The Toronto Blue Jays won’t go quietly.
They don’t have control of their own destiny, they’ll need help to even earn a shot at Game 163, and time is running out. But on Sunday, the Jays kept making noise and sustained their season for at least one more day. Mashing open a 10-1 victory, the Blue Jays positioned themselves for a final Sunday of scoreboard watching and must-win baseball.
“We don’t have the pressure," Vlad Guerrero Jr. said after the game. "The pressure is on them. We’re going to continue to go out there like since the beginning of the season, go out there play hard every day and we’ll see what happens.”
Saturday’s show started hours before game time. Bouncing to the Rogers Centre playlist and hovering around Toronto’s batting practice cage, a group of Blue Jays batters gasped as Vlad Guerrero Jr. sent bomb after bomb into deep left field.
They reached the second deck, then he started bouncing them into box suites above the ring of honor, and with Guerrero’s final swing of BP he mashed a baseball into the 500-level seats in left-center field. Two hours later, Guerrero brought his show to the main stage, spearheading back-to-back first-inning homers with a 450-foot blast against Baltimore starter John Means.
The Rogers Centre crowd popped when Guerrero opened the scoring, doubled down when Hernández followed him with a solo shot, and roared for each of the five Toronto homers that followed. Danny Jansen’s fifth-inning bomb was Toronto’s 258th homer of the season, setting a new franchise record.
The crowd also erupted for all 10 of Alek Manoah’s strikeouts, backstopping the lineup’s needed explosion for his biggest win of the season. Manoah’s one-hit outing put the likely cap on his rookie regular season, with the six-foot-six righty ending with 127 strikeouts in 20 starts. In Manoah’s final four starts he allowed just four total earned runs, lowering his season ERA to 3.22 and improving his record to 9-2.
“These games are huge for us," Manoah said. "They’re huge for our entire organization. And everybody kinda knows what’s at stake.”
The stadium filled with cheers, too, when the Rogers Centre video board showed the out-of-town scoreboard, a 12-2 Tampa Bay win over New York. Even with Saturday’s win, the Blue Jays are desperate for outside help, and the fans knew it.
Sunday Implications:
While Saturday’s Toronto win didn’t pull them any closer to postseason play, it blazed two clear paths. Heading into a season-defining Sunday with everything on the line, the Blue Jays sit a game back of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
“It’s October baseball," Manoah said. "And right now we’re trying to make a push.”
A Blue Jays win Sunday, finishing the sweep of the Orioles, is a requirement. With a win, Toronto can force a Game 163 with a Red Sox or Yankees loss.
Every game matters, but now there's only one left.
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