TORONTO – In the lead-up to Game 1 of the wild-card series against the Seattle Mariners, George Springer pondered a question about what gave the Toronto Blue Jays an edge in October and called his team “unpredictable.” It wasn’t the first time he’d used the word as a descriptor in a complimentary context and it fits. Offensive outbursts in the blink of an eye. Damage from anywhere in the lineup. Gem from the starter. Defence stealing hits left and right. Some clever/breath-holding baserunning. With them, anything and everything is on the table.
That unpredictably cuts both ways, though, the way it most certainly did on a wild Saturday at Rogers Centre, when the Blue Jays’ season came to an end after they blew a seven-run lead in a gutting 10-9 loss that gave the Seattle Mariners a two-game sweep of their wild-card series.
J.P. Crawford tied the game 9-9 with a bases-loaded blooper that fell in between a diving George Springer and Bo Bichette, who tangled in a frightening collision, while Adam Frazier completed the remarkable rally with an RBI double off Jordan Romano in the top of the ninth.
After Andres Munoz, the nearly untouchable triple-digit throwing mutant, stranded Bichette at third to end the eighth, George Kirby closed out the ninth, completing a heartbreak complement to last year’s one-game short anguish for the Blue Jays.
Unpredictable, indeed.
Springer, playing hurt for months, banged up further by a hit by pitch on the left wrist Friday and a collision with the wall making a running catch Saturday, was carted off the field following the collision, urging the fans to make noise as he left. The star centre-fielder’s verve and resilience was reflective of his team throughout a topsy-turvy campaign that had parallels to the Gong Show finale.
A day after getting stymied by an absurdly filthy Luis Castillo during a 3-0 Game 1 loss the Blue Jays, along with a crowd of 47,156 either booing or slow-chanting his name, were on Robbie Ray from the hop. Teoscar Hernandez followed Alejandro Kirk’s leadoff double with a two-run shot in the second and after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. plated a Santiago Espinal double with a single in the third, the right-fielder ambushed a fastball from the lefty to open the fourth.
Bellowing fans really got after the defending American League Cy Young Award winner at that point as Scott Servais came to get him after just three-plus innings and the dome hit fever-pitch levels in the fifth when a four-spot – that included two hit-by-pitches – opened an 8-1 lead.
The Blue Jays should have cruised home from there but because they’re unpredictable, they didn’t. Kevin Gausman, dominant to that point, loaded the bases with none out, retired the next two batters and then handed the reins over to Tim Mayza.
Up came Carlos Santana, who won two games with late homers and drove in a total of six runs during Seattle’s four-game sweep of the Blue Jays in July, and after Mayza bounced his first pitch to bring home one run, the veteran switch-hitter hooked a down-and-away sinker over the wall in left to make it 8-5.
The drama only ratcheted up from there, even after Danny Jansen delivered an RBI single in the seventh – set up by a tremendous hustle play from Matt Chapman, who dove in to get a hand on the bag ahead of Penn Murfee’s foot for a single that put men on the corners – to pad the edge.
Fatefully, interim manager John Schneider went to Anthony Bass to begin the eighth and he went double, RBI single, single before Romano took over. After Frazier slashed a single to load the bases, Romano rallied to strike out Santana and Dylan Moore before the Crawford bloop.
The turnaround was all the more jarring because of how well the Blue Jays had started the game.
While Gausman came out hot, Ray was booed during the pre-game introductions and taunted with chants of “Rooobbbbiiieee” throughout his outing and a smart at-bat by Hernandez really got Rogers Centre rocking. Recognizing that Ray was going to try to get him with spin, he laid off three straight sliders and then, up 2-1 in the count, hammered a fourth 401 feet over the wall in left.
The Blue Jays piled on from there and in the fifth, after a Hernandez bases-loaded hit by pitch, Chapman sacrifice fly and Jansen RBI double, Whit Merrifield was hit on the helmet by Diego Castillo’s first pitch. Merrifield was understandably incensed, Schneider came out to talk it over with the umpires and after the fiery utilityman took his bag to load the bases, Espinal grounded out to short to end the frame.
Though it was 8-1 at the time, the Mariners rally followed. Manager Scott Servais said before the game that they discussed as a group to “expect the expected.”
“There are going to be some bumps in the road,” he continued. “There are going to be some momentum swings. I think if you’re prepared for that going into it, you recognize the situation and the moment in time you’re in, and you can slow it down a little bit better.”
The Mariners did just that.
