As the Baltimore Orioles jumped up and down like children in the infield, and Buck Showalter hugged each of his coaches in the dugout, and fireworks erupted in the distance as long strings of confetti shot orange and white rainbows in the air, the Toronto Blue Jays quietly, dejectedly filed out of the visitors’ dugout and out of their season.
It’s out of reach now, surely. The division belongs to Baltimore and when the dust settled on Tuesday night’s action the Blue Jays sat five games back of the second wild card spot with just 12 left to play. If Toronto can finish on an incredible hot streak, winning every single one of their remaining contests, they can get to 89 wins, the most since 1993 and sadly, painfully, all but certainly not enough.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Blue Jays held a six game lead on the Orioles when then woke up on June 7, with a record that was 12 games above .500 and an aura of hope that hadn’t been felt at Rogers Centre for quite some time. But they went 39-49 from that point on, while the Orioles went 61-31, laying waste to a division that no one thought would be theirs and rocketing 30 games above .500.
The Blue Jays were at least able to stay in the playoff picture until August, when untimely injuries, inconsistent pitching and frustrating underperformance at the plate united to bring about their demise. A brief September surge was a tantalizing mirage in the desert, as the club would’ve had to continue winning at an epic, unsustainable pace to force its way back into the dance.
Many will tell you they told you so, that they knew months ago this team was doomed. And fine, let them be petty and defecate all over everyone’s enjoyment like a petulant sibling throwing a tantrum at their older brother’s birthday party. They don’t understand that the fun part is the ride, through highs and lows, triumphs and defeats, regardless of where it ends up.
Many will tell you the fault lies with management or the coaching staff, calling for the firing of Alex Anthopoulos, John Gibbons, or both, their flesh presented to the fan base by the pound for the crime of leading Toronto to an above-.500 record for the first time in four years and September relevancy in who knows how long.
And fine, let them blame the no-nonsense manager who flawlessly walks the delicate, ego-inciting line of making tough roster decisions with regards to platoons and pinch-hitting—moves that can easily create unrest among professional athletes—while still maintaining the respect of his clubhouse.
And let them blame the general manger who rebuilt the team’s scouting department from the ground up, hoarded draft picks and prospects that made his farm system the talk of baseball, and finally cashed in with a pair of big trades two winters ago which were widely praised as timely and shrewd. His plan hasn’t worked out yet, but the plans of 29 other general mangers won’t work out this year either. At least Anthopoulos got his team this far.
And many will tell you that the fact Ubaldo Jimenez—one of the free agent pitchers Blue Jays fans lusted over during the winter only to see sign elsewhere — was the winning pitcher of record in Tuesday night’s defeat is somehow symbolic of the Blue Jays’ failures this season, specifically of a reticence to add to the rotation in an effort to push the team over the top.
And fine, let them be Baltimore fans and enjoy paying Jimenez $38.75 million over the next three years after he walked 70 batters in 114.1 innings, posted a 4.96 ERA and was worth almost a full win below replacement for the Orioles this year. Let them try to build teams through free agency, where over-payment is the rule and it’s next to impossible to return good value on your investment. Let them be fans of the New York Yankees if that’s what they would like to see.
What the Blue Jays saw on Tuesday night was another team celebrating the achievement they had been working since April to secure for themselves. To be fair, the only thing one can really be sure of when it comes to the lot in baseball life is that your team is bound to lose more often than not. Only 10 of 30 reach the postseason, and two of those teams get just one game apiece. The odds are not in your favour.
Take the Orioles, who won 70 games or fewer for six straight seasons starting in 2006. The Blue Jays, as listless as they’ve been in the post-World Series era, have only managed 70 wins or fewer twice since the strike-shortened 1994 season. Baltimore fans have suffered through far more inept baseball than Toronto faithful in recent history, a fact that shouldn’t necessarily make you feel better but maybe a bit more appreciative of what you’ve had. If your choice is between supporting an okay team or an awful team, you’re better off with the former.
But it’s understandably hard to hear that now. And also hard to hear the talk of next season, with its allure of a dangerous, young rotation featuring Drew Hutchison, Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez. With its possibility of a finally healthy Brett Lawrie and a rebuilt bullpen that can presumably only be better than this year’s group which has posted a 4.13 ERA and a sixth-worst-in-baseball 3.79 BB/9. With its promise of all-star campaigns from Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, two of the best hitters in the game finishing their primes.
It’s hard to hear that now because the team across the diamond is celebrating and the Blue Jays could only watch. They didn’t stick around long, but for a few minutes after the final out Colby Rasmus and Anthony Gose stood beside each other in the dugout, taking in the revelry—a telling tableau of two players at two very different points in their Blue Jays careers.
Rasmus is gone, first back home to Alabama for a much-needed reprieve from the game that seems to torture him endlessly, and then to another city and another ballclub where he’ll try once again to revive a once-promising career that has now floundered in both St. Louis and Toronto. Gose, meanwhile, is likely due for an increase in playing time next season, as he replaces Rasmus as one half of a centre field platoon with the relentlessly free-swinging Kevin Pillar, unless the Blue Jays can find a better option elsewhere.
Rasmus and Gose, the Blue Jays and Orioles—two players, and two teams, going in very different directions.
