FITTING END: Jays drop finale,
> RAYS 7 > BLUE JAYS 6
Blue Jays president Paul Beeston shared some gallows humour with GM Alex Anthopoulos before Sunday’s season finale.
“You wanted to play meaningful games in September,” Beeston joked. “Well, this is a meaningful game — just not for us.”
If you’re not laughing, as they say, you’re crying.
And there has been plenty to cry about in this hugely disappointing season, marked as it was by injuries and underperformance.
After all the off-season hubbub — adding more than $40 million to the payroll and selling off a host of the organization’s most prized prospects to acquire a bushel of former all-stars — all the Jays have to show for their trouble is a one-win improvement on their record from a year ago.
What’s worse, Henderson Alvarez — one of the young pitchers the Jays sent to Miami in that 12-player blockbuster in November — threw a no-hitter for the Marlins on Sunday. Salt, meet wound.
But despite the season-long letdown, the Jays at least managed to make Sunday’s season finale interesting, pushing the Tampa Bay Rays to the brink with a late-game rally in front of a lively Rogers Centre crowd announced at 44,551.
After taking the first two games of the series to make Sunday a must-win for Tampa, the Jays made their division rivals sweat until the final frame, even after falling behind 6-0 in the first inning.
With their season on the line, the Rays came out hacking in the first, driving Jays starter Todd Redmond from the game before he could even make his third out.
But the Toronto bullpen — a strength all season long — took over, with seven pitchers combining to carry the torch the rest of the way and set the stage for the dramatic near-comeback.
The Jays scored six runs in the sixth through eighth innings to draw within one, loading the bases in the seventh and eighth and putting the tying run aboard in each of the final three frames.
“It’s tough to walk away from the game, but at least I can walk away . . . still enjoying the game and have a pretty good life afterward.” DARREN OLIVER RETIRING JAYS RELIEVER
While the Rays bent, they never broke, saving their season — they’ll play the Rangers on Monday in a tiebreaker for the second AL wild card — with a clutch seventh-inning double play by ex-Jay Yunel Escobar and a key bases-loaded, inning-ending strikeout by closer Fernando Rodney in the eighth.
The stress got to Rays manager Joe Maddon, though, who earned his fifth ejection of the season in the seventh, just before Escobar’s season-saving play.
The game also marked the final outing of Darren Oliver’s career. The veteran reliever, who sits fourth among active pitchers with 766 games played, received an ovation from both dugouts as he trotted out of the ’pen to pitch the seventh.
“It probably won’t really hit me until after Christmas or January when I realize I don’t have to go out and start throwing, preparing for the season,” the 42-yearold southpaw said after the game.
Oliver, who owns a 4.51 ERA in 20 bigleague seasons, pitched a perfect inning to cap his career.
“Longevity in this business is hard to come by,” Jays manager John Gibbons said of Oliver. “To do it for that long and be effective . . . that speaks volumes.”
For Oliver’s part, he said he’s looking forward to more golf.
“Definitely it’s tough to walk away from the game, but at least I can walk away, being almost 43 and still having a good time, still enjoying the game and have a pretty good life afterward.”