Playoff baseball is something so very special and after waiting 22 years for its return to Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays and its nation of fans experienced just about everything a team could in its five-game roller-coaster win over the Texas Rangers.
For starters, the Jays became only the third team in MLB history to come back after losing the first two games at home to win a best-of-five series.
The Jays came back in Game 5 on Wednesday at Rogers Centre in a 53-minute seventh inning from a controversial 3–2 deficit—courtesy of the correct interpretation of an obscure rule—to take a 6–3 lead off Jose Bautista’s three-run homer.
“I’ve seen Jose do that all year,” manager John Gibbons told Fox Sports after the game. “He has the knack of doing something big at the right time.”
Bautista called it “the most emotionally charged game I’ve ever played,” in an on-field interview with Fox Sports after the game.
“Words can’t describe the feelings that are inside me right now,” said Russell Martin, whose controversial error in the seventh gave Texas the lead.
The Jays have given Canadian sports fans a team to unite around, and for both team and fans, battling adversity drew them together even more, enabling them to achieve bigger things or realize greater joy.
Digging a Hole
After losing the first two games, the Jays admitted a better team had beaten them. That they ended the regular season losing four out of five games—for the first time since early July—probably didn’t help either.
“They outplayed us both games,” said Gibbons on Friday, Oct. 9. “They outlasted us,” he said referring to the tough 14-inning loss in Game 2. The longer a game goes, the more painful it is to lose and Game 2 was the longest playoff game in franchise history.
What could have gone wrong for the Jays was going wrong. Pitching ace David Price was impeccable since joining Toronto (9–1 record), but he took the loss in Game 1, after 10 days rest.
