View from the Cheap Seats is an extension of the newsroom, which is frequently a site of heated debate on topics ranging from the extremely serious to the utterly ridiculous. This web edition features the views of print edition columnists Thom Barker (Wednesday) and Calvin Daniels (Friday), as well as web exclusive content by Devin Wilger (Thursday).
This week: How do you feel about the Blue Jays run for the post season?
Sometimes I think I might get a little too involved in professional sports.
Take the Blue Jays. After such a fantastic run last year winning the American League East, but disappointingly missing out on the World Series, I didn’t hold out much hope for 2016.
Beginning the year paper, the team did not look that promising on paper. We had our bats back, Donaldson, Encarnacion and Bautista and a solid defensive core with Tulowitski, Pillar and Russel Martin sticking around, but the starting pitching was a bit suspect and the bullpen perhaps more so.
April seemed to bear out that out with a starting record of 11-14. May and June though, were pretty good. Hope started to filter in. By the All-Star break we had a marginally winning record. Starting pitching was over-performing, the bats underperforming, but we were pretty solid.
August was stellar. Excitement built as the Jays looked like they could repeat their pennant run. By September 1 we were two games up on Boston.
Then the crash came. September was abysmal. I blamed over-tinkering with the pitching staff, the batting order, why the hell was Gibbons trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.
Going into the final series at Fenway, futility reared its ugly head. It looked like they might not even get a wildcard berth.
It all came together though, the final two games squeeking by Boston at home, the walk-off three run homer in extra- innings to end Baltimore’s postseason dreams and the unlikely sweep of the best team in the American League to advance to the ALCS.
I rode the roller coaster hard this year. Even with the two-game lead in the division series against Texas, the emotional drain of watching those Jays hitters swinging for the fences in extra innings when all they needed was a little base hit to cash Donaldson was almost too much to take.
And it’s not over. Now comes the really hard part, potentially seven nerve-wracking games against Boston or Cleveland. Dare we dream?
Sometimes I think I get a little too emotionally involved in professional sports.
-Thom Barker
Good for them
I don’t watch baseball. While I have memories of the Blue Jays’ famous ‘90s back to back World Series runs, I also didn’t watch baseball then and any celebration I may have done was in response to other people I knew who were excited. This latest championship run feels roughly the same as it did back then, in that I see a bunch of people getting excited about a sport I have no intention of watching. I’m happy about it, because it’s something that makes other people I know happy.
This year, I have politely nodded as excited people have told me about great plays or players. It was nice to see my brother-in-law help a bunch of old folks at a nursing home tune into the game over Thanksgiving, he made their evening. It’s nice to see a pile of blue when I turn to my right or left while in the office, even though I’m not going to join them in their jubilations, because the people wearing it are clearly very happy about what’s going on. If this run gets more kids into the sport, it’ll be good for local ball programs and good for the kids themselves, since they’ll have a sport to play and a way to stay active. Since they are the Canadian team, when they do well it can only mean good things for Canadian fans of the sport.
I hope this run continues, not because I have any interest in watching, but because everyone else is enjoying it.
-Devin Wilger
The roller coaster ride which has been the Toronto Blue Jays this season hit a definite high point Sunday as they swept Texas out of the playoffs to advance to the American League Championship.
After last year, when the Jays flirted with a World Series berth anything less than an ALCS spot this season would have been a failure in the minds of most given that the team is largely the same as it was in 2015.
But it has not been easy road.
In June, I was among those thinking that they needed to blow out the veterans and plan for a rebuild around good young arms on the mound.
Then the team went on a run, and they looked poised to win the always tough American League East.
That dream evaporated in the mist of a brutal September where the Jays faltered to the point a wild card spot was in doubt until two end of the season wins secured Toronto home field in the one game playoff with Baltimore.
The Jays won that one with a dramatic walk-off hone run by Edwin Encarnacion.
Against Texas the Jay bats were on fire, although in game three it required a wild pitch for the Jays to tie the game, and then a brutal throwing error by Rougned Odor, infamous for punching Jose Bautista in an altercation earlier this year, to score Josh Donaldson for the sweep.
Through the last two regular season games, and four playoff match-ups, everything has been working on the Jays. The bats are hitting home runs, which has been their long term approach to winning, the starting pitching giving them innings and generally the lead, and the bullpen while often maligned this season, is holding the line.
If the pieces hold a serious run at an ALCS title in the upcoming final should not be too much to expect, and would keep fans on the high side of the roller coaster ride.
- Calvin Daniels
