TORONTO – The potential for high-stakes drama at Fenway Park in the season’s final weekend has loomed ever since the 2016 schedule was released, and the moment of truth is nigh. But rather than gearing up for a winner takes the American League East clash against the Boston Red Sox, the Toronto Blue Jays instead limp into Beantown clinging to a wild-card spot they could have had sewn up by now, with three games remaining to settle their fate.
Thursday night’s 4-0 loss left them tied with the Baltimore Orioles atop the wild-card standings, with the Tigers, whose game against the Indians was postponed to Monday if necessary, now only 1.5 games off the pace. The Orioles are in New York to face the Yankees this weekend while Detroit is in Atlanta taking on the pitiful Braves, and the potential exists for a messy three-way tie at season’s end.
“Whatever the situation is I try to have a positive outlook,” said catcher Russell Martin. “We can look at it both ways, you can either be negative or positive. I choose to believe that we’re a resilient bunch of guys that aren’t going to let anything get in the way of what we want to accomplish.”
The Blue Jays, of course, can keep things from getting that far but they’ll need to deliver their best series of the month to make it happen. Marco Estrada starts against Cy Young Award candidate Rick Porcello on Friday, with J.A. Happ taking on Eduardo Rodriguez on Saturday and Aaron Sanchez set for David Price on Sunday, so they’ve got the right guys on the mound.
It’s all on them now.
“Obviously we’ve been through a lot, ups and downs, been doing it the whole year,” said shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. “It’s just going to be three games that we’ve pretty much been playing the whole year, so there’s no reason to get tight, have fun with it. Hey, I look at it this way: We’re either going to be good enough to get in or not, right? Just go out there and play, and try to have fun with it.”
Certainly they’ll need to be better at the plate than they were Thursday, when the revitalized Ubaldo Jimenez, a candidate to be designated for assignment six weeks ago, held them to a hit and three walks over 6.1 dominant innings. Things looked promising when the first two Blue Jays batters of the game reached in the first and Edwin Encarnacion advanced Ezequiel Carrera with a fly ball to put men on the corners with one out. But Jose Bautista struck out, Martin grounded out and they didn’t hint at a big inning again.
That made Marcus Stroman a hard-luck loser on a night he deserved better, logging seven innings to finish the regular season at 204 frames, while allowing four runs on nine hits and two walks.
“It’s cool but it’s not something I’m really thinking about right now,” Stroman said of reaching 200 innings. “That was one of the goals going into the year but at this point, you need to do everything you can to keep your team in the game to win and at the end of the day, I didn’t do that.”
A J.J. Hardy double in front of a diving Michael Saunders in right field started the third, Adam Jones advanced him and Manny Machado cashed him in with a fly ball to centre that opened the scoring. Another run crossed in the fourth when Josh Donaldson’s high throw to second on a Michael Bourn grounder prevented the possibility of an inning-ending double play.
The Orioles scratched out another run in the seventh when Bourn led off with a walk after a contested 2-2 pitch didn’t go his way, stole second and scored on Hyun Soo Kim’s two-out single. A Mark Trumbo hustle double and Matt Wieters RBI single in the eighth ended Stroman’s night.
A sell-out crowd of 47,791 – pushing the season total at Rogers Centre to 3,392,099, fifth-best in franchise history – was booing at that point. Fans left in stunned silence after Martin grounded out to end the game, standing Encarnacion at third base.
Encarnacion, like Bautista a free agent at season’s end, spent some time in the dugout afterwards taking in his surroundings.
“I was just thinking about the game we lost,” said Encarnacion. “I want to come back here again, one more time, I don’t want to leave here like that. I want to come back here to the playoffs and give everything I’ve got to the fans.”
Rain is in the forecast for all three days in Boston setting up the prospect of a long, gloomy weekend. If the Blue Jays don’t find their way, and quick, the gloom will linger well beyond Sunday’s season finale.