Toronto Blue Jays: Heartbreaking end to season should provide motivation

The Toronto Blue Jays, unfortunately, saw their season come to an end but the disappointment comes from relying on other teams.

In the end, there was only so much the Toronto Blue Jays could do on the final day of the regular season in their last desperate effort to clinch a wild-card spot.

It’s not often a team wins 91 games, finishes with a +183 run differential and ends up being on the outside looking in. This is what happens when the fate of your season is put into the hands of teams that really didn’t have much to play for.

The Tampa Bay Rays had clinched the division long ago and the Washington Nationals were just trying to end a miserable season. Unfortunately, many Blue Jays fans were treated to an emotional rollercoaster ride that ended up being a massive punch in the gut when the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox came away victorious.

Missed opportunity amid career-best seasons from various contributors

When looking at everything the Blue Jays went through this season, it doesn’t feel good to know that Robbie Ray had a Cy Young worthy season while only costing $8 million. Even at $18 million, Marcus Semien was a steal given what he produced and of course, there was Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

This was a player flirting with a Triple Crown calibre season hitting 48 homer runs which were the most by a player 22-years-old and younger. He also showed that the shift to first base was the right move all along as he was a more than capable defender at the position.

If we are going to be simple about what went wrong, there are certainly many things to point to and an obvious one that has been mentioned constantly is how many games this team was forced to play away from Rogers Centre. Two things can be true, Toronto probably wouldn’t have sustained the 25-11 (.694 winning percentage as Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi mentioned) at Rogers Centre all season long but they would have done better than the 22-22 record they had in Buffalo and Dunedin.

It also doesn’t help that there were many winnable games that were thrown away from relievers that had not business pitching in high leverage scenarios.

There will be more question marks going forward but the Blue Jays front office should have learned a lot about where this team is going. The pressure is now on them to make sure this run can continue because there is no excuse why this team shouldn’t be in the playoffs next season.

We’ll have more on what the Blue Jays will need to do going into the offseason while also providing an end-of-season review by position.

What are your thoughts on how the Blue Jays season went? Can they overcome this disappointment and be a contender next season? Let us know in the comments below.