It was the moment they needed. Down two games, but back home in front of their famed raucous crowd. The past is prologue, and all that. If Blue Jays could score early and often—if they could finally find a solution to their sudden impotence at the plate—then those two games in Cleveland could be forgotten.
And in the bottom of the second, Captain Canada returned. Surely Michael Saunders’s solo shot to left off Dan Otero was more than just a home run. It was a swing that would change the course of the ALCS; the circumstances were falling back in the Blue Jays’ favour. So it seemed, at least for a moment.
It was Toronto’s first home run in the series, and it tied their scoring output in the first two games combined. For a team that lives and dies by the long ball, it felt long overdue.
The packed Dome roared, the fans alive and thirsty for blood. An inning earlier they’d hissed in macabre delight as Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer left the game with an open wound on his pinky after stitches from a recent drone-cleaning accident let loose.
The bizarre twist meant Cleveland would go to its bullpen early, and Saunders had gotten to them without delay. Surely a good sign. It had to be.
Saunders had been the hero of the first half of the Jays’ season, but fell on hard times after his turn as an MLB all-star. His position in left field was overtaken by Ezequiel Carrera in the post-season, and he was pushed into a role as a platoon outfielder and designated hitter.
Despite the demotion, it hadn’t been all bad for Saunders, who is a free agent after the season. He hit a huge double in the Wild Card game, which would then put him in position to score off a single from Carrera. That run, in the bottom of the fifth, tied the game with Baltimore, and ultimately set up the extra-innings three-run hero shot from Edwin Encarnacion that pushed Toronto into the ALDS. Facing Cleveland ace Corey Kluber as the DH in the first game of the ALCS, Saunders picked up two singles, but his teammates failed to advance him home.
For a flicker of time on Monday it felt like all of the enormous ups and standard downs of Saunders’s season—and don’t forget all of the work he’d put in after missing most of the 2015 season with a devastating knee injury—would culminate with the shot that sparked a final turnaround for the Blue Jays right when they needed it.
But there would be no glorious rallying point. There would be no momentum shift. The circumstances remained the same. Cleveland went through three more pitchers before finishing the Jays off with Cody Allen and the Kraken known as Andrew Miller. Toronto mustered just one more run, and fell 4–2.
The clubhouse was funereal after the loss. The 2004 Boston Red Sox are the only team to come back from a 3–0 deficit in a best-of-seven series. Thirty-four other teams have tried and failed, MLB writer Gregor Chisholm noted after the loss. The few players scattered near their lockers mostly just stared into their phones looking defeated while reporters shuffled around whispering so as not to disturb the wake.
It was a stark contrast to the celebration last week—with the champagne and cigars of the Jays’ ALDS sweep of the Texas Rangers. A couple empty bottles are still sitting around the clubhouse.
Nothing can be taken from that. Nothing should. That was then, this is now. October baseball is like that.
And it’s not over, of course. There were plenty of sad-faced quotes to remind us of that. It’s one game at a time now; an inning; an at-bat; a swing. Just a few fleeting moments left to change the story.