The Comeback Died in Extras
Last year, the comeback was a personality. This year, it keeps arriving one inning too late.
The Blue Jays came back from 5-0.
That should be the story.
That should be the headline on the kitchen refrigerator, held up by the magnet shaped like a tiny baseball and whatever optimism survived April.
Down five runs to Tampa Bay, they did not fold. They did not drift through the final innings like men waiting for a delayed bus. They fought.
Jesús Sánchez doubled in the seventh.
George Springer singled.
Yohendrick Piñango doubled.
A chopper from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. turned into the tying run.
Five runs.
Tie game.
Noise in the building.
The kitchen stood up.
Then the Rays won 7-6 in ten innings.
There is a special kind of sadness in a comeback that does not finish.
It is not the clean grief of a lifeless loss.
It is worse.
It makes you believe first.
The seventh inning was real
That is the mean part.
The seventh inning was not fake hope. It was not a cheap run in a game already being placed in a cardboard box. It was a proper rally.
Bench bats came in and mattered.
The crowd got loud.
The Rays made mistakes.
The Jays forced the game back into the present tense.
For a few minutes, the whole thing felt like last year again, when Toronto could fall behind and still give the room that dangerous little feeling: wait, maybe.
That feeling is addictive.
That feeling is also apparently no longer under warranty.
The standings do not care about brave
The standings do not give extra credit for almost.
They do not place a little gold star beside a loss because the seventh inning had character.
They do not say, “Well, that was encouraging,” and move Toronto up the division out of respect for the effort.
A loss is a loss.
A division loss is worse.
A loss to Tampa Bay after coming all the way back from 5-0 is the kind that sits in the kitchen chair nobody uses and clears its throat all morning.
Almost comebacks are just losses that learned how to make eye contact.
The math is getting cruel
The Jays are 3-19 when trailing after six innings.
Three and nineteen.
They are 8-14 when the other team scores first.
This matters because they keep asking themselves to solve games late. They keep spending the first half of the night quietly digging a hole, then acting surprised when the ladder does not reach.
John Schneider said they are like marathon runners who need to become sprinters.
Correct.
Please sprint.
Please begin the game before the seventh inning. Please score before the kitchen starts making peace with the loss. Please stop treating early offence like a luxury feature.
The Rays are too good for delayed participation.
So is the rest of the division.
The official ruling from the kitchen
The comeback was impressive.
It was also incomplete.
That is the whole grief.
The Blue Jays showed fight, which matters.
They showed life, which matters.
They showed just enough offence to make the loss hurt properly.
Then the tenth inning arrived with the automatic runner, the drawn-in infield, the sacrifice fly, and the quiet little reminder that courage without the final run is still filed under defeat.
The kitchen newspaper acknowledges the rally.
It also declines to be comforted by it.
Last year, comebacks were wins.
This year, too many of them are just better-written losses.
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