TORONTO — Trusting good process in the face of bad outcomes can be difficult enough when there are plenty of games left and time for results to normalize, let alone when the schedule’s end is nigh and a season of work is at stake each time out. As the pressure rises, there’s temptation to fidget and tweak in pursuit of an immediate result.
“That’s the thing, when it comes to these games, guys like to change what they do for some reason. When you’ve had success or not, whatever, I don’t see why you would change at all,” centre-fielder George Springer said in the Toronto Blue Jays dugout Wednesday afternoon. “You can’t play on emotion. You have to play on an even keel all night.”
Hours later, those very words were tested in a wild 6-5 victory over the New York Yankees that maintained their pathways to the post-season, settled on an eighth-inning Bo Bichette thunderbolt to right-centre field that was his second homer of the night.
The Blue Jays battered Gerrit Cole for a 4-0 lead while Jose Berrios dominated through 4.2 innings. Then the American League wild-card leaders, who had been riding a seven-game win streak, stormed back to tie the game 5-5 in the seventh.
As the Blue Jays’ playoff hopes teetered on the brink, Adam Cimber survived a 10-pitch duel with Anthony Rizzo in the top of the eighth, induced a weak grounder to the mound from Aaron Judge and then spiked pulses on a 107.9 m.p.h. Giancarlo Stanton rocket Springer chased down in centre.
That set the stage for Bichette, who shot a middle-in sinker from Clay Holmes over the wall to electrify a crowd of 29,601 that clamoured for a curtain call, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., pushing him out from the dugout to oblige.
Those fans, as loud and boisterous as any Toronto crowd since the playoff runs of 2015 and 2016, remained on their feet while Jordan Romano nailed things down in the ninth, capping a contest both exhilarating and exhausting.
“I was trying to hit a home run there, actually,” Bichette, in his endearingly candid manner, said of his pivotal swing. “Lucky I got it.”
Important to note that there’s a method behind the all-star shortstop’s swing-first, ask-questions-later approach, even if sometimes it doesn’t seem it. His aggressiveness makes him liable to attack pitches anywhere in or around the strike zone, but as he did against Holmes, he’s usually up there on the hunt.
“If you have a plan on how to hit the home run, it’s all good,” Bichette said of swinging for the fences. “If you’re kind of going up there mindlessly trying to hit it far, that’s probably not good. I was locked in on a sinker and I got it. And I was trying to do that to it, so it just worked out.”
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Bichette’s home runs were one of several ways the Blue Jays’ faith in process was rewarded Wednesday, a night after a 7-2 loss in which Rizzo tied the game on a nearly impossible-to-hit pitch from Hyun Jin Ryu and Stanton turned a Trevor Richards changeup heading toward the dirt into a back-breaking, three-run homer.
The win moved the Blue Jays (88-70) within two games of the Yankees (90-68) and kept them a game back of the Boston Red Sox (89-69), 6-0 winners at Baltimore. They remain a half-game behind the Seattle Mariners (89-70), who beat Oakland 4-2 to eliminate the Athletics from contention.
Robbie Ray, looking to bolster his Cy Young candidacy in his final outing of the season, gets the ball in the finale against Corey Kluber and a win will keep both the Yankees and Red Sox in range heading into the final weekend.
“Embracing it,” Bichette, who pumped his fists and shouted to his teammates as he rounded third on the eighth inning homer, said of handling the daily emotional swings. “This is what we dream of doing. I wouldn’t be playing baseball if it wasn’t for moments like this. This is why I work hard, why I do what I do. That can be said for a lot of us in here. This is an unbelievable opportunity we have and just going out there and giving it all we got.”
Bichette’s homers gave him 101 RBIs on the season, tied with Marcus Semien, who earlier in the game hit a two-run homer, his 44th, to establish a new single-season record for second basemen. Combined with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Tesocar Hernandez, they gave the Blue Jays four batters with 100 RBIs for the first time in franchise history.
Four times previous, the Blue Jays have had three players reach triple digits, most recently in 2015 when Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion did it.
“We’ve been putting up some serious numbers this year,” said Semien. “That wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t take care of our bodies and be out there every day. That’s something that’s really important. You’re able to put up both numbers when you’re available every single day. And that’s something that these guys are doing.”
Berrios set the tone by striking out the side in the first and then Springer, back at it as a catalyst, doubled on Cole’s first pitch. Semien promptly followed with his benchmark homer and Springer tacked on another run in the second with a base hit to cash in Santiago Espinal’s double.
Bichette went deep in the third to make it 4-0 while Berrios didn’t allow a hit until there were two out in the fifth, when Gleyber Torres sneaked a double just past Espinal down the left-field line. Gio Urshela bounced a base hit up the middle to bring him in and Brett Gardner followed with an RBI double to halve the Blue Jays lead.
Some good fortune came from more good process in the bottom half when Springer ran out what looked like a routine popper to left that dropped between Joey Gallo and Urshela. One batter later, Guerrero ended an 0-for-20 rut with a double that brought home his first run since Sept. 19.
But Berrios gave up one more run in the sixth on a Judge sacrifice fly, and the Yankees looked set to conjure more magic in the seventh, when Tim Mayza gave up a two-run single to Kyle Higashioka after the runners moved into scoring position on Luke Voit’s wild-pitch strikeout.
Cimber got D.J. LeMahieu to end the inning and then put up another zero to set the stage for Bichette.
“You’re playing a hot team, so I wasn’t surprised when they tied the game. I mean, they’re on fire,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “That’s what’s more impressive about this win.”
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The emotional waves only get bigger from here, as each game closer to the end matters more and more, and finding ways to ride them becomes more essential.
“It’s almost tougher to play at home sometimes because the crowd, the oohs and ahs during the ups and downs of the game, you can just feel it more at home,” said Semien. “But it’s also extremely exciting when you do something well and the fans are going crazy. Both teams have a lot to play for right now and it seems like every single pitch counts. That’s how I felt tonight.”
Tension, suspense and anxiety are all inherent to these games of consequence, which is why Springer, like others, stresses that this is the type of baseball teams want to play late in September. Once there, he feels it’s important to keep in mind the road travelled to this point.
“Don’t change your preparation, don’t really change what you do, just try to enjoy it,” he said. “Understand that we’re going to find ourselves in this situation again, hopefully, if it all goes well, and you’ll a little bit more of an understanding of how to navigate it.”
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