'Baseball Sucks Sometimes': Blue Jays' 2022 Season Ends With Wild Card Loss

Despite leading by seven runs in Game 2 of the Wild Card series, the Blue Jays' 2022 season ends in heartbreak.

For the first time all series, the stadium was silent.

As George Springer and Bo Bichette lay sprawled on the outfield turf, reality set in. The Blue Jays’ seven-run lead was gone, their star centerfielder was hurt, and the season was slipping toward finality.

There were blips of crowd noise after that eighth-inning collision, but the overwhelming undertone was silence. As Cal Raleigh crossed the plate in the top of the ninth, scoring the Mariners’ winning run and completing the comeback, only a small section of Seattle fans could be heard—the backing track to the end of the Blue Jays’ 2022 season.

“Sometimes the ball doesn't go your way,” manager John Schneider said. “And that's the part of baseball that sucks.”

Five innings through Saturday’s second Wild Card game, the Blue Jays seemed destined for a deciding Sunday. Their season would not end, they built a seven-run lead and perfectly executed the plan of seizing momentum early and earning the crowd back into the series. While Teoscar Hernández cashed his second homer, Ross Stripling was already back down in the clubhouse planning for his start the next day. A start that would not come.

Run by run, the Mariners stole the momentum back. They mirrored Toronto’s chaotic fourth inning with a four-run fifth and then stunned the Jays with a game-tying eighth. The comeback culminated with a bases-clearing double in the eighth and Bichette and Springer lying on the ground in agony. Six outs later, Toronto’s 2022 season was over in equally excruciating fashion to the year prior.

In 2021, the Jays watched in their clubhouse on the final day of the regular season as their campaign ended. This year, it came at their home park, on the field, and in the playoffs. Though moving from watching on TV to watching the Mariners dance on home turf may not seem like an improvement, it was. But it still wasn't the goal.

"There's a step-stone," starter Kevin Gausman said. "There's a bridge. We're just right there. We just have to keep getting a little bit better, a little bit more consistent. There's a lot more from this club."

There are silver linings to be taken from 2022, moves to be made, and decisions to be replayed and regretted all winter. But for now, it's the same feeling that lingered on the team a year ago. Every team that doesn't hoist the trophy at the end feels it. It motivates some, and it dejects others. The feeling sucks, Schneider said, and it will take some time to get over.

The Jays will set out next year to be the only team cheering when the October dust settles, but on Saturday—and for 2022—their season ends in silence.

"Baseball sucks sometimes," Schneider said.