Matt Dionne | Sports and Health Editor
Featured image: From the basketball court to the baseball diamond, the Toronto-Cleveland rivalry continues. | Courtesy of Keith Allison (Flickr)
In June, the Toronto Raptors, during their best playoff run in franchise history, found themselves taking on the Cleveland Cavaliers for the right to play in the NBA finals.
Now, less than half a year later, the Toronto-Cleveland rivalry will be renewed, as the Blue Jays are set to take on the Indians in the 2016 American League Championship Series, or ALCS.
After dropping out of first in the AL East Division in September, the Jays weren’t even guaranteed a playoff spot, needing a win in their final game of the season to clinch a post-season berth. This was a far cry from the team that clinched the AL East title with four regular-season games still to play last season.
After beating division rival Baltimore in a walk-off wildcard game victory—emphasis on wild—Toronto made quick work of the Texas Rangers in the AL Division Series. They swept the Rangers in three games, setting all kinds of playoff records in the series and once again dominating the team they beat in dramatic fashion just a year ago.
The Jays and Rangers have fanned the flames of a heated rivalry during the last 12 months. The clash started in the 2015 ALDS and carried over to this season, and culminated in a massive brawl that saw plenty of suspensions.
It all started in the seventh inning of game five of the 2015 ALDS. It was an elimination game, and the teams were tied at two runs apiece in the seventh inning. Then the shit hit the fan. First, on a routine throw back to the pitcher, Jays catcher Russell Martin inadvertently glanced the ball off of the butt of Shin-Soo Choo’s bat. It rolled into the infield, and the Rangers’ Rougned Odor, who was on third, ran home. The umpires initially called the play dead, but after review they ruled it a live ball, and counted Odor’s run.
This launched the sell-out crowd at the Rogers Centre into a frenzy. They began to throw beer cans and other debris onto the field. The game was delayed for nearly 20 minutes as the umpires reviewed the call and tried to restore order.
After the controversial call was upheld, the Jays ended the top half of the inning and got their chance to answer offensively. The first Jay to bat was catcher and local superstar Martin. He opened the inning with a routine ground ball to shortstop, but the Texas infielder, Elvis Andrus, bobbled it, allowing Martin to safely reach first. Next, Kevin Pillar hit a ground ball to first. Rangers first baseman Mitch Moreland threw to Andrus, who again couldn’t handle the ball, and both Pillar and Martin made it on base. The Jays decided to replace Martin with a pinch runner, the speedy Dalton Pompey. Second baseman Ryan Goins then laid down a bunt in an attempt to advance Pompey to third. Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre threw to third, which was being covered by Andrus, who committed his third straight error to allow the Jays to load the bases.
At that point, the roof of Rogers Centre was in danger of being blown off by the cheers of rowdy Jays fans.
Ben Revere was the Jays’ next batter. He hit a ground ball to first, and Moreland threw home. The Rangers had a shot at a double play, but their catcher was taken out on a hard slide at the plate by Pompey, which kept the bases loaded. With one out, the next batter was 2015 AL MVP Josh Donaldson. Donaldson hit a short blooper to second that fooled Odor and found the turf, cashing in the tying run for the Jays. However, Revere was thrown out at second on the play, and the Jays were down to their final out of the inning.
The score was 3-3 with runners on first and third. Cue Jose Bautista.
The Jays’ iconic outfielder let the first two pitches go by, waiting for his pitch. He got it on the third pitch—say goodbye to the ball and your hearing. Bautista absolutely crushed it into the upper deck. He admired it sail into the seats before flipping his bat in front of the delirious crowd of 49,555.
That hit gave the Jays a 6-3 lead that they would hold onto, sending them to the ALCS.
Flash forward to May 2016. The Jays and Rangers were facing off in their final meeting of the season. In the 8th inning, presumably Bautista’s final at-bat against the Rangers for the year, Texas decided to get some revenge for his bat flip the previous October. 30-year-old rookie pitcher Matt Bush intentionally hit Bautista and sent him to first. On the next play, Jays’ first baseman Justin Smoak hit a ground ball to first, and Bautista slid hard into second. Rangers’ second baseman Odor dropped his arm in an attempt to throw the ball to first. He missed, but after Bautista got up from his slide, Odor landed a punch to Bautista’s jaw, causing a bench-clearing brawl that saw Pillar fly out of nowhere looking to fight Odor and anyone who got in the way of him and his target. Clearly, these two teams do not like each other.
After the Jays won the wildcard game and the Rangers finished with the best record in the AL, the two teams squared off in a rematch of the 2015 ALDS. Texas fans were quick to remind Bautista about his last trip to Arlington, sporting signs that said “Don’t mess with Texas and Odor” in the first game of the series. However, the Rangers were focused on throwing the wrong type of strikes, as the Jays crushed them in the first game in front of their home crowd by a score of 10-1, which was capped off by a Bautista three-run home run in the ninth.
The second game wasn’t any easier for the Rangers, as Toronto opened the scoring in the second inning courtesy of a two-run home run by Troy Tulowitzki. The Rangers were able to cut the lead in half in the fourth, but then the Jays offence exploded for three solo home runs in the fifth. That put the game out of reach for Texas and sent Toronto home with a two-game lead. This also put them on the cusp of returning to their second-straight ALCS.
Toronto had a chance to close out the Rangers in game three, and the roaring fans at Rogers Centre weren’t about to let the Rangers forget it. As the guy who threw the punch at Bautista, Odor was public enemy number one. He received the loudest boos and jeers of any Ranger, which occurred every time he stepped up to the plate.
Game three was much closer than the first two, as Texas refused to give up, despite facing 3-1 and 5-2 deficits early. Eventually, they fought their way back to within a single run. Then Odor hit a two-run home run, only Texas’ second home run of the series, to give the Rangers a 6-5 lead. Rogers Centre was silent, and fans began to get a sick feeling in the pit of their stomach, thinking about how the Blue Jays had been able to come back from two games down and win the 2015 series.
However, in the bottom of the inning, the Jays were able to answer after a wild pitch allowed Tulowitzki to trot home from third. Both teams’ pitching tightened up, and the next three innings were scoreless. For the second time in a Jays’ elimination game this post-season, extra innings were needed to close out the game. Toronto’s 21-year-old sophomore closer, Roberto Osuna, had finished the ninth without giving up a hit. He came back in the tenth and did the exact same thing, not allowing a single Ranger to reach base.
The Rangers stuck with Matt Bush in the tenth. He had already pitched two innings, and had never pitched three innings in one game all season. He was about to be tested by the first batter, the man the fans affectionately call the Bringer of Rain, Josh Donaldson.
Bush had been throwing heaters all night, topping out at 99 mph, and the Jays hadn’t been able to hit anything off of him. That is, they weren’t until Donaldson hit a double to the gap in center field, reaching second on an aggressive slide. Things didn’t get any easier for Bush, as the Jays next batter was Edwin ‘Edwing’ Encarnacion. The Rangers wanted no part of another Encarnacion walk-off, electing to intentionally walk him. This brought Bautista to the plate, and a chance for some sweet revenge against the team that sucker-punched him five months ago. However, Bautista was unable to put the Rangers away, as he went down swinging on a full count.
The next Jays batter was Martin. Earlier in the game, he had hit a solo home run, and he now had the opportunity to send his hometown team back to the ALCS. Instead, he hit a soft grounder to shortstop. It looked like the Jays had just ground into another inning-ending double play, but both Martin and Encarnacion, neither known for their speed, left everything on the field in a mad-dash to first and second. Encarnacion was thrown out at second, but his hard slide into the bag forced Odor to adjust his throw just enough to cause him to miss Moreland, who dropped the ball and allowed Martin to make it safely to first. The whole time, Donaldson, now on third, was waiting to see if Moreland would catch the ball. The second he dropped it, Donaldson took off for home.
“Once I saw him miss the pick, I felt like I had to take a chance right there,” said Donaldson. The Rangers’ first baseman made a desperate throw to the plate, but the catcher couldn’t handle it, and Donaldson was safely home for the second series walk-off victory for Toronto.
It was a fitting end for the Rangers, as the man responsible for punching one of the most iconic Blue Jays in team history was the one who cost his team a chance at extending their season. As one fan so eloquently put it, I’d rather be punched in May than knocked out in October.
The Jays have now opened the 2016 ALCS tomorrow in Cleveland, where they’ll look to get a little revenge for the Raptors and the 6ix.
