With a single well-aimed right cross to the jaw of Joe Bautista this spring, Rougned Odor achieved a level of villainy almost unprecedented in the Blue Jays’ recent history. Not noted as a slugger on the field or elsewhere, Odor moved up two weight classes to take on Bautista, staggering and, yes, embarrassing him.
With a single errant throw across to the right side of the infield in Game 3 of the ALDS, it was the Rangers’ second baseman’s turn to take it on the chin, figuratively anyway.
The Texas Rangers loss clearly hit Odor hard Sunday night. He was the last player to come into the clubhouse and his words weren’t quite whispered but close to it when he could find them to describe his disappointment.
“It’s hard to work like this and have the season end this way,” Odor said.
And the way it ended will occasionally enter Odor’s thoughts this off-season if not keep him up at night.
With the game tied 6-all, Edwin Encarnacion on first and Josh Donaldson second and with one out, Rangers reliever Matt Bush induced Russell Martin to ground the ball to short. Elvis Andrus fielded it easy and it looked like the Rangers were better than even money to turn a play with the catcher grinding down the first baseline. Andrus’s throw wasn’t quite on line and Odor had to pause on the pivot under the hard sliding Encarnacion. First baseman Mitch Moreland struggled to find the handle, the ball fell in the dirt and Donaldson rounded third and came all the way home, Moreland’s relay being a beat too late.
Booed fiercely with every plate appearance and touch of the ball, Odor bowed his head. It didn’t look like he held out much hope that his team was going to get any relief and a second out from the umpires and the video replay—he knew better than anyone that Encarnacion’s slide was strictly kosher.
When asked if he thought about holding on to the ball and not throwing over to first, Odor said that it never entered his head, even with Bush pitching lights-out in the erstwhile closer’s longest appearance of the year, two and two-thirds innings. “If it’s a good throw, I make a double play,” Odor said.
It was neither. It was E-4 and the Rangers will be cleaning out their stalls in a day or so.
Baseball life will move on and most of if not all of the rest of the game will be forgotten in time.
It should thus be noted that a very different story would have to be written if the Rangers had forced a fourth game in the series. Down 3-1 after an inning and 5-2 after three, Texas came back and took a 6-5 lead with the loudest and longest shot being Odor’s two-run homer to dead centre in the fourth inning.
That was no consolation afterward.
For the second straight year.
Andrus tried to put it in perspective. “I was the one who made the error last year,” said Andrus, who nervously fumbled away sure outs in Game 5 of the ALDS against the Jays. “I know how he feels. We play as a team, win or lose. The last thing I want to do is to point a finger. [I told him] that was the best you could do. As long as you give 100 percent and leave it all on the field, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Odor said that Andrus and others pulled him aside and tried to buoy his spirits. “This team is like a family and everybody tried to help me,” Odor said. “We left our heart out there.”
Odor insisted the Toronto’s fans’ jeering didn’t faze him during the game or after. “I’ve been playing like this in my country [Venezuela] and it’s one of the best teams … so I’ve been in that situation before. I don’t care that it’s the Blue Jays. It’s just another team.”
Maybe Odor is utterly sincere when he says that but the fact is, if Blue Jays’ fans could lay blame for their playoff rivals’ loss at the spikes of any player, it would be the little second baseman who threw a better punch in a brawl than a relay in a game for it all.