TORONTO -- Finally.
After a long month of drought, it feels like all of that rain just fell in an instant. Alejandro Kirk was the walk-off hero in the bottom of the 10th inning on Wednesday night, and by the time you read this, the Blue Jays might still be celebrating after a win that felt so much bigger than your average one in April.
The Blue Jays launched three home runs to drag themselves back from a 6-0 sixth-inning deficit to beat the Red Sox 7-6, which felt impossible before it actually happened. This offense has been desperate for power that just hasn’t showed up over a skid of eight losses in nine games, but this feels like the exact type of win that can jolt a lineup to life.
You could hear it in manager John Schneider’s voice, that this win was just plain different. He called it “what we’ve been missing” and heaped praise upon the players he’s stood behind through eight losses in nine games coming into Wednesday.
“That was really good, man. I’m just so impressed and proud of the way they came back,” Schneider said. “It’s obvious we’re grinding. You get down six and it’s easy to just fold, but they did the exact opposite.”
Daulton Varsho and Kirk got it started with back-to-back jacks in the bottom of the sixth, marking Varsho’s first of the season in just his second game, but even a three-run deficit still felt like a steep mountain to climb given how this team has been playing. It was Anthony Santander's game-tying three-run shot that brought the biggest roar of the season from the Rogers Centre crowd.
This is the moment the Blue Jays have been waiting on, not just from the lineup as a whole, but from Santander.
Their big offseason splash came to Toronto riding the high of a 44-homer season with the Orioles, but March and April have never been kind to Santander. It’s something everyone knew coming into this, but when a lineup lacks power and the new slugger isn’t contributing, patience doesn’t come easily. Santander has always tended to find his groove once May rolled around, though, and in the final hours of April, he got a head start.
“It means a lot. This is good momentum,” Santander said, “so, hopefully we can carry that for all of May. It’s a long season. We’ve been in a tough stretch, but right now, with this win coming back from 6-0? That’s good momentum.”
This is the first true momentum the Blue Jays have felt in a couple of weeks, reaching back to when it looked like they’d get out to a jump start on the rest of the American League with an outstanding April. That’s what makes a win like this so special, even when it’s just one of 162 games.
For the past two weeks, Schneider has rolled out the same lines you’ve had to hear too often over the past three seasons. He believes it when he says it, though, that the bats will come around and that he sees signs it will happen soon. Wednesday, that “soon” finally arrived.
“It’s one thing to say it, but then to see it unfold? It makes you really, really have conviction in the people we have in that room,” Schneider said. "It’s hard to do. It’s 6-0 and their starter is cruising. That’s an uphill fight, but I loved the way we went about it and it kind of got contagious. Hopefully, this gets us going. That’s what we’ve been missing, that feeling in the dugout where you’re waiting for someone good to happen as opposed to something bad.”
Wins like this put the whole team in a different mood. The comeback set up closer Jeff Hoffman, who might just be the best player on this roster right now, for two dominant innings in the ninth and 10th. Even after eight losses in nine games, seeing one game where it all goes right can tempt you to believe again in this team’s potential.
It’s all about the Blue Jays’ lineup, though, and Santander is the man who can change it. Bo Bichette will come around and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will put up numbers, but Santander represents that “something else." It’s almost his time of year, too, which everyone in that clubhouse has been waiting on.
“Is tomorrow May?” Schneider asked, running through the calendar in his mind after the win. “Yeah? So he’s ready to go off.”