Jose Bautista #19 of the Toronto Blue Jays is congratulated by third base coach Luis Rivera #2 after hitting a solo home run in the fifth inning during MLB game action against the Seattle Mariners on September 22, 2014 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
One is the loneliest number, and it was all the Toronto Blue Jays had to cling to heading into their game Monday night against the Seattle Mariners to begin the final chapter to this tempestuous season.
A loss to the Mariners at Rogers Centre would end the Blue Jays' longshot chance to make the post-season.
And of course, in the usual confounding fashion that has become the norm for this topsy-turvy team, the Blue Jays went out and delayed the seemingly inevitable – and did so in convincing fashion.
The Blue Jays (79-77) laid a demoralizing 14-4 thumping on the Mariners (83-73), who played more like a club playing out the string than one in the thick of the American League wild-card race.
The Mariners were only rung up for one error on the night, but they kicked the ball around left, right and centre to make things rather easy for the Blue Jays in the first of a four-game set against the AL West visitors.
The Blue Jays took control early, ringing up four runs on three hits in the first inning off James Paxton, Seattle's overmatched Canadian starter, and it was off to the races after that.
In the wild third inning, Toronto tagged on five more runs to turn things into a laugher played out before a sparse gathering of 15,548.
After the Mariners, the Blue Jays will entertain the Baltimore Orioles in what will be their final regular-season showdown of the year.
Toronto came into the contest in sixth place in the AL wild card race, six games back with seven games left to play.
And while their chances of making it have dwindled to less than miniscule, the same could not be said for the Mariners, who came into the series lurking in third place in the wild-card standing, just one game back of the Kansas City Royals.
Given to what happened with his Blue Jays over the last road trip, when the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees combined to win six of seven games to sink Toronto's playoff hopes, manager John Gibbons said his team might relish the opportunity to play spoiler for the Mariners.
"Realistically you go out every night to try to win the game, period, regardless of who you're playing or what it means," Gibbons said. "That's professional, that's what you're supposed to do. Hopefully we can have a little bit of fun here this week."
The Mariners haven't exactly done themselves any favours as far as their own playoff fate is concerned, coming from Houston where they dropped two of three to the lowly Astros.
They were relying on Paxton, a 25-year-old lefthander from Ladner, B.C., to stem the bleeding. And you know Paxton came in hoping to put it to the Blue Jays, who originally selected him in the supplemental first round of the 2009 Major League Baseball draft. But Paxton could not strike a signing deal with the Blue Jays and re-entered the draft in 2010, when Seattle snapped him up in the fourth round.
Paxton's teammates staked him to a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Robinson Cano doubled into the leftfield corner off Toronto starter J.A. Happ, scoring Austin Jackson all the way from first base.
Paxton struggled with his control in the first inning, walking two after surrendering a one-out single to Jose Bautista.
That brought Danny Valencia up with the bases loaded, and Valencia clocked a line drive into the power alley in left-centre. The hit went for a triple and cleared the bases, lifting Toronto in front 3-1.
Valencia was then cashed by a Steve Tolleson single to make the score 4-1.
Paxton could not get out of the third inning where he served up a double to Valencia and walks to two more batters, including one to Jose Bautista with the bases loaded that forced in the fifth Toronto run.
That was it for Paxton, who exited the game allowing nine Toronto runs (eight earned) off seven hits and six walks to see his record dip to 6-4.
Bautista (his 35th), Kevin Pillar (first) and Anthony Gose (second) all stroked home runs in the game for Toronto.
Give Toronto full credit for continuing to play full out.
Bautista made a terrific diving catch that saved Toronto a run in the Seattle second, while Mississauga, Ont., rookie Dalton Pompey ran what seemed like a kilometre to make a terrific leaping grab in centre, robbing Dustin Ackley of a hit in the fifth.
Happ earned the win to improve to 10-11 on the season, allowing two Seattle runs off seven hits over seven innings.