Best bat flip ever.
Jose Bautista's dramatic 3-run home run proved to be the game winner in the midst of one of the bizarre MLB playoff innings you will ever see. The Toronto Blue Jays won Game 5 6-3 at Rogers Centre to advance to the 2015 American League Championship Series.
Toronto will face the Kansas City Royals and will start on the road in Kansas City on Friday night.
The top of the 7th inning had Russell Martin throw the ball to the pitcher, but the throw hit the bat of Shin-Soo Choo allowing the lead run to score. The bottom of the 7th inning saw Texas make errors on the first 3 Toronto batters. A force out, a fielder's choice by Josh Donaldson that brought in the tying run: all of that was followed by Bautista's blast.
2015 Toronto Blue Jays playoffs scoreboard
CanadianCrossing.com MLB coverage
The home run power really kicked in for the Blue Jays as Game 4 began. Edwin Encarnacion also went deep in Game 5.
Donaldson, Chris Colabello, and Kevin Pillar went deep in Game 4.
The Toronto Blue Jays will need more than slugging to beat Kansas City, but the team needs home runs, especially with the roof continuing to be closed at Rogers Centre.
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The Toronto Raptors losing Game 7 in 2014 to the Brooklyn Nets. The Toronto Maple Leafs blowing a lead in Game 7 in 2013.
The sports city that is Toronto needed this clincher to heal a bit from these recent wounds.
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The timeline of October 19 combines Election Day and Game 3 of the ALCS at Rogers Centre in Toronto. The game starts at the same time polls close in Newfoundland and 30 minutes before the polls close in the rest of the Maritimes and Labrador.
The dynamic is distinctly different from Quebec to Alberta where the game will be 2½ hours old when the polls close. Ridings in Toronto and the GTA are already going to be crucial in the election, and fans celebrating on their way down to Rogers Centre lends hope that the people already voted.
The Pacific time zone voters/fans have the polls close 3 hours after the game starts. That is especially crucial to those out West voting after work.
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Fox will handle the American League Championship Series, though all but Game 1 will be on Fox Sports 1. Joe Buck, Harold Reynolds, Tom Verducci, and Ken Rosenthal will work the series for Fox. We are hoping Reynolds stops his Canadian "jokes."
Actual Canadian Dan Shulman, who called Game 5 of the Blue Jays series against the Rangers, will call the ALCS on ESPN Radio along with Aaron Boone.
Rogers Sportsnet will simulcast the U.S. feed with plenty of pregame and postgame coverage. Look for Sportsnet to sim sub the Fox OTA feed on Friday night.
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We could give multiple examples of how tuned in Canadians are to the Toronto Blue Jays. From Rogers' Scott Moore's Twitter feed:
9.4 million Canadians tuned in for at least a part of ALDS game 3, with an average audience of 4.17 million over 3 hours. #BlueJays
The number is about a quarter of the 35 million population, not even factoring multiple people watching the game.
photo credit: Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Nothing to do with sports, but wanted to give you a shout out about yet another film festival in Toronto:
http://torontoist.com/2015/10/imaginenative/
Because we don't have enough of them. I'm volunteering at the EU Film Festival which occurs in Toronto end of November (it's also held in Ottawa and Vancouver). Best way to see foreign films that get far too little screen time in Toronto.
Posted by: veronica | October 15, 2015 at 03:22 PM
I love the Chicago version of the EU film festival in March. A Toronto version must be off the charts. Thanks very much for the tip. Merci.
Posted by: Chad | October 17, 2015 at 01:05 AM