Every game is must-win for the Blue Jays after a bevy of Bronx bombs leaves them a game out of a wild-card spot

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This article was published 30/09/2021 (1495 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just put “must-win” on the tape loop.

Déjà-vuW. Déjà-vuW. Déjà-vuW.

The rest is ephemeral calculus.

Three out of three — on the balance of probabilities, as the lawyers say — is what the Blue Jays will need to float their wild-card boat, keep it afloat, with the Yankees shuffling out and the Orioles rotating in on the final weekend of the regular campaign. (Mixed metaphors but it’s been a long season.)

More mashing of the American League standings: Technically, Toronto still has a rosary-clicking shot at tying for the first wild-card spot currently occupied by the Pinstripes, believe it or not. Vatican-proof-required miracle matter but mathematically possible. Otherwise, in the wild-card pileup, as of the stroke of midnight Friday after New York wrung out the Jays 6-2, Baltimore dumped the Red Sox 6-2 and Seattle enjoyed (as if) the night off, the Jays were a game back of Boston and the Mariners, with three games to go for each team. The Jays trail the Yankees by three, with Tampa Bay up there in the division champion ether.

You need three eyeballs to keep track of events.

So, ride this razor’s edge chute-the-chute for a while longer. Thursday’s outcome resolved nothing in the quicksilver cluster. But the encounter at Rogers Centre did intensify all the feels — every play, every at-bat, every pitch, every review laden with significance and consequence. There might not be much baseball left in Toronto circa 2021 — at worst; we’re just whistling by the graveyard here — but it will be portentous.

How was the wind blowing Thursday night, ballpark split open to the autumn sky? From the north, purportedly, according to the official weather report. But the ball, she was flying the other way, over the outfield wall, thrice in a four-run sixth, including back-to-back jacks from Anthony Rizzo and Aaron Judge (his second round-tripper of the evening).

That wiped out a fragile but hard-earned 2-1 lead for Toronto. And, after retiring the previous 13 hitters he had faced, starter Robbie Ray, his face wrinkled in disbelief, was told to hit the shower. The guy had allowed only four hits and all of them left the park — 1,234 feet of homers.

It seemed like the blink of an eye, actually, for the Jays’ fortunes to go all switchback reversed, as their ace walked to the dugout, to a semi standing ovation, an acknowledgment of what he’s done for this team this year. Because it had really come out of nowhere, this 2021 dominance, with Ray and Gerrit Cole going mano a mano for the Cy Young, and both damaged their bona fides on back-to-back nights.

“It was a great atmosphere,” Ray said of the fans. “They brought the noise the whole night.”

Manager Charlie Montoyo was eerily prescient, even if he didn’t mean it that way,– with his pre-game bum-tap for the big tight-pantalooned lefty: “It’s not going to be easy for Robbie but we have a chance because he’s on the mound.”

Making his 32nd start, Ray took the bump leading the league in ERA and strikeouts — and immediately racked up K No. 245. Then he elicited an easy ground-ball out from Rizzo. Which brought Judge to the plate for the first time. And KAPOW, just below the videoboard, 114.6 mph off the bat on a first-pitch fastball.

That caught the breath of a near sellout (pandemic restricted style) crowd of 29,659. But way early strokes, right? And Ray quickly found his footing, holding the Bronx Bombers at bay with generally faster-slider ease. A couple of fly ball outs were gathered in at the wall, true — enough to catch alarm in the throat of spectators — but there were tremendous catches by Randal Grichuk and George Springer, the latter having a second straight fine night afield.

That’s a lineup, however, the Yankees, as Montoyo had stressed, that can’t ever be underestimated, as shown by their flattening of Toronto on Tuesday, and very nearly rebounding for a win on Wednesday, averted by Bo Bichette’s eighth inning four-bagger.

But there was no lights-out oomph in the Jays bats on this evening, no whomp-stomp adding to their majors-leading home run numbers. And the Jays don’t much look like the Jays when they fail to go long.

Again Bichette got his team in the groove, with a second inning leadoff single off starter Corey Kluber. He stole second, then brought Toronto 1-1 level by scoring on Corey Dickerson’s double, a shot down the line that clattered around in the right field corner.

Footnote from the Toronto third: Marcus Semien’s career 1,000th hit.

A ton of Jays’ work went into the fifth inning, seemed like, plus a bit of good joss, yet still it resulted in only more run on the board: a second single for Springer, the ball in and out of the glove of a leaping Gio Urshela, then Semien hit into an apparent double play. Except, upon review, that was ruled a fielder’s choice, Springer out and Semien on first.

When Vladimir Guerrero stepped into a pitch from Kluber, barrelling it to the wall — somehow off the padded top of the fence and into the glove of Brett Gardner, for a double — Semien was streaking around the bases, scoring from first and putting Toronto on top 2-1. Knocked Kluber out of the game too.

“It’s a game of inches,” observed Montoyo of what was a weird non-home run for Guerrero. “For some reason, it didn’t go out.”

In any event, no lead is safe with the Yankees. As, indeed, is also the case for Toronto, with all those booming bats.

The fateful sixth went with Ray fielding the first out, then, yikes, homer-homer-walk-homer and a summons from the bullpen for Trevor Richards.

“They got to him,” Montoyo allowed, of his starter’s manhandling that frame.

What had been a lively audience, if struck quite dumb by that sixth inning disaster, shook itself back to lively and loud attention, in particular entertained by a two-frame outing from Nate Pearson that featured a 100-mph strike and a 102-mph strike.

In the bottom of the eighth, Bichette once more put some wind in Toronto’s sails with a double, his 28th on the season. But he was stranded there.

Montoyo said he hadn’t talked to his players before the game, that they didn’t need either a lecture or a pep speech from him. “Oh no, they’re good to go. There’s no talk. We’re good. They feel great.”

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Afterwards, he could only take refuge in clichés.

“Just one game a time.”

This game was gut-punch loss. But unlike the punch to the gut that killed Houdini, not necessarily fatal.

The Jays might yet have some great escape tricks left to play.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno