The Depth Of The Heartbreak

This may never come for the Blue Jays again.

I know fans of the Mariners or Mets or Tigers or a host of other teams would scoff at the "wait" of 32 years for Blue Jays fans for their next World Series title. I honestly don't know what a "normal" rate of titles is for any fanbase. Is there one? Maybe two eras in a lifetime?

So as Game 7 did a lap dance on the Jays but then collected its tips and sauntered off, the devastation maybe wasn't as bad is it could have been with other teams. It was still immense, as unique of a Game 7 that we will see in just about any sport. Certainly in a championship round.

From the moment Miguel Rojas reached out and yanked that hanging slider through to the end, though I only had a slight preference to see the Jays win, even I could feel the weight of what was being lost. Because it doesn't feel like the Jays are ever going to get a better chance than that.

Look what happened around them before and during the season. Gerrit Cole got hurt and missed the whole season. They don't win the division without that. The Red Sox traded their best hitter while trying to juggle all their young players into a lineup that made any sense. The Rays didn't have any of their devil magic. The Orioles continued to choose to not un-fuck themselves, i.e. trading for any kind of pitching whatsoever. Outside the division, the Astros finally gave in. The Tigers or the Guardians still decided that paying for hitting is for nerds.

It's hard to see all of this replicating. Cole will be back next season, to join what looks to be a pretty imposing Yankees rotation. Though the offense might remain "Judge And The Rockettes." Maybe the Red Sox arc up, given their youth. Even the O's could sign, like, one starter.

On the Jays roster itself, George Springer returned from the dead. Is that going to be permanent at 36 years old? They likely will lose Bo Bichette in free agency, though whether he could stick at short long-term and just how much he brings is up to the viewer. Their rotation next season is Gausman, Yesevage, and fucked-if-I-know at the moment.

This isn't to say the Jays were lucky. When a team strikes out less than anyone, and yet still hits for more power than just about anyone, that's not luck. That's an approach that should sustain. The Mariners bullpen was good all season. The Jays bludgeoned it. Even without Cole, it's not like the Yankees were tossing a collection of bewildered weasels out on the mound. The Jays splattered their insides all over the walls of both Rogers Centre and The Boogie Down. There's a reason that Dave Roberts was terrified to let any of his relievers throw a pitch to a Jays hitter, unless he had no choice.

MLB has tried to eliminate this feeling. The reason World Series defeats or even LCS defeats felt so heavy is that return trips were never guaranteed, even for the biggest and best. The Red Sox blew the '86 World Series in something of the same fashion, and didn't see another one until for 18 years. Now, any team good enough to get far in the playoffs will almost certainly be good enough to at least be around the postseason the next. The next spin doesn't feel lost into the ether, like it used to.

But it still exists in the AL East. Four of the five teams have won it in the past five years, and all five in the past seven. While the Red Sox and Orioles (and maybe even the Yankees) could do more than they do to be better than they are, they're hardly balloon-handed. The Rays are cheap, but they also spasm 90-95 win teams out of nowhere on the reg, thanks to being smarter than just about everyone else. There's no obvious doorstops that a team can count on beating up year after year like there are in the other divisions. Going from two outs to Valhalla to out of the playoffs the next September is hardly unfathomable. One big injury and any AL East team can be up against it. The Yankees lost their best pitcher, the Red Sox discarded their best hitter, and suddenly they were looking up at the Jays. It doesn't take much to flip things (ok, the Yankees were looking sideways at the Jays, given they only finished second on a tiebreaker).

One wonders even if the Jays could survive their division again, and then work their way through the playoffs, would they get a series against such a flawed NL representative? Despite all the caterwauling on the Dodgers ruining the sport, this wasn't some baseball gojira. They were old, they were hurt, they had no bullpen, they had a pretty icky bottom of the lineup, despite its heroics. They were a 93-win team. There have been better Dodger teams in recent memory. It's just that no one in the National League, other than the Phillies maybe, bothered to try and be better than them. The Dodgers will patch up. The Mets will find some starters they can keep in one piece beyond Memorial Day. It's likely that the National League representative in the 2026 World Series, even if it's the Dodgers again, will be a more solid club.

It's one thing to lose that year's chance at a championship. It's another when you can feel the future going with it. Maybe that's one reason the Dodger were just a little more assured in the biggest moments. Not just because of what they'd done, but knowing they don't need so much to align to be back. If that's what comes to be for the Jays, perhaps the worst part is how that gut-punch will compound over the years.