Not since the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees met in back-to-back American League Championship Series in 2003 and 2004 have we encountered a playoff series with the bad blood that exists between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers. I don’t know if we’ll see Rangers starter Yu Darvish slamming Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale to the ground, but there’s obvious potential for extracurricular activity to arise.
How do we know there’s bad blood? Well, Blue Jays center fielder Kevin Pillar just said so, for starters. “We just have to win; obviously there’s bad blood there,” he said. Of course, we also know there’s bad blood because of this punch Rougned Odor landed on Jose Bautista’s face on May 15:
In a sport where the old-fashioned brawl has essentially disappeared -- oh, ’86 Mets, we miss you dearly -- that incident was one of the few in recent years where fisticuffs were actually involved. So far, players seem to be downplaying the animosity in favor of professional quotes. “We just have to keep our emotions in check and just go down there and win some ballgames and play good baseball,” Bautista said.
Boring.
Compare that to the Yankees and Red Sox. After their brawl in Game 3 in 2003 that included Sox ace Pedro Martinez tossing then-72-year-old Yankees coach Don Zimmer around like a Nerf football, Sox manager Grady Little said, “We’ve upgraded from a battle to a war.” Now we have Rangers manager Jeff Banister saying he doesn’t “get caught up” in the revenge factor of this series. Say it ain’t so, Jeff.
Still, I don’t think we’re that far away from emotions erupting. Remember what Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman tweeted after Odor’s punch:
Zero respect for Odor. Never had respect for him, never will.
— Marcus Stroman (@MStrooo6) May 15, 2016
But let’s rewind and see how we got to what is a much-anticipated showdown.
In last year’s AL Division Series, the Blue Jays were in the playoffs for the first time since 1993. They met the Rangers, surprise winners of the AL West after finishing under .500 in the first half. The Rangers won the first two games in Toronto, including Game 2 in 14 innings. The Blue Jays won twice in Texas. In Game 5, played before a blizzard of noise in Toronto, the Blue Jays tied it 2-2 in the sixth inning on Edwin Encarnacion’s home run off Cole Hamels.
Then came the craziest seventh inning in the history of baseball. First, the Rangers took the lead on this weird play when Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin’s return throw to the pitcher glanced off Shin-Soo Choo’s bat, allowing Odor to score. That led to Blue Jays fans littering the field with beer cups (check the 3-minute mark):
In the bottom of the seventh, however, the Rangers made three errors, including two by Elvis Andrus. With the game tied again, Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista blasted a mammoth home run off Sam Dyson, watched it fly to Manitoba, and then flipped his bat to British Columbia:
It became, of course, the most famous and controversial bat flip in major league history. The Rangers were, umm, displeased. Dyson confronted Encarnacion, the on-deck hitter waiting at home plate. Benches cleared. More debris was thrown on the field. From Gordon Edes’ story:
Dyson approached Encarnacion, who had his back to the mound, his arms lifted to the crowd, appealing for them to stop throwing any more objects on the field. Dyson came with a message for the Jays' slugger.
Dyson: "I told Edwin, this can't happen. It needs to stop. He was just telling me he hit a home run, or whatever. After that I didn't pay attention to what he was saying.
"If they want to act like that, whatever. Just have to deal with it. Honestly, I didn't even see it until it was on [the video scoreboard]. That's why it took me a little while to react. Obviously, he hit it pretty hard. So I turned around and saw the replay. That's not acceptable, regardless of what level you're at. I didn't even look at the bat. I just saw him stand there.
"I think if you watch his replays throughout the year, I think you'll understand.''
After Dyson got out of the inning, he crossed paths with Jays shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and patted him on the behind. They exchanged words and the benches emptied again. Dyson would then accuse Bautista of not respecting the game.
In the aftermath, the Blue Jays -- or Bautista, at least -- were portrayed as arrogant winners, the Rangers as sore losers. The cultural issues of the bat flip became an endless topic of discussion into the offseason. That set the stage for 2016. Everyone expected something to happen, and that something was expected to be a pitch up and in to Bautista.
The teams played seven games. Nothing happened until the eighth inning of the final game, when Matt Bush -- not even with the Rangers in 2015 -- drilled Bautista. Who shrugged it off and took his base. Then it happened. Ground ball, Bautista slides hard into Odor and all sorts of fun ensued:
In the aftermath, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons called the Rangers gutless:
Gibby called it "gutless" to hit Bautista at this point. "The other 29 teams out there if they've got an issue they come at you right away."
— Brendan Kennedy (@BKennedyStar) May 15, 2016
Meanwhile, if you watch the video, Pillar went a little crazy and several Rangers players had issues with his antics. At the time, I wrote that it seemed the Rangers were grasping at straws to defend the whole melee. Bautista cocked his arm, but Odor was the one who threw the punch. As Gibbons indicated, if the Rangers had an issue with the bat flip, do it in the first game the teams played and get it over with.
That gets us to the rematch. Dyson is now the Rangers closer. When he was still the setup guy, he faced Bautista twice this season and did not throw at him (Bautista lined out to right field both times.) Odor led the Rangers with 33 home runs, and if you were a betting person, you’d think he’s the guy most likely to lose his cool in the series. I’d say he’ll be swinging from his heels every at-bat to get his revenge with a 500-foot home run, but he swings that way anyway.
Then there’s Bautista, who finished the season with four home runs in his final 11 games and then homered in the wild-card game and thus seems to be heating up at the right time. As Elizabeth Merrill just wrote, is he a hero or a villain? Even Gibbons admits Bautista isn’t “necessarily a well-liked guy around the league.” Bautista complains to umpires, plays angry (or as the “alpha male,” as one psychologist put it), and maybe even loves being the bad guy.
Let’s put it this way: How awesome would it be for him to homer and then flip his bat?