TORONTO – Maybe this was a springboard performance to better times, or maybe it was just a memorable ending to a really wild night amid the grind of 162. What the Toronto Blue Jays do next will ultimately decide that.
But a nearly impossible comeback in a game that went from lost to stirring to gutting to exhilarating after Marcus Semien’s walk-off three-run homer capped an unfathomable 11-10 win over the Oakland Athletics on Friday night sure felt like a moment.
At the beginning of a crucial seven-game stretch that may not make them, but certainly can break them, the Blue Jays emerged from their recent offensive cold spell to deliver their biggest rally of the season despite their win probability dropping all the way to 0.5 per cent.
Baseball is too unrelenting and the season too long to build up a single game. But given the stakes, the circumstances and the way things played out and this one definitely carried a little more weight.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Semien, whose second career walk-off homer gave him a career-best 34 for the year. “I mean, just being down 8-2 in the eighth inning, of course, you never think you’re out of it, but we did exactly what we needed to do to win that game. We needed a grand slam. We needed to get those guys in at the end and we actually got a homer. Baseball is a crazy game. For me, I feel like I wasn’t swinging the bat well the whole time. And sometimes you just find a little adjustment that works.”
That he did, working Sergio Romo through five pitches before turning on a centre-cut sinker at 84.8 m.p.h. that he launched high and deep to left field, triggering pandemonium at Rogers Centre. A crowd of 14,843 that had spent much of the night casting Josh Harrison as a heel before going berserk when Lourdes Gurriel Jr., hit a game-tying grand slam in the eighth inning, wet nuts again, while the Blue Jays mobbed him at home.
Semien had been 0-for-4 to that point and hadn’t looked particularly comfortable in getting there, but like his team flashed the resilience needed to ensure a night headed into moral victory territory ended in an actual victory. At 71-62, the Blue Jays can ill afford to continue their middling ways of the past month in this three-game set against the Athletics (74-61) before the four-game series at the New York Yankees that follows.
“It’s great to see the offence coming back and the way they did it, it was awesome,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “It was a great game and it’s a boost, for sure, to come back from that far down to tie the game and then after they came back and took the lead, we did it again, it was awesome. Awesome game.”
That it finished that way came as a shock given the way things started.
The Athletics jumped Manoah out of the gate with a two-spot in the first, and after a Teoscar Hernandez two-run shot tied it in the fourth – his first homer since Aug. 18 – the game unravelled on the rookie righty in a dramatic fifth that nearly bubbled over.
Harrison half-swung at the first 2-2 fastball Manoah threw up and in, grimacing as his bat handle flicked the ball towards the A’s dugout. Manoah threw his next pitch to almost the exact same spot, this time just grazing the veteran utilityman’s left hand.
Super mad, Harrison flipped his bat, flung off his hand guard and chirped Manoah as he made his way up the line. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., tried to diffuse the situation at first base, greeting his opponent with a smile and a swipe of his hat in a don’t-be-silly-you-can’t-be-super-mad way.
Harrison wasn’t having it and kept venting, and he got even angrier when on the very next pitch, Manoah unleashed a fastball at 92.1 m.p.h. that sailed into Starling Marte’s helmet.
As the centre-fielder crumpled to the ground, several players emerged from the Athletics dugout. Manoah immediately put his hands up in a my-bad way and the umpires alertly created a barrier between the clubs, even as A’s first base coach Mike Aldrete barked at Montoyo.
“The reason I went out there is just to make sure, ‘Hey man, we’re not hitting anybody on purpose, it’s a tight game,’ and to make sure that nothing happened,” explained Montoyo. “They said a few words but I get it, people get upset when one of your players gets hit in the head. That’s fine. … The one thing about Manoah, he’s going to hit guys because he pitches inside. It’s not on purpose. We all know it’s not on purpose. But he will hit guys once in a while just because he’s not afraid to go inside. And that’s one of the reasons he’s effective because he’s not afraid.”
Once frayed emotions settled and Marte recovered to take his base, Matt Olson made Manoah pay the right way by bringing in both hit batsmen with a two-run double that broke a 2-2 tie.
Tony Kemp knocked the starter out with a two-run shot the next frame and the A’s put up another pair against Nate Pearson in a messy seventh. The game seemed to be over at that point, with Manoah surrendering a career-high six runs for the second time.
“Whenever you hit somebody in the head, it’s pretty scary, it’s very dangerous and I felt really bad the moment it left my hand,” said Manoah, who has hit 11 batters in 15 starts. “I had some troubles with the mound early on where they came out there and tried to fix it. I was just trying to run that sinker in there and I’ve had this problem for a while now, and I felt really bad that I hit him in the earhole. I’m praying that he’s going to feel a lot better.”
Marte left the game after scoring on the Olson double.
Given the Blue Jays’ offensive struggles of late, the A’s seemed to be home and cooled, as Sean Manaea cruised through seven, allowing only the Hernandez homer while striking out nine.
Then Breyvic Valera opened the eighth inning with a walk and two outs later, Guerrero singled him home. A Lou Trivino breaking ball hit Bo Bichette in the back. Hernandez walked to load the bases and after Yusmeiro Petit took over, Alejandro Kirk worked another base on balls to make it 8-4. Up came Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who ambushed a lazy middle-in cutter and sent it 421 feet out to left-centre at 107.5 m.p.h. off the bat.
In the top of the ninth, closer Jordan Romano’s 11-game run without allowing a run came to an untimely end on Mark Canha’s two-run shot. But the Blue Jays didn’t let up against Romo, as Valera opened the bottom half with a bloop single, George Springer followed with a double and Semien delivered the dagger against his former team.
“Every win is so important right now and just to be able to swing the bat there and give us the win is huge,” said Semien. “Biggest at-bat of the year for me, obviously, and I hope that we can just build off this, score some more runs (Saturday) and see what happens.”
