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​Blue Jays Playoff Games Are Just the Craziest, Eh?

If it seems like the Blue Jays are always involved in the wildest playoff games, it's because they are.
Photo by Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

Think about the wildest playoff games over the last two seasons, and the Blue Jays have probably been involved in nearly every one of them.

The latest came in Game 3 of their ALCS matchup with the Indians, when drone-enthusiast Trevor Bauer had to exit his start with blood dripping down his hand in a surreal first-inning scene. The 10-stitch gash he had on his pinky finger—the result of a self-inflicted drone wound—cut open, forcing the right-hander to leave with two outs in the first and making Cleveland use its bullpen for the remainder of the game. More on that later.

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First, let's head back to the best game of the 2015 season—Game 5 of the ALDS. The Rangers scored a seventh-inning tiebreaking run on one of the most bizarre plays ever, leading Toronto to play the game under protest. Angry Blue Jays fans littered the Rogers Centre field with beer, an ugly response that was only a footnote in this wacky 53-minute inning. In the bottom half of the frame, a run on three Rangers errors set the stage for Jose Bautista, whose series-altering homer and emphatic bat flip sparked a heated discussion on baseball etiquette and provided a starving fan base with one of its most thrilling moments ever.

READ MORE: After Bauer's Early Exit, Cleveland Bullpen Stitched Together a Matter-of-Fact Win

The theatrics didn't end there. In Game 6 of the ALCS against the Royals, Bautista did everything in his power to extend the series, crushing a pair of homers, including a two-run game-tying bomb off Ryan Madson in the eighth. That was followed by a 45-minute rain delay before play resumed and the Royals took a one-run lead, staved off yet another Toronto rally the next inning, and won 4-3 en route to an eventual World Series victory.

That ALCS matchup also saw the Blue Jays win Johnny Cueto's Game 3 meltdown in front of a hostile Rogers Centre crowd, a day before the Royals delivered a 14-2 thumping on Toronto. The ALDS will be what people remember of the 2015 Blue Jays playoff run, but the ALCS with Kansas City was high-entertainment value as well.

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A year later, the madness has continued.

The Blue Jays won an insane wild-card game that once again featured a beer-throwing incident and epic home run. This time, there was only one beer tosser, and the ball masher was Edwin Encarnacion. A walk-off bomb in extra innings against the division-rival Orioles to force a Rangers-Blue Jays ALDS rematch… I mean, come on. And there was also a side menu of Zach Britton controversy. That's mouthwatering stuff.

Now, back to Bauer.

Bauer, in what was surely baseball's first drone-related injury, suffered a big gash to his finger when he was playing with his toys just days before he was scheduled to start Game 2 of the ALCS. He was pushed back to give his finger extra time to heal, and manager Terry Francona assured the media that Bauer would be fine.

Well, he was anything but. In a scene more closely resembling a horror flick than postseason baseball, Bauer's finger was dripping blood as he tried to navigate his way through the first inning.

Bauer would walk off the field a bloody mess, unable to give his team even one inning of work. It sure seemed like the recipe the Blue Jays needed to get back in the series, but six Indians relievers—including the ultra-dominant Andrew Miller—went on to throw 8.1 innings of two-run ball to move Cleveland one win away from reaching its first World Series since 1997.

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Before all the postseason craziness that's unfolded over the last two seasons, it had been a long time since the Blue Jays had made the playoffs—22 years, in fact. But crazy existed for some of Toronto's 1990s postseason games, as well.

Where to start? How about Oct. 23, 1993 in Game 6 of the Fall Classic, when Joe Carter hit major league baseball's second-ever World Series-winning walk-off home run to power the Blue Jays to their second consecutive title.

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Two games before that Toronto won a 15-14 slugfest against the Phillies in the highest-scoring World Series game of all time.

The year before that, in Game 4 of the ALCS, Toronto was down 6-1 on the road to the A's, made it 6-4, and then Hall of Famer Robbie Alomar took Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley deep in the ninth inning to help Toronto take a commanding 3-1 series lead. It holds up today as one of the defining moments in Blue Jays history, and helped Toronto capture its first pennant.

And how about that World Series? Well, let's begin with The Flag Flap, when a US Marine sparked outrage by carrying an upside-down Canadian flag onto the field before Game 2 in Atlanta. Perhaps it was karma or the baseball gods' way of responding when hours later second-year player Ed Sprague hit a two-run pinch-hit homer in the ninth to give the Blue Jays a 5-4 lead, which held up as the final. It prevented Toronto from falling down 2-0, changing the entire complexion of the series.

The very next game, and first World Series contest ever played on Canadian soul, featured the triple play that wasn't. If only there was video review in '92.

The Game 6 finale saw the Braves even the score 2-2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to force extras and stave off elimination, before Dave Winfield hit an extra-inning tiebreaking two-run double to give the Blue Jays a 4-2 lead. In the bottom half of the frame, after the Braves clawed to within one run, Mike Timlin fielded an Otis Nixon bunt and tossed it to Carter at first to secure the Blue Jays' first of back-to-back titles.

Sidenote: Those 1992-93 Blue Jays teams were insanely stacked.

We can even go back to 1985, when the Blue Jays held a 3-1 ALCS lead over the Royals in their first-ever postseason appearance. Only one win away from the World Series, the Blue Jays couldn't close it out, dropping three straight to get eliminated following a franchise-high 99-win season.

The takeaway here? Count out the Blue Jays all you want—the 2004 Red Sox are the only team to come back from a 3-0 hole to win a series—but don't expect them to go quietly. Prepare for more wildness before Toronto's 2016 season comes to an end.

You can read all our Blue Jays postseason coverage here.