either.
This is a city and a ballpark that has been more tense than fun for the past six weeks, in stark contrast to 2015 when the playoffs were all bright and shiny and new. The Blue Jays slogged their way through the cage match that is the American League East, settling for a one-game, winner-take-all nail-biter – which is a hell of a thing after 162 games.
And had the Rogers Centre roof not been open Tuesday night, Encarnacion’s game-winning, three-run blast would have lifted the damned thing off and deposited it into Lake Ontario.
If this is the start of a post-season run, so be it. But if the Blue Jays succumb to the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series or somebody else down the road and the business of baseball bites down hard this winter, at least we will have Oct. 4, 2016.
The last time Encarnacion boarded a plane to leave Toronto was a after series loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the final home game of the regular season. There was no goodbye for Encarnacion or Bautista, both of whom are potential free agents. So conclusive was the Orioles win and so silent the Blue Jays bats that many in the sell-out crowd had left before his final at-bat. There was no curtain call, no tribute.
Encarnacion sat in the dugout briefly after that loss, then admitted later in the clubhouse that it was no way to end a career in a city that was the site of a career rebirth. He became emotional, his voice cracking a bit, while Bautista was very much the opposite.
Now this.
This moment of magic that reinforces the idea that maybe we really can have nice things in Toronto. Encarnacion could not have been clearer Tuesday night in reiterating that he wants to stay in Toronto, which will give succor to those who have felt all along that he is the less mercenary of the team’s two free-agent-to-be sluggers.
How sweet was it to hear chants of “Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die” five or six minutes after his homer pierced straight through the heart of Buck Showalter.
There was a strange vibe to this game right from the start, when Bautista held court with what was one of his longest media scrums of the season. It was the damnedest thing you’ve ever seen: Every single, solitary question answered – albeit with that typical challenging edge, often prefaced with some version of, “I’m not sure I understand your question” – to the point where I swear to the baseball gods it seemed as if Bautista never wanted it to end.
Addressing the notion it might be his final game in a Blue Jays uniform – let alone in Toronto – Bautista smiled mischievously and said, “Let’s not make it the last game, how about that?”
The contractual status of the two Blue Jays cornerstones has been largely kept in the backdrop this season but Kevin Pillar admitted Tuesday that one of the things that has impressed him the most about Encarnacion was “his ability to focus with everything going on around him all year … like his contract. Everything.”
Toronto often eats up its franchise athletes, be they Blue Jay or Raptor or Maple Leaf, and once a player in any sport hits free agency all manner of agendas take over. What Tuesday night’s win ensured all of us is that if this really is goodbye – it doesn’t have to be, but if it is – then it’s going to be long and glorious.
It’s good that everybody wants to sign Encarnacion to a five-year deal right now – this minute, this morning, today. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s good to have it be that way. And you know what? At some point let’s also wonder whether or not John Gibbons deserves to have somebody move whatever lingering uncertainty there is over his job status with this new management group because he pulled the strings on his pitching staff with a deft touch that many doubtless believed was beyond him.
He took out Brett Cecil and Joe Biagini at the right time, he delayed going to Francisco Liriano until later in the game instead of bringing him in for Marcus Stroman and looked like a genius for doing so. In fact, instead of giving in to the panic of a sudden-death game, Gibbons managed like it was Game 163 of the regular season, using his bullpen normally until an injury to Roberto Osuna forced his hand.
The Blue Jays won the American League Wild Card in part because Gibbons stayed true to himself and his guys. No, check that: Not just his guys but our guys, too.
Still our guys, for at least a while longer.