I got nothing up here. This song's an instrumental anyway.
This is possibly the very last game for the 2016 Blue Jays, so I
want to share something similar to what I was fully intending to write
around October 3rd, the day after the conclusion of the regular season.
Honestly,
it looks like the 2016 team was going to be one historically looked
upon with frustration, perhaps even disdain. This was a squad with so
many unexpected pleasant surprises going its way, such as Michael
Saunders' explosive first half, J.A. Happ's emergence as a top
lefthander in the entire game (J.A. Happ fer crissakes!), Marco Estrada
proving he's not a one season wonder, and a Rule 5 pick coming out of
nowhere against any expectation to become both a key bullpen piece and a
damn lovable dude.
They had all this going for them, the strongest
starting pitching by ERA in the whole American League (imagine how many
Toronto teams in the past 15 years would've killed for that?), and yet
they couldn't make it work. Though their overall numbers were strong,
the teams offense was truly a mirage of that performance. There were
just so many long spells where these legitimately great hitters scuffled
at the exact same time, resulting in tough loss after tough loss in
painfully winnable games.
These guys didn't have the magic of
the 2015 team. And well frankly, who does? That team went on such an
insane late season run that the playoffs didn't become a dream, it
became an inevitability. Maybe the 2016 version had that in their heads
the whole time, an overconfidence if you will. Overconfidence is
fantastic when you're a pitcher, it means you're not afraid to throw a
strike and make a mistake. It can and will backfire but the majority of
the time, that's a mighty fine thing to have on the mound. In the
batters box? Yeah that can be a great thing also, you want a batter who
isn't afraid of failure (because so much of hitting is precisely that very thing).
But these 2016 Blue Jays hitters for the most part took overconfidence
to a whole other level. They swung out of their shoes at so many pitches
not in their zone because they surely believed they were capable of hitting that
particular one a mile. That approach can work, and will get you big
cheers when you're hot, but when you're not you just look the fool
trying to pull a curveball six inches off the plate. Frankly, it was
insanely infuriating to watch game after game and I was indeed
negotiating with myself how harsh this end-of-the-season article was
going to be on this underachieving team, squandering the golden
opportunity before them considering their pair of surely departing free
agent sluggers.
Then the Wildcard game happened. And the parrot took a walk-off walk around the bases.
Then
the ALDS happened. And nemesis Texas took their sad dreams and their
sad little punch into another offseason wondering what just happened.
And this is what will make 2016 such a strange year in
Blue Jays history. A team at a crossroads, good but not great, with two
franchise icons halfway out the door, until an honest to
goodness playoff run happened. The problems they're having against the
Clevelands are the problems they've had all year: these bats are up and
down and there's really no in-between for them. 2015 was like asking the
girl or boy of your dreams out on a date and they kiss you to say yes --
2016 has been like that except some nights they're busy, other nights
it's an obvious lie to be polite to you, but then once in a while you
two go out and have a magnificent time. And then you wonder: "why can't
it be like this every single time?"
Why not indeed. It's Kluber (18-9, 3.14) v. Sanchez (15-2, 3.00), 4:07 ET first pitch.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20161018004510888