TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays send ace Hyun-Jin Ryu – the centrepiece of their off-season rotation overhaul – to the mound at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field on Thursday with a chance to clinch their first playoff spot since 2016.
A 14-1 thumping of Masahiro Tanaka and the New York Yankees on Wednesday cut their magic number to one, as victories by the Los Angeles Angels and Seattle Mariners pushed celebrations back at least one more day.
While the Blue Jays (29-27) can do no worse than finishing in a tie for the eighth and final post-season spot, that does them nothing, as they would lose a tiebreaker to both the Angels, who are 3.5 games back, and the Mariners, who are four off the pace.
The first tiebreaker is intra-division record, and for the Blue Jays to end up in a tie with Seattle, they’d have to lose out, leaving them 19-21 versus the AL East. The Mariners, meanwhile, would need to win out, ending up at 22-18 against the AL West.
The Angels are already finished in the division at 19-21, so if they finished level, they’d go to the second tiebreaker, which is record in the last 20 divisional games. In that scenario, the Blue Jays would be 8-12 to 12-8 for Los Angeles.
Ryu, of course, can make all that academic with a good outing in the type of game the Blue Jays had envisioned when they anted up $80 million over four years to lure over the Korean lefty.
Such a scenario seemed beyond unlikely for a team that learned a week before opening day that it could not play at its Rogers Centre home due to the pandemic border closure, had plans to play in Pittsburgh and Baltimore shot down by state governments, and settled for games at their triple-A field the morning the season started.
Then, after a two-week road trip, a pair of losses Aug. 16 to the Tampa Bay Rays left the Blue Jays at 7-11. Combine that with a Bo Bichette knee injury, and their campaign could easily have been cooked. Instead, they reeled off a six-game win streak to kick off a 19-9 run that propelled them to this point, and what looks like a first-round matchup with their nemesis Rays.
“The biggest thing that we’ve had is chemistry,” said Cavan Biggio, who scored three times on Wednesday, including the game’s first run, and drove in a pair during an eight-run sixth that pushed this one out of reach. “We’ve been a tight group of guys this whole time. I mean, you can make it as bad as it is, or as good as you want. Going into our situation, not being able to play in Toronto and coming to Buffalo, playing on the road for the first couple of weeks, we could have easily looked at it as if, our backs are against the wall, it’s OK if we don’t win this year, it’s kind of a crazy year.
“The way we took it is we’re here for each of us in the locker room and it’s shown over the longevity of this long year with injuries and guys going down, guys stepping in and picking it right up. There’s just a lot of tight-knit guys here on this team and it’s made it a lot of fun.”
Robbie Ray allowed only an unearned run in four innings of work, but left with a 5-1 lead after allowing the first two batters to reach in the fifth. A.J. Cole took over, walked Aaron Judge to load the bases before striking out Giancarlo Stanton, popping up Luke Voit and getting a weak flyout from Gleyber Torres.
By that point the Blue Jays had worn out Tanaka, getting the first of two Danny Jansen home runs and a two-out RBI single from Randal Grichuk in the fourth to open up the lead. They then blew the doors open in the sixth, as they continued to trade blowout victories with the Yankees.
Ross Stripling locked down the final four innings, allowing only one hit to earn the save, leaving the Blue Jays on the cusp.
“I’m very proud of my team,” manager Charlie Montoyo said before the game. “To be in this position at this time, having a chance to clinch a playoff spot, it’s great. Nobody expected us to be here at this moment. You can feel the vibe in there. They feel it. This is a great experience, that they’re going through this, they’ve never gone through this before and it’s just a great experience.”
