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The Toronto Blue Jays are now 23 innings into their return to the postseason, and to say that this isn’t exactly how they expected things to go would be a pretty massive understatement. The prohibitive favorites to advance to the World Series are now in a major 0-2 hole against the Texas Rangers. Instead of being able to enjoy dreams of reliving the days of Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar and John Olerud, they’re possibly one game away from having to reminisce on this past season while listening to sad Drake tunes.
If the Blue Jays expect to keep the dream alive, then they’ve definitely got an extremely tough road ahead of them. Since baseball permanently went to the divisional series format, there have been only two teams who bounced back to win the best-of-five series after losing the first two games at home (the 2012 Giants and the 2001 Yankees). The last time any team came back from a 2-0 deficit was back in 2003, which is when the Boston Red Sox were able to win three straight after dropping the first two to the Oakland A’s. So, it’s definitely possible that the Blue Jays could potentially dig themselves out of this hole, but we definitely can’t say that it’s probable.
That’s not to say that the Blue Jays are just going to lie down and accept their fate as being a divisional series loser after the great season that they’ve had. Toronto hasn’t lost three straight games since before the Trade Deadline, and even though it doesn’t mean too much right now, the Blue Jays did win 2-of-3 during their lone regular season visit to Arlington in 2015. However, just like the Blue Jays hadn’t lost three straight before the trade deadline, that series occurred before the Rangers finally found their groove, so this is still an extremely tough task for Toronto. It may not be over yet for the Great Canadian Hope, but things are definitely looking grim as they head down to the Lone Star State for the two of the most important games in recent franchise history.
- Meanwhile in Kansas City, the Royals avoided falling into similar hole as they were able to ride a sixth-inning rally to a 5-4 victory over the Astros.
- Adorable madman Colby Rasmus says that the event that prepared him the most for the postseason was his participation as a kid in the Little League World Series.
- It’s October and the Cardinals are involved, which means that they’re probably winning games. This is the case again, as they beat the Cubs 4-0 and picked up the first game of the series with relative ease.
- It’s October and Clayton Kershaw is involved, which means that the Dodgers are probably losing games with him starting. Although Kershaw pitched well, Jacob deGrom pitched better, and the Mets were able to pull away late to win 3-1.
- Although it’s just one game, are the Mets still in trouble because they can’t consistently beat good teams this season?
- With that being said, the Mets did a lot of damage at Dodger Stadium on Friday night. First, Lucas Duda knocked off a couple of letters on some signage at the stadium, then Daniel Murphy hit a ball so hard that he branded his name on the ball.
- During the 14th inning of the Blue Jays-Rangers game on Friday, Rougned Odor was involved in an extremely close play at second base. Was he out, or did the umps get the call correct?
- The Yankees’ season ended a few nights ago, and now it’s time to try to figure out what’s next for a team that defied plenty of odds in order to make the postseason.
- The qualifying offer for free agents this offseason has been set at $15.8 million, which is an increase of a half-million over last season.
- Pitching legend and Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez is so entertaining that he could make reading a grocery list seem exciting. He did just that on TBS’s studio show.
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