​The Series That Ended the AL East Dogfight

It started Monday night with a first-pitch strike from David Price to Jacoby Ellsbury. In between there was lots of cheering, plenty of booing—particularly when the villainous Alex Rodriguez stepped up—and thoroughly entertaining baseball in front of sellout crowds that gave Toronto fans a taste of playoff-like baseball.

It ended a little more than 50 hours later with nearly 50,000 screaming patrons and the Blue Jays celebrating a series win. It really ended, though, when the biggest free-agent signing in Blue Jays history and Canadian product Russell Martin deposited an Andrew Bailey offering over the fence in left field to put the Blue Jays up 4–0 in the bottom of the seventh and all but secure them a division title. What the club hopes was just a footnote in a stellar regular season ahead of a long playoff run, it was fitting the Canadian boy essentially locked up Toronto's first division crown since 1993 and did it against his former team. The thunderous applause from the rabid fan base that followed had Martin come out of the dugout for a curtain call.

"The fact the park is sold out, the crowd is electric, it makes those moments stand out even more," he said postgame while wearing a Blue Jays bathrobe, something Price purchased for each member of the team.

The Blue Jays-Yankees three-game series at Rogers Centre was the most electric the stadium has been since it was called the SkyDome. The roars of the masses were so loud and powerful that you not only wondered how the players were able to concentrate in a game that demands laser focus, but if the crowd's energy was going to bring down the concrete structure and turn it into rubble.

It was hair-raising, heart-thumping, goosebump-inducing baseball between the American League East's best. As hyped as the series was, it was everything it was supposed to be, and then some.

No matter what side of the fence you were on, this series had everything a baseball fan could ask for. Price pitched like the Cy Young favourite that he is. Jose Bautista put concerns about his wonky shoulder to rest with two pivotal, highlight-reel throws to nail a pair of runners attempting to tag up. Josh Donaldson, the AL MVP favourite, completed the first one by leaping to his right to catch Bautista's slightly off-line throw before landing and placing down a perfect tag. Brett Cecil carved through the heart of the Yankees' order, punching out three straight with two on and none out in the eighth to help preserve a three-run Blue Jays lead in the first game of the series.

A-Rod came to the plate with the bases juiced multiple times (but was overmatched and unable to deliver, like he was for much of the series). Everything felt like it stopped in those moments. Love him or hate him, the controversial slugger still brings crowds to their feet and makes spectators plan beer runs around his at-bats.

Carlos Beltran hit yet another big homer in a high-leverage moment, giving the Yankees a temporary lead in the second game of the series and injecting life into a team that had its division hopes on life support. Dioner Navarro responded with one of his own in the ninth inning off typically supreme Yankees closer Andrew Miller to tie the contest 3–3, helping produce a sound I've never heard at 1 Blue Jays Way before. The place was trembling, Blue Jays players erupted in the dugout, and the scene was reminiscent of the ones you'd see on VHS tapes from Toronto's early-90s glory days.

But then a little thing called Greg Bird happened.

Bird—the sweet-swinging lefty rookie who has drawn comparisons to Tino Martinez and John Olerud—smacked his 10th homer in 34 games, a game-winning three-run shot in extra innings to silence the exuberant crowd and upgrade the Yankees' grave division hopes. As manager Joe Girardi said, Bird saved the club's chances of winning the East with one swing of the bat, and amplified the significance of Wednesday's series finale tenfold.

If dramatic storylines are your thing, then Wednesday's game quickly became must-see TV. Marcus Stroman, in his third start back from what was supposed to be a season-ending knee injury, faced Ivan Nova, who was bounced from the rotation after the Blue Jays manhandled him during his last start. But he returned after Masahiro Tanaka was scratched with a hamstring injury.

New York entered the day with a chance to move within 1.5 games back of Toronto in the AL East. It was a day after iconic Yankees legend Yogi Berra passed away at the age of 90. A-Rod said beforehand the best way to celebrate Berra's legacy would be to go out and win and "play with passion and joy just like he would play."

There was plenty of passion displayed—most notably from Stroman, whose mound swagger probably makes opposing hitters picture his face on the baseball after he's delivered it. And at the end of the night, there was plenty of joy, at least in the home clubhouse after the Blue Jays won the final showdown of the season between these two teams in front of 48,056 in attendance. Toronto won 13 of 19 meetings against New York this season and likely the division after capturing Wednesday's much-hyped contest.

"We're going to have to be almost perfect," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said about his team's chances of winning the East following the loss.

New York fell 3.5 games behind the Blue Jays entering Thursday's series against the White Sox, and is now in all likelihood going to have to win the wild card play-in game to have another shot at Toronto again this season. With the way this series unfolded, wouldn't that be something?

"All three games were really well-played, good baseball games," Toronto manager John Gibbons said.

Stroman was sensational over seven innings, and was perhaps the only one during the series more animated than the fans who have been waiting over 20 years for these kinds of occasions.

"I'm a very emotional person. I pitch with a huge chip on my shoulder and I feel like every time I'm out there I have to prove a lot of people wrong," he said afterward.

What once looked like a shaky rotation appears stronger by the day with Price and Stroman able to throw three of five ALDS games.

Kevin Pillar, who had three hits including a homer Tuesday, broke the scoreless tie with a run-scoring single up the middle in the sixth. The place roared with excitement, getting even louder when the bases were loaded on the club's second consecutive nationally televised game—a rarity—in the United States. When Dan Shulman, the voice of Sunday Night Baseball, and Aaron Boone are making their way north of the border, you know it's a big game. Shulman, who did play-by-play for ESPN Radio on Wednesday, said it was the first game he had called in Toronto in about 10 years.

The Toronto native just might be back in a couple weeks. The masses surely will, at least.

This was fun baseball, full of intense, nail-biting-type moments. It was the playoffs arriving early and provided a glimpse into what a postseason series between these two division rivals would look like.