Toronto Blue Jays' Chris Colabello gets a splashed by teammates Kevin Pillar, left, and Russell Martin, centre, after hitting a two-run single in the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Sunday, June 7, 2015, in Toronto.The Canadian Press
Jose Bautista had already smoked two home runs, his 10th and 11th of the season. It marked the 24th time in his career that he has clocked two in the same game.
But it was a little infield pop-up in the bottom of the ninth by the Toronto Blue Jays right fielder that left most of the 35,000 or so in attendance at Rogers Centre on Sunday afternoon gasping.
You could not have choreographed a wackier sequence of events if you tried, but the Blue Jays did not care. They were overjoyed that the baseball gods were smiling upon them – for once.
Let the record book show that Chris Colabello won the game for the Blue Jays (28-30), his one-out single through a drawn-in infield in the bottom of the ninth scoring two runs that provided Toronto with an improbable 7-6 walk-off victory over the Houston Astros (34-24).
"This is baseball and in baseball a lot of crazy stuff happens," said Toronto shortstop Jose Reyes, who was at the centre of most of the monkey business. "It worked out our way today."
Colabello did not even make it to second base after his big hit before he was surrounded by his teammates, who stormed out of the dugout celebrating as if they'd just won Game 7 of the World Series.
It looked as though the Blue Jays were in a mosh pit at a punk rock concert, all doing the pogo. By the time they'd finished with their dance, the pile had moved into left field.
In winning a season-high fifth successive game, the Blue Jays swept the three-game series from Houston, a team that came to Toronto with the best record the American League had to offer.
"To have this one taken away from us is painful," lamented Houston manager A.J. Hinch. "It's something that we expected to win. We'll just have to pack our bags, get out of Toronto and come back better tomorrow."
It appeared almost certain the Blue Jays were headed for defeat, trailing 6-4 heading into their last at-bats with tough Houston closer Luke Gregerson looking for his 16th save.
The comeback started, improbably enough, with Toronto manager John Gibbons sending in the light-hitting Munenori Kawasaki to pinch-hit for Ryan Goins leading off.
The gambit paid off when Kawasaki slapped a hit the opposite way down the left-field line that just fell fair and skipped into the stands for a ground-rule double.
Reyes singled up the middle to score Kawasaki, which cut the Houston lead to 6-5.
With Bautista batting and one out, Reyes stole second base. He was there when Bautista lifted what appeared to be a routine pop fly to the infield. For a moment, it appeared that the ball might actually fall onto the base at second. Reyes went into a bit of a crouch and threw his hands up over his head for protection.
Houston shortstop Jonathan Villar, his eyes on the ball, came over to try to make the catch, but stumbled into the bent-over Reyes, and the ball fell harmlessly beside the bag.
Bautista had himself a single and Hinch was out on the field arguing with the umpires that Reyes interfered with the play and that Bautista should have been called out.
"My interpretation was that he [Reyes] has to make an attempt to get out of the way," Hinch said. "He can't just hold his position or hold where his feet were. There's an argument to say he did try to get out of the way by bending over and protecting his head or whatever he was doing. That does create a bigger obstacle than it does smaller, in my eyes."
The umpires begged to differ and, after a quick discussion, upheld their original ruling.
"I have to stay on the base, so it's not my fault," Reyes said. "It worked out our way today."
With Colabello at the plate and the count 0-2, Reyes and Bautista executed a gutsy double-steal on a pitch that was in the dirt.
With both runners in scoring position and the Houston infield drawn in tight, Colabello got just enough of a pretty good Gregerson slider to send the ball up through the middle to win the game.
Colabello extended his hit streak to 17 games, the longest active streak in the majors.
Since being activated by the Blue Jays last month from Triple A, Colabello has been a consistent hitter, with a .355 batting average.
"We were just talking about how great it was that the Joses both did the double steal because now, getting a runner to third makes it a little bit harder for him [Gregerson] to want to bounce one or throw his really nasty one," Colabello said. "I told myself if it's above my waist I'm going to swing."
It was, and Colabello was soon running for his life – from his teammates.