Skip to main content

For most of two months, everything that could go right for the Toronto Blue Jays did.

Then, when it really started to matter, everything seemed to go totally and bizarrely wrong. That included losing their two best players – Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista – to injury.

The team sounded certain Mr. Bautista (cramping) will return on Friday. It sounded less so about Mr. Donaldson, who took a knee in the head. You might get over losing one of those guys. But both of them? Don't even think about it.

After an 11-day layoff that he kept telling people wouldn't affect him, starter David Price was only mediocre. He took the loss in a 5-3 setback. Although he's one of the best in baseball, Mr. Price is becoming the Alex Rodriguez of postseason pitchers. He has yet to win a playoff game as a starter.

He's also trending the wrong way at a very wrong time. In seven games through August and into September, Mr. Price allowed only 11 runs. In the 12 innings since, he's given up 10.

Looking rattled and out of sorts, Mr. Price hit the same batter twice and gave up the winning home run to the No. 9 hitter.

"That's just baseball," he said. "If you don't like it, pitch better."

He's going to have to. Because despite all the early triumphalism and smug assessments of why the Jays matched up so well with Texas, they are fully in it now. Since the introduction of the five-game series, the winner of the first game takes the series about three-quarters of the time. Those are not good odds.

If it had just been a mediocre performance by Mr. Price, you'd say to yourself, "It's one game. We'll get 'em tomorrow."

Actually, that's pretty much exactly what they said. "We've lost some tough games and we don't lose many in a row, normally," manager John Gibbons said. "So it will be a good bounce-back day for us."

But it was more than admitting you'd been outplayed or outhustled. Unable to lean on their ace, Toronto was snakebitten.

It wasn't that the Jays performed poorly, as such. They just had no luck. Postseason baseball is often all about luck.

A case in point – the third inning. Mr. Price started things off by hitting Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor.

Mr. Odor moved to second on a groundout. With Delino DeShields batting, Toronto called a back-pick in an attempt to catch Mr. Odor drifting too far from the base.

As Ryan Goins broke for the bag, Mr. DeShields poked the ball directly where Mr. Goins had been standing. What should have been a routine groundout and, eventually, a runless inning, turned into a two-run disadvantage. It was a little thing. But at this time of year, every little thing is big.

What was going through your mind as you saw the ball going past you?

"That it sucked," Mr. Goins said.

That was a bummer. What happened to Mr. Donaldson is a still-incipient disaster. In the fourth inning, he slammed his head into Mr. Odor's knee during a hard slide into second. He lay writhing on the ground for a few moments. When he got up, he was noticeably wobbly.

Nonetheless, he was back out to play his position in the top of the fifth. But, according to Mr. Gibbons, he felt "light-headed" and was pulled as a "precautionary" measure.

When it came his turn to bat in the fifth, the crowd began their familiar "M-V-P" chant. Once they realized it wasn't Mr. Donaldson at the plate, but Ezequiel Carrera instead, they got very quiet. From that point on, they were never really loud again.

Clearly, Mr. Donaldson's removal isn't "precautionary." It's just cautionary, because the guy is displaying symptoms of an injury. The team said he'd passed a concussion test and would be evaluated again in the morning. As we've all learned over the past few years, a blow to the head has highly unpredictable outcomes.

Until he is listed in Friday's lineup card, a great deal is still hanging in the balance.

In the past three years, Mr. Donaldson has played in 474 of a possible 486 regular-season games. If the fates have chosen this moment to injure him, it won't just seem unfair. It'll feel like something larger than this team is rooting against it.

Having already lost its best player, Toronto's second best, Mr. Bautista, left in the ninth inning.

On the plus side, no one was hit by lightning. That's because – for reasons that remain obscure – the roof was shut on a beautiful fall afternoon. Officials blamed the closure on a small chance of rain.

As you watched Jays hitters knock balls to the warning track that might have been homers with the lid open and the air circulating, that rationale felt flimsy.

The commissioner's office decides whether the roof is open in the playoffs. And why exactly are we listening to this guy? What's he going to do if we just open the thing, as God meant it to be? Climb up to the catwalk and start pushing?

As Canadians, we've suffered through enough of the United States' enclosure imperialism. Rise up, people. Rise up and take the benefit of what little good weather is yours.

The closed roof seemed to take a little out of the crowd. They arrived early in full festive spirit, but there was something missing. Possibly Vitamin D.

When Texas took the lead, they got fidgety. Toronto never really looked like threatening. By the end, they sounded resigned. Given the way the day had gone, there was a pervasive feeling of just wanting it to end without any further mishaps.

It is only one game. If Mr. Donaldson and Mr. Bautista are back on Friday; if Marcus Stroman pitches well in his playoff debut; if the little things start breaking the home team's way, this will all be forgotten.

But until that happens, Torontonians will respond to this minor setback with their customary hair-pulling, garment-rending restraint.

They oughtn't strain themselves. The best/worst is still a ways off.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe