I've been pretty distracted today. Sure, I've been working, but I'm still riding high from the Toronto Blue Jays' amazing ALCS Game 7 win last night that has propelled them into the World Series. They're underdogs against the well-heeled LA Dodgers, but there's a reason they don't just award the championship to a team without playing the games.
The Jays' success this year has reinvigorated my interest in baseball. It had been waning in recent years thanks to lackluster Jays performances, culminating in 2024's horrendous last-place finish. Add to that my rapidly shrinking attention span, which made watching a full baseball game a very rare occurrence. I watched parts of the World Series last fall between the Dodgers and Yankees, but if you're not a fan of those teams, you tend to get sick of seeing them spending their way to success every season (moreso the Dodgers than the Yankees, who haven't won a title since 2009).
I paid more attention to hockey, which has always been my favorite sport, and football. But this season, after a slow start, the Jays started to play better and by midseason, were starting to make some noise in the AL East. I've been a subscriber to MLB.tv for years so I could watch Jays games and in June, I started paying closer attention to the team and actually watching full games. On Canada Day (July 1 for the uninitiated), the Jays beat the Yankees 12-5, with George Springer hitting a grand slam in the 7th to put the Jays ahead. They swept the four games in that series and took over first place in the division, which they managed to hold onto for the rest of the season.
The team was different than past editions. Even though they had stars like Springer, Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the Jays received contributions from players up and down the lineup and were winning in different ways. New hitting coach David Popkins helped them become a much tougher team at the plate, striking out less and wearing down pitchers. The pitching staff, while not flashy, was efficient and effective. At the trade deadline, the big acquisition was former Cy Young winner Shane Bieber (who was coming off Tommy John surgery) and high-leverage relievers Louis Varland and Seranthony Dominguez. Manager John Schneider ran the team calmly and confidently and the players seemed to have a closer bond than past editions.
In the East, the Jays were battling the Yankees and the Red Sox, who were also armed with strong pitching staffs and potent offenses. After a September swoon, the Jays finished the season with four straight wins, including a sweep of Tampa Bay, to hold onto first; they had the same record as New York but held the head-to-head tiebreaker.
That earned them a bye in the Wild Card round. Toronto played the Yankees in the best-of-5 AL Divisional Series and despite having a week off, their bats pounded the NY pitchers into submission. The Jays won the series 3-1 and played the Seattle Mariners in the AL Championship Series. The M's, who entered MLB in the same year as Toronto (1977) but had never been to the World Series, started strong by completely shutting down the Jays offense in the first two games on Toronto's home turf. But the Jays, led by their superstar Guerrero, went to Seattle and took two of three. They still came back to Toronto for game 6 trailing 3-2 in the series, but they won the last two games to win the right to play the Dodgers.
Game 7s are rare and important since they're do-or-die situations. The Jays had only been in one before, losing the 1985 ALCS to the Kansas City Royals. Last night's game didn't start much better, as Seattle's pitchers didn't allow much after the first inning and the M's held a 3-1 lead going into the 7th. But then the Jays were able to put runners on second and third for Springer, who was limping after getting hit in the kneecap by a 96-mph fastball in game 5. He then turned the game on its head by drilling a 1-0 pitch into the left field stands for a 4-3 Jays lead as the stadium exploded. One of the biggest homers in team history and the Jays made it hold up, with closer Jeff Hoffman striking out the side to finish the game in the 9th.
The Jays are now going to their first World Series since 1993, when they beat the Phillies on a walk-off 3-run homer by Joe Carter for their second consecutive championship. I was watching it by myself in my rented room in a house in Middleton. The Jays had a dominant team that season and I thought it would just keep going. I was 26 at the time. They didn't make the playoffs again until 2015! And now they're finally back in the World Series.
I know that given what's going on in the world right now, sports can seem pretty trivial to get worked up over. But I've always been a huge sports fan and dammit, it's a good distraction. I'm not getting overconfident about the Jays' chances against Shohei Ohtani (who they famously courted a few offseasons ago before he signed with LA) and crew, but I've seen stranger things happen. There have been plenty of major upsets over the years, so why not now? Hopefully I'll be in a good mood about this stuff in a week's time; game 1 of the World Series is Friday in Toronto (they actually had a better record than LA). Hope springs eternal!
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