TORONTO – Hey, Toronto Blue Jays, please complete the following sentence – clinching a post-season berth on an off-day is …
“… weird, but awesome,” said George Springer. “I mean, it just allows you to breathe a little bit, you know, allows you to say, well, we accomplished our goal. Yeah, obviously you might want to do it in a little bit of a different way, but at the end of the day, who cares? It’s awesome to say we’re going to the playoffs no matter what.”
“… well, clinching is great, but I would say not ideal,” said Bo Bichette. “It definitely felt weird not being with the team and not celebrating after the game. I mean, that’s part of it. When you’re young and you’re watching the people we watched, you’ve got the champagne showers and everything. We’ll get that opportunity (Friday). So, blessed either way.”
“… it didn’t happen because technically, we didn’t celebrate,” said Matt Chapman. “We’re celebrating (Friday). So clinching on an off day is not ideal, but manageable because we’re going to clinch (Friday).”
“… weird,” said Kevin Gausman. “In the moment, I really wished that we all would have been here and been able to watch it together. But either scenario would have been weird. If we would have came in, what if (the Baltimore Orioles) come back and win and then we all came in for no reason? So we just decided to wait until Friday.”
“… strange,” said Danny Jansen. “Kind of unfortunate, too. But we’re here now. It was a weird thing, for sure. It’s the first time in Blue Jays history. Probably doesn’t happen very often. It was a weird feeling for sure on the off-day.”
“… cool but a little weird, you know?” said Jordan Romano. “It’s definitely still special but I think it would’ve been a little better if all the boys were around and we were kind of in the moment. Still really cool. We’re all grateful for it. But yeah, a little different.”
“… odd,” said Tim Mayza. “Not your typical (way to clinch) a post-season berth. It’s different, but so were the last two, three years of Blue Jays baseball. You go back to the ’20 clinching and the guys who were there said it was weird. You had an empty stadium in Buffalo. And even last year, we didn’t get back here until August. Then you make a run at the end and you fall just one game short. So I would say for the past few years of Blue Jays baseball, maybe this is typical, that it would happen on and off-day. But it’s fun. It’s exciting.”
“… still clinching,” said David Phelps. “The most important thing isn’t the champagne celebration, the most important thing is that we’re headed to the playoffs. Yeah, obviously we would have loved it after a win and been together for it. But our goal is to get to the post-season and win the World Series and that’s stop one.”
“… easy – we didn’t play,” said interim manager John Schneider. “It was a little weird. You become a Boston Red Sox fan for about three hours and then you turn it off. But we knew that was a possibility and covered all of our bases, but definitely different. But no matter how you do it, doing it is the most important part.”
There was little debate about that on one of the more unique Friday’s in franchise history, as the Blue Jays returned to Rogers Centre with an ‘X’ by their name in the wild-card standings courtesy of a Orioles loss to the Boston Red Sox the previous afternoon.
Players were scattered in the city when the final out was recorded in Boston so rather than soaking each other with champagne and whooping it up as a group, they traded messages in an organizational text chat, knowing the party was planned for Friday night.
A game against the Red Sox, the same club that did them the solid a day earlier, was all that stood between them and the bubbly, with Alek Manoah on the mound against Nick Pivetta of Victoria.
“I woke up and I was ready to go,” said Gausman. “My mind was on my bullpen, but my bullpen’s over so now all I’m focused on is watching Manoah shove and then go pop some bottles. That’s all I’m thinking about.”
Manoah threw six innings of two-hit shutout ball, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. rocked his team-leading 31st homer of the season and Springer added a three-run shot to ensure the Blue Jays jumped into the party in style after a 9-0 thumping of the Red Sox.
Raimel Tapia also went deep and Bichette added two singles, giving him a club record for hits in a month at 48, before a Rogers Centre crowd of 37,283 that enjoyed stress-free festivities. Yusei Kikuchi picked up from Manoah and closed things out for a three-inning save, his first in the majors and second of his career after collecting with the Seibu Lions in 2012.
Some work still remains for the Blue Jays (88-69) over the final week, starting with locking down the top wild-card spot, which they held heading into Friday’s action by 1.5 games over the Seattle Mariners (85-70), who were home to Oakland, and two games over the Tampa Bay Rays (85-71), who were at Houston.
In case it matters, Manoah is lined up to pitch Wednesday’s season finale at Baltimore, but the Blue Jays want to have the top spot secured by then and not have to contemplate whether to start their ace in order to host the wild-card round.
“Home-field advantage is really important to us,” said Chapman. “So I think the mindset is still there. We can maybe take that sigh of relief when we get that home-field advantage. It’s awesome. Pressure is a little bit off us because we know we’re in the playoffs. We know we have a chance to play in October. But you still want to get the home-field advantage and that’s when I’ll feel satisfied.”
Manoah has now logged 196.2 innings over 31 starts with a 2.24 ERA, becoming one of the club’s most reliable arms. The Blue Jays are 18-13 when he starts.
Similarly important is figuring out if Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who did some running Friday as he works his way back from a left hamstring strain, and Santiago Espinal, who ramped up his baseball activities as he recovers from a left oblique strain, will be ready for the wild-card opener Oct. 7.
Their status will significantly impact how the post-season roster is constructed, while decisions on how to line up the rotation and how many relievers to carry also must be settled.
After Friday, five games remain to sort out those matters, which they can do knowing the heavy lifting is done and the achievement has been properly celebrated.
“Hard work. Perseverance. This is a long season. There are so many ups and downs. Every team has a goal to get to this spot initially. So you have to recognize it,” said Schneider. “Going through this, you understand how hard it is and you appreciate how hard guys play every day. And it’s just a really cool thing to acknowledge that.”
