TORONTO — More than an hour after his season ended in a heartbeat and winter took hold, Ernie Clement sprawled in his chair in the Blue Jays’ clubhouse, still in full uniform, nursing a Labatt Blue. His sliding shorts featured a hole in the right knee. His eyeblack stickers barely clung to his cheeks. His eyes brimmed with tears.
He struggled to reckon with his loss. Not of Game 7, in which the Blue Jays fell 5–4 in a shocking, back-and-forth, 11th-inning defeat to the Dodgers. Not of the World Series, which they at one point led three games to two, and on Saturday were two outs away from clinching. What hurt most, he realized, was that he wouldn’t get to come to work tomorrow.
“Even if we’d won,” he mused, “I’d still be sad that it was over.”
That was the message the Blue Jays repeated over and over in their quiet clubhouse as Saturday night bled into Sunday morning.
“Everybody loves each other in here,” said center fielder Daulton Varsho. “We enjoy being around this group, and that’s probably going to be the most hurtful thing.”
That they were so close only makes it worse.
“It took them seven games to beat us,” said Kevin Gausman, who started Games 1 and 6. “I think if we play tomorrow, we beat ’em, but we’re not playing tomorrow.”
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They had so many chances for a different ending. They loaded the bases with two outs in the second. They had runners on first and second with one out in the fourth, and a runner at third with no outs in the fifth. They loaded the bases with one out in the ninth, and they had runners at the corners with one out in the 11th. But they could not come through with a hit to put the Dodgers away, and the Dodgers clawed back with solo homers in the eighth, off Trey Yesavage, who started Games 1 and 5; ninth, off closer Jeff Hoffman; and 11th, off Game 4 starter Shane Bieber.
“I feel for everybody in here,” said Clement. “We grinded so hard. I’d go to war with Jeff Hoffman every day of the week. I want him on the mound. I want Biebs on the mound. Those are guys who I would take a bullet for. And 99 times out of 100 those guys get the job done. Obviously, this wasn’t our night here. But I feel for those guys so much.”
The core has been here for a while, but it took them some time to grow into a team that understood its responsibility to its fanbase and to one another. A year ago, nearly the same roster finished 74–88. That club did not lack talent, its members say, but it lacked accountability.
“We had too many excuses built in,” Bassitt said earlier this week. “We had too many issues internally. We had too many people complaining, including myself, about the way things were being run or handled and things like that. And as a group, it’s a maturing process. Everyone wrote us off, obviously, after last year, and rightfully so. I don’t discredit that. But the reality is that I think we’ve learned a lot from that. We learned that all those stupid things that we were doing or saying or whatever—it’s not gonna happen. So we [stopped] that this year.” They would spend the period after losses making excuses and then trying to do too much. They struggled to choose an identity or an approach. When things went wrong, they panicked. They didn’t know who they were.
This year they knew: They were an old-school team. They chased innings on the mound and contact at the plate. Their pitchers would take strikeouts when they could and their hitters were happy to homer, but they tried not to make those outcomes the focus of every plate appearance. They trusted one another. They won 94 games and the American League pennant.
Even 366 days ago, when he was handing out candy in his neighbor’s driveway while the Dodgers celebrated their last title, manager John Schneider believed that team could grow into this team. In some ways, that’s what made this group so special, and what made the end so hard: It was basically the same group.
They made additions, of course, but always with an eye not just toward talent but also toward temperament. They signed righty Max Scherzer and outfielder Anthony Santander in part because those players are adults who do things the right way.
“It would be easy to kind of knee-jerk react to last year,” said Schneider. “I don’t think [general manager Ross Atkins] did, I don’t think I did, I don’t think we did. I’m thankful for that. You trust people and you trust that what you’re preparing for is right. Players have to go do it, and they have answered the bell.”
Even when their bodies didn’t want to allow them to. Second baseman Bo Bichette sprained his left knee in early September and spent the next seven weeks racing through rehab to get back in time. He knew a further injury could cost him in free agency, which he will reach on Sunday. “It’s the World Series,” he said before Game 6. “None of that stuff really matters.” DH George Springer, 36, took a similar approach when he hurt his right side on a swing during the 18-inning Game 3 loss; he could barely walk, and he was still recovering from knee and wrist injuries after being hit by pitches this month, but he went 5-for-10 in Games 6 and 7.
After Game 7, Schneider held his first team meeting of the year. “I said thank you,” he said. “I said thank you probably about 10 times.” First baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the face of the franchise, told each teammate individually that he was proud of him.
Bassitt, who will become a free agent on Sunday, was asked if he had learned anything from this team that he hoped to take wherever he ends up.
“I think it’s hard to replicate true love,” he said. As for himself, he said, through tears, “You never know, but I would love to have another shot with this group.”
Of course, it won’t be this group. In addition to Bassitt, Bichette and Scherzer will be free agents, and righty Shane Bieber carries a $16 million player option.
None was sure after the game what the future held for them, although Bichette said, “I’ve said I wanted to be here from the beginning,” and Scherzer said, “There’s no way that was my last pitch.”
This was his seventh major league team, but he said it had meant as much to him as any of them. “Me being 41 years old, I never thought I could love baseball so much,” he said, choking back tears. “I’m just so proud of everybody. My love for the game is so strong because of their love for the game.”
Clement loves the game, and he loved this team. So as his friends hugged and said goodbye and gathered their belongings, there he sat at his locker. He wasn’t sure when he would shower and get dressed. He didn’t want to leave.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Blue Jays’ Many Missed Chances Leave Behind a Heartbroken Team.