Artwork courtesy of storyboard artist Ed Chee.
View more of his work at http://www.edwardchee.com
“There’s nothing wrong with this team that a nice little winning streak won’t fix”
–Blue Jays’ Manager John Gibbons, in far too many post-game press conferences throughout the 2016 regular season.
Well, how about six straight wins in October? In fact, how about ten straight? Fourteen straight? How about never losing again in 2016? Well, that’s just crazy talk.
But isn’t this starting to feel like a team of destiny? They needed to win their last two games of the season against the Red Sox at Fenway, when the Sox still had something to play for, just to get into the post-season. They needed to win the Wild Card game against Baltimore, and needed to go to the eleventh inning before Ed-wing’s parrot took flight and chased the Orioles out of town. They needed to start fast and finish strong in the ALDS, so that they could rest their weary bones for a few days. They have done everything they needed to do.
Not even the most devoted and optimistic of Toronto baseball fans could have foreseen the achievement of these first six October do-or-die matchups, a streak that came to fruition last night thanks to the courage and talent of Josh Donaldson and Roberto Osuna, both of whom overcame pain and fatigue to rise to the occasion on the most demanding stage in sport, the major league baseball playoffs.
And who among us would ever have guessed the role that the hidden hand of karma might play in the defeat of this very talented but fatally star-crossed band of Rangers from Texas?
Consider that Roughned Odor had supposedly restored his team’s “pride” last May by clocking Jose Bautista in a brawl precipitated by Texas’ need for revenge over the ending of last year’s ALDS. And consider that it was Elvis Andrus, whose defensive meltdown in the infamous seventh inning of game five last year was the real cause of the Rangers’ elimination by the Blue Jays, who earlier tonight seemed to have redeemed himself, with his homer off Aaron Sanchez that cut the Jays’ early lead to one.
Consider, then, that it was this Texas keystone combo, Andrus and Odor, who were sadly at the heart of the messed up play that sent the Rangers home. In the fateful tenth inning it was Andrus who missed the better play on Donaldson at third base (thanks to Gregg Zaun for noticing this) and rushed a poor feed to Odor at second in an ill-advised attempt to pull off an inning-ending double play. And it was Odor who took that feed and unwisely unloaded a bad throw to first baseman Mitch Moreland that allowed Josh Donaldson to race then fly the last five yards home with the series-winning run.
But let us dwell not on the karma, but the courage, because for the Toronto fan, whether watching in Etobicoke, Okotoks, Kelowna, or Iqaluit, this is not a tale of bitter defeat, but of thrilling victory.
First, Josh Donaldson. Josh, who has been playing with a painful hip injury, plus other unspecified injuries, for the latter part of the season. In a quotation that at the same time characterizes the combative and competitive nature of the Jays’ third baseman, and exposes the droll disingenuousness of Manager John Gibbons, Gibbie, when asked what else was bothering Donaldson beside the hip, responded, “I don’t know. He won’t tell me.” Josh, who had suffered through arguably his worst month at the plate of his two-year Blue Jay career in September, not coincidentally the same month that the Jays had swooned to their worst monthly record of the year.
Yes, it was that Josh who went three for five tonight, even though before the tenth his was a curious on-again, off-again performance. It was his awkward, lunging strikeout by Colby Lewis in the first that was sandwiched between Zeke Carrera’s leadoff single and Edwin Encarnacion’s heart-stopping two-run homer that put us on the board and neutralized the small-ball run the Rangers had scored without benefit of a hit in the first off Aaron Sanchez.
Then his ground-rule double in the third scored Carrera, on second with his second solid base hit and a steal. This run crucial because Andrus’ homer in the top of the third off Sanchez, the Rangers’ first hit, had halved the lead Encarnacion had created in the first. Yet, it was hardly vintage Donaldson firepower: he reached for a slider down in the zone and lifted a slicing fly toward the right field line. Nomar Mazara made a valiant sliding effort to get to it as it hit just inside the line and spun away from him, bouncing into the stands. This drove Lewis from the game. Donaldson then scored a fifth run on Edwin’s single to centre that followed off Tony Barnette.
In the fifth Donaldson singled to right, but behind the pitch again, and moved to second when Edwin was walked. He died there when Jose Bautista grounded into a double play. In the seventh, with the Rangers now in the lead, the Jays were best positioned to come back, with their three super-sluggers due up. But Josh was fanned by Keone Kela leading off. Encarnacion and Bautista then weakly elevated pitches from Kela for a quick one-two-three inning for the young fireballer.
But it was in the tenth that Donaldson finally melded his undeniable competitiveness with a real power stroke. The excellent but hard-nosed thirty-year-old rookie Texas reliever Matt Bush had stormed through six straight Jays’ hitters in the eighth and ninth innings, striking out four on only 22 pitches, the loudest contact being a lazy fly ball to left by Darwin Barney. But in the bottom of the tenth, Bush tried to sneak a curve ball past Josh on an 0-1 pitch, down and in but still in the strike zone. Donaldson inside-outed it enough to drive it into right centre. Though the play turned out not to be close, Donaldson stormed into second with a furious dive, with no regard for his hip or other sore spots.
It should be noted with a tip of the cap here that Bush, who took the loss that ended the Rangers’ season, in two and a third innings gave up only the one hit to Donaldson. The Rangers once again elected to put Edwin Encarnacion on to set up the double play and face Jose Bautista instead. The portents were there for a moment of supreme Shakespearean drama: Bush, who had hit Bautista with the pitch back in May that had started the ruckus that ended with The Punch, facing Bautista, who had initiated all the resentment that had festered for the last year, with his death-dealing three-run homer and the subsequent defiant bat flip. Bush won the controntation this time, blowing Bautista away with a 98 mph fast ball on a three-two count. The world, at least the world that lives and dies with baseball, let out its breath with a whoosh.
But it was only the first out, and the last one the Rangers recorded in 2016. Russell Martin, the quintessential composed veteran, was the next challenge for Bush, and if Bush was going to face down Martin, he would do it with his best pitch. He threw eight straight four-seam fast balls to Martin, ranging in speed from 97.3 to 99 mph. Martin fell into the hole at 1-2 while swinging for the fence. Bush missed with two, taking the count to full. Martin fouled off the next two, the second last pitch he saw clocking in at 99. On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Bush’s 42nd of the game, the most he has ever thrown for the Rangers this year, Martin managed to make contact and keep the ball in fair territory, the ground ball that the Rangers needed.
But it was a slow hopper to Andrus’ right. Andrus picked it, turned away from third and a possible force on Donaldson, threw the ball to Odor’s feet at second, Odor tried to reach down, pivot and throw as Encarnacion thundered into the bag with a hard but legal slide, his throw pulled Mitch Moreland off the bag at first, the ball dribbled off Moreland’s glove, Josh saw a chance, a really small one, and broke for the plate. Moreland recovered but his throw was off so that Rangers’ catcher Jonathan Lucroy had to go get it and come back. Donaldson dove fearlessly—what injury?—past a lunging Lucroy, swept the plate with his hand, and the festivities began, albeit only tentatively, until the New York review umpires had waved away Rangers’ manager Jeff Bannister’s inevitable but futile appeal, which it turned out was filed only to verify that Donaldson had touched the plate.
Thus the courage of Josh Donaldson on this night. Who could possibly equal what he gave to his team’s victory? Only a preternaturally calm and focussed twenty-one-year-old baseball lifer, a veteran before he was dry behind the ears, a young man who with his family’s approval bet his entire future on the chance of striking lightning and rising from a humble and mundane existence in Mexico to make his fortune in the bright lights of the baseball world. If Josh Donaldson could ignore the pain that had been hobbling him for so much of the last month and rise to the occasion, Roberto Osuna was no less heroic in shrugging off shoulder stiffness to shut down the Rangers, creating the possibility of a decisive tenth for his team.
As we all remember Osuna had been pulled from the Wild Card Game in the tenth inning. He had come in for the ninth in the tie game, and retired Mannie Machado on a comebacker and fanned Mark Trumbo and Matt Wieters. Being in the do-or-die situation, Gibbie sent him back out for the tenth, and he retired Chris Davis on an easy fly to right, but then something was up. Edwin Encarnacion came over and spoke with him, and signalled to the dugout.. The manager with the trainer George Poulis went out and spoke with Osuna. They returned to the dugout with him in tow as Blue Jay World looked on in distress. Luckily for the Jays the survival of their season was placed in the capable hands of Francisco Liriano, who completed Osuna’s task for him and secured the win.
But joy over the team’s advancement to the LDS with Texas was certainly tempered with concern over Osuna’s condition, which was said to involve “shoulder stiffness”. It would be a Pyrrhic victory indeed for Toronto to advance to play Texas stripped of their redoubtable closer, especially in light of the previous loss of Joaquin Benoit.
That the first game of the LDS series with Texas was a blowout was a great boon to worries about the condition not only of Roberto Osuna but the bullpen in general. Jose Bautista’s three-run homer in the ninth that extended the Toronto lead to 10-0 at the time, combined with Marco Estrada’s brilliant eight and a third innings of work, meant that all that was needed from the bullpen was two outs, ably secured by Ryan Tepera on seven pitches.
Friday afternoon’s game was another kettle of fish altogether. And, as the game moved into its later innings and Gibbie, forced to cover for Jay Happ’s abbreviated five-inning start, chewed through his A-list relievers, the question hovered, what would happen if the Rangers closed the 5-1 gap and created a save situation? Was Osuna available? If so, would it be the full-on Osuna, or less, perhaps at risk of further damage?
The eighth inning brought things to a head. Brett Cecil and Jason Grilli had both been used to finish the seventh, as Joe Biagini couldn’t quite complete the two innings that were needed following Happ. After his great work in the Wild Card, Francisco Liriano was the obvious call for the eighth, with the added bonus that as a starter he could easily do two innings again. Except that the back of his head got in the way of a Carlos Gomez screamer through the box which scored Texas’ second run, and the bullpen was down another important arm: obviously Liriano would fall under the concussion protocol, with its automatic processes.
Even though Osuna had been warming up, there was no certainty that he was able to take the ball until he actually came in to the game. A grounder to short by Ian Desmond plated the Rangers’ third run, but Gomez then moved up to second when one of Osuna’s nasty sinkers got away from Russell Martin. This set up an epic confrontation with Carlos Beltran, hitting with Texas’ fourth run at second base. Osuna won that face-off by striking out Beltran. After taking a ball, Beltran fouled off three fast balls and a slider, took a changeup for a ball and a 2-2 count, and then mightily swung and missed at a slider that dropped off the table.
In one of those supreme ironies that so often happen in baseball, Melvin Upton, inserted in left field for defensive purposes in the ninth, misplayed a deep fly by Adrian Beltre into a leadoff double. Upton shied away as he approached the wall, much like Desmond had pulled up on the ball hit by Troy Tulowitzki in game one. So Osuna got to work with the fourth run at second base again. No one else reached base. Dramatically, he fanned Roughned Odor, induced a pop fly from Jonathan Lucroy, and got Mitch Moreland to hit an easy fly to Kevin Pillar in centre to end the game. We worried about Osuna’s condition; yet he threw 31 pitches to get five outs and the save.
Tonight, John Gibbons had to face perhaps the hardest decision of his career as a manager. After the Jays tied the game in the bottom of the sixth on a very tough passed ball charged to Lucroy, Keone Kela had escaped further damage with the help of Nomar Mazara in right field running down Carrera’s drive into the corner. Kela breezed the seventh and then Matt Bush came in and breezed the eighth. In the meantime, after giving up the Moreland double (almost caught by Pillar) that had put Texas temporarily in the lead, Biagini was able to close out the sixth and pitch a clean seventh with two strikeouts. Jason Grilli and Brett Cecil set the Rangers down in order in the eighth.
As is his habit in a tie game, with the zeros mounting on the scoreboard, Gibbie turned to Osuna for the ninth. This wasn’t a tough call. Despite the heavy load two nights before on Friday, he figured on getting one inning out of Osuna, and, as usual, was hoping that the Jays would pull it out in the ninth and relieve him of a harder decision. Osuna’s ninth was perfect, and short: two foul popups and a grounder to second, Osuna covering, on eight pitches.
But the Jays were at the wrong end of the order, and unless they got some effective table-setting from Pillar, Barney, and Carrera, a tenth inning would happen. Bush was too much for Toronto’s eight/nine/one, though, with a strikeout, a short fly to left, and a popup to the shortstop behind second. Bush had retired six in a row on 22 pitches, and now Gibbie was in trouble.
Remaining in his bullpen were Aaron Loup, who’d only be used for a one-out matchup, Danny Barnes, the rookie who’d been added when Liriano went down with the concussion, Ryan Tepera, and Scott Feldman, who seems to have been relegated to long man in a blowout role. The manager could roll the dice with one of the three right-handers for the tenth, and hope they might hold the Rangers. But given the futility of the Jays’s hitters so far against Bush, who would only be replaced by Sam Dyson, there was no telling how many innings they might have to hold.
Or he could lay it all on the line with Osuna, risking all for the sake of keeping the game tied so that the meat of his order could win it in the bottom of the tenth and end the series on the spot. But risking all meant more than this game: if he used Osuna, and the Rangers eventually won, he would have to plan game four’s pitching with not only Osuna but all of his remaining high leverage relievers unavailable.
The manager decided to roll the dice with Osuna, and it paid off in spades. The young bull—when he is shown in closeup taking the sign from the catcher, I’m continually astonished by how his shoulders fill the screen—struck out Jeremy Hoying, who had taken over in right from Mazara. He struck out Carlos Gomez. Ian Desmond flied out to Pillar in centre. Two innings, 22 pitches, 2 strikeouts, and for the second time in two games, in three days’ time, Roberto Osuna had stifled the Rangers beyond one inning of work. If the Blue Jays could pull out the series win right now, the young closer and his mates would benefit from five days of rest before the beginning of the ALCS.
And that’s exactly how it worked out. Josh Donaldson led off the bottom of the tenth with his booming double to right centre, and you know the rest of the story.
I’ve chosen to examine in detail the end of the story, the confluence of karma and courage that brought the Toronto team through to the promised land of the ALCS, and I’ve done so at the expense of the whole rest of the game, so let’s look at the salient points that brought us to the end-game drama.
With all the hype and build-up, it would have been almost too much to ask of Aasron Sanchez that he coolly shut down a Rangers team waiting to break out, and though he battled them all the way, he was, it seemed, over-pumped, too strong, however you want to put it. His fast balls really moved. His breaking balls really moved. When he got into situations where he had to throw a strike, he had to back off so much that he was vulnerable to the long ball. But in the first he walked Carlos Gomez to lead off the game, and Gomez came around to score without benefit of a base hit.
Unlike Sanchez, Colby Lewis pretty well pitched to the projection. That is to say, he pitched two innings and gave up five runs on five hits, two of which were first inning homers. He walked Carrera to lead off the game, struck out Donaldson, and Encarnacion smoked him into the second deck in left in the blink of an eye. He caught Jose Bautista looking, but Russell Martin lined a 1-0 pitch into the bullpen, and the Jays had turned the Texas lead into a two-run deficit.
Sanchez had his only shutdown inning in the second, still hadn’t given up a hit, and had his first strikeout on a vicious curve ball that Mitch Moreland couldn’t touch. Hopes were high for his settling in and pitching a gem, with a two-run lead in the bank.
Lewis matched Sanchez in the bottom of the second and it looked like the pattern was set for a close, low-scoring affair.
At least until Elvis Andrus led off the third with a homer to left, cutting the Jays’ lead to 3-2. But again Sanchez steadied and retired the side in order. It looked all good when Toronto rang up two more in the bottom of the third, and chased Lewis from the game. They combined the Carrera single and stolen base, the Donaldson ground rule double for the first run, and the Encarnacion single to centre off reliever Tony Barnette, who ended up retiring the Jays in order and stranding Edwin at first.
Any bettor would like the odds with Sanchez on the mound and a 5-2 lead after three, but strange things happen in the playoffs, and if things work out according to plan it’s more of a surprise than if they don’t. Sanchez walked Beltran leading off the fourth, got the ground ball from Adrian Beltre to force Beltran at second, but with no chance of a double play. And that brought up Roughned Odor, who after a quiet two and a half games finally found a way to make some noise, and crushed a liner to centre that just kept going. As usual, Pillar turned and raced for the wall, but then just slowed down, shoulders sagging, as it cleared the wall. It was now 5-4, and nerve endings were starting to buzz all over the city. Not to mention that Odor’s shot took a lot of the fervour out of the hearty booing he’d been receiving since the lineups were announced. . . .
As for the home team’s chances of extending the lead, they took quite a dip when Jeff Bannister brought in the soft-tossing Alex Claudio to pitch the fourth. Claudio had been very effective in shutting Toronto down in Game One after they’d jumped out to the big lead. Even after walking Michael Saunders, he got a double-play ball out of Darwin Barney, and only needed eight pitches for the inning.
After Sanchez showed flashes of the brilliance that might have been by fanning Mazara, Gomez, and Desmond, Claudio got one more out before giving up the base hit to Donaldson. Bannister wasn’t giving anyone much rope in this must-win game, so he brought in Jeremy Jeffress, who’s given him some very good outings this year, and who was briefly a Blue Jay. Jeffress walked Encarnacion, but Bautista grounded into a double play, Jeffress throwing only seven pitches to finish off Claudio’s fifth.
Sanchez seemed on a roll when he picked up his fifth and six outs in a row in the top of the sixth, but then he hit the wall, or at least Gibbie thought he had hit the wall. He walked Odor and gave up a hit to Jonathan Lucroy and that was it for his day. The call went out for the reliable Joe Biagini to face the left-handed Mitch Moreland. We might point to trust issues that Gibbie has with certain pitchers. He still had Aaron Loup available for a matchup, and could have gone to Biagini in the seventh if Loup had gotten Moreland out. But Biagini it was, and after fouling off a slider, Moreland got the better of the big rookie, going with a fastball low and away, driving it into left-centre field. Kevin Pillar, pulled around to right, got on his horse, and as we watched him and the ball converge, we hoped, expected, even, another miracle from Superman, and almost got it. But the ball was hit just that much too hard, and too far out of range. It ticked off the end of Pillar’s outstretched glove, Moreland had a double, and Texas had the lead.
But not for long. With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Troy Tulowitzki dropped a fly ball single into right, and that took Jeffress out of the game and brought in Jake Diekman to face Michael Saunders. In turn, Melvin Upton was sent up to hit for Saunders. Upton lashed the first pitch from Diekman into the left-field corner for a double, with Tulo stopping at third. Kevin Pillar was walked intentionally to fill the bases, and Kela came in to face Darwin Barney, whom he popped up in foul territory. But with Zeke Carrera at the plate Kela threw a wild one that ticked off Lucroy’s glove for a rather harshly scored passed ball. Tulo scored and the other runners moved up. Then Mazara made that fine catch on Carrera in right to preserve the tie.
So the Jays benefitted from an overthrown pitch from Keone Kela, still only 23 yet under the spotlight in the LDS for the second year in a row, to tie the score. This led to the bullpen standoff that ended in the tenth with Osuna’s lights-out pitching and Donaldson’s mad dash to the plate, completing the LDS sweep for Toronto.
Even diehard Blue Jays’ fans might have some sympathy for the Rangers as a team, which played so well the entire year yet exited the playoffs in such an ignominious fashion. And it would be hard to gloat over the misfortunes of players like Elvis Andrus, Cole Hamels, and Jonathan Lucroy, who turned in such good seasons only to come up short. Even Roughned Odor might come in for a share of sympathy. Might. A small share. A tiny share, really. Well, maybe not.
But the story of this 2016 ALDS sweep is written largely on the bruised limbs of its true stars, Roberto Osuna and Josh Donaldson. The ALCS begins Friday night in Cleveland, which eliminated Boston Monday evening while we digested our Turkey and reflected on an unbeaten October. In the meantime, let the healing begin!
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