BLUE JAYS BACK IN THE SERIES
Toronto Blue Jays’ Troy Tulowitzki watches his three-RBI double against the Kansas City Royals during the sixth inning in Game 5 of baseball’s American League Championship Series on Wednesday in Toronto.
TORONTO — He was shaking on the inside, trying to take it all in, the noise, the emotion, the loudest, maybe proudest baseball experience of his lifetime, as Marco Estrada walked from the pitching mound to the dugout.
“It was electric,” said Dioner Navarro, Estrada’s personal catcher. “He was electric. The crowd was electric.
“He did a great job for us, for the city, for the organization, for everyone.”
The Blue Jays are alive, somewhat well, still trailing, and off to Kansas City for Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. The task remains daunting against this deep Royals team. But the pitcher who wasn’t supposed to be a starter for the Jays, and the catcher who was supposed to be traded, and the first baseman who was never supposed to make the team at all, Chris Colabello, got the Jays off to a fast start in Game 5, and in truth, Estrada never slowed down.
Where some of the big name pitchers of this postseason, the greatest in the sport — Clayton Kershaw, David Price, Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester — have been kicked around in the playoffs, the barely known Estrada was, to use Navarro’s word, “unbelievable.”
The Royals had scored 22 runs the previous two games: They got one off Estrada, three hits, and through seven commanding innings, he faced just 22 Kansas City hitters.
More than anything in a series where starting pitching has been wonky for the Jays, Estrada took the ball, located his fastball, pitched ahead of most batters, commanded the orchestra and was lights out, as always, with his change-up.
If the baseball world didn’t know him before this playoff season, they, like Navarro, know him now. The pitcher and catcher met in spring training, Estrada the apparent gopher ball pitcher having come from the Milwaukee Brewers in the deal for Adam Lind; Navarro, the backup to Russell Martin, whom the Blue Jays desperately tried to trade and couldn’t.
That’s what this team and this spectacular season has been about. Yes, it’s always about the big boppers, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion — and they scored four of the seven runs Wednesday night — but it’s about what Navarro calls “the other guys.
“It’s why I love this team,” said Navarro. “And I think it’s why this team is so loved. Did you listen to that crowd tonight? Have you heard anything like that?
“We couldn’t ask for anything better than that. The fans were unbelievable. This experience, you could see how much it meant (to Estrada), and you could see that Toronto is really proud of their team.”
How much does this all matter? It matters because so much of this is about finality. How this season ends. How far the Blue Jays go. They can’t provide any more drama or excitement. They have supplied that in full. In the dugout between innings, all Estrada and Navarro talked about was real estate — location, location location. “Same conversation every inning,” said Navarro.
But Estrada never allowed himself to get personal, to think that this could be his last start at the Rogers Centre, what could be the last Blue Jays start of this one special season. He won’t talk much about next year and his pending free agency but with the kind of season and post-season he’s delivered, the price is going up by the minute.
His battery-mate Navarro is also a free agent, but he says as a religious man God will tell him where to play next season. Maybe they’d like to stay as Blue Jays. Maybe they’d like to be a package somewhere else. But Estrada indicated there was already enough to think about without complicating this playoff season.
“That hasn’t crossed my mind at all,” he said, when asked if this might have been his last game as a Blue Jay. “It didn’t cross it in Texas when we were down 2-nothing. It hasn’t crossed it now. Why put something like that in my head. There’s no reason to.
“I keep telling myself you’ve got to go nine innings today, try to shut them out, give these guys a chance to win. That’s all that was going through my mind.”
But no matter what happens in Kansas City, no matter how this series ends, no matter where Estrada pitches in the future, he will never forget this outing in October, and in a city where being close seems a sporting refrain, this city will never forget what he managed to do in Game 5.
The noise and the ovation in the eighth inning, with two outs and manager John Gibbons out to take the ball from the starting pitcher, was all Estrada could hear in the end. He didn’t know what the manager said to him. He didn’t know what he said to the manager. On his way off the field, he tipped his cap, put his head down and allowed himself a crooked smile.
“It was an incredible feeling, walking off the mound,” he said. Incredible for him. Incredible for a city, a country, a baseball team still alive, not quite ready to let this series end.