If it all turns around now and begins back in the right direction, one of the legends of the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays season will be the Phantom Meeting of September 10th.
After Saturday's 3-2 turnaround against Boston, no one seemed quite sure who'd arranged an hour-long, pre-game, players'-only gathering.
Catcher Russell Martin – the oldest head in the room, figuratively if not literally – got the laurels. Martin said it wasn't him. He'd gotten a text in the morning summoning him, but it was from the team's travelling secretary.
"If you want to give it to me, I'm happy to take the credit," Martin said. "But I don't think anybody knows who called it."
Nobody knows what was said either. These sorts of things – part pep-rally, part airing of grievances and occasionally a summary court – are held tightly under baseball omerta.
If you do speak of it, you must do so in such veiled terms that you may be describing anything from a cult induction to a particularly fractious book club.
"For me, it was pretty awesome," said sophomore second baseman Devon Travis. "There are guys in that room … that I grew up watching and grew up idolizing. To have them in a room spreading advice and pumping guys up, that's just so incredible for me."
"It was good to get the guys in a room and talk about the things we need to talk about. To make sure that we're all in it together," Martin said, far less enthusiastically. "Remembering that it's about winning, it's not about individuals. It's about the team."
Based on Josh Donaldson's "most guys try hard" statements from the night before and Martin's mention of errant individualism, it's pretty clear a few someones got it in the neck.
Even manager John Gibbons, who wasn't in the room, felt confident enough in the tone to describe the proceedings as, "They all kick each other in the butt, motivational-type things."
As you may know from your own professional life, there is absolutely nothing worse than a meeting. Any sort of meeting, for any reason. None of them have ever solved anything and they are to be avoided when possible. This must be the only consolation of going to prison – they won't let you meet.
Maybe this was the exception that proved the rule.
After an entirely flaccid effort in Friday's opener, Toronto was purposeful against the Boston Red Sox on Saturday afternoon. This shouldn't be confused with 'good.' The offence continues to be a concern. Facing Eduardo Rodriguez, the weakest link in Boston's rotation, the Jays could manage only six total hits.
But all the details that can separate a dogged outing from a pointless one fell into place. Starter J.A. Happ was commanding, not allowing his first hit until the fifth inning.
The defence returned, along with some accountability. After booting a ball that put a man on third, Jose Bautista came up with a pair of catches that sealed off an inning that might have gone wobbly.
Friday's goat, Melvin Upton, Jr., got his chance. His torrid effort in left field was the worst of many problems affecting Toronto on Friday. Since he's still building his credibility in a new city, fans happily piled on top of him.
"Ain't the first time I've been booed by a whole stadium," Upton said.
Maybe. But probably not by his own base and, since he came up in Tampa Bay, probably not by so many people.
That gave Upton's performance on Saturday a nice, redemptive quality. He hit a second-inning home run that staked the Jays to a 2-0 lead. The crowd cheered him a little louder than necessary – a sort of apology.
When it got to squeaky bum time in the ninth inning, the sellout crowd was finally able to locate a bit of the playoff vibe you'd been expecting here all weekend. As closer Roberto Osuna came out, they played a montage peppered with one phrase, "Don't Panic."
It was rather too close to the truth.
Once he'd come through with a third strikeout, Osuna's usual double fist-pumping had more urgency. Jays teammates sprinted toward each other in unusually exuberant celebration.
A half-hour later, now one game behind Boston in the AL East with the rubber match on Sunday afternoon, most were back to the usual clichés.
"In spring training, if you'd said, 'This is where we're going to be on this date,' everybody would've raised their hand and say, 'I'm in,' " said reliever Jason Grilli.
(I suppose that that would be the deciding factor on 'in'-ness. That and the millions of dollars in salary.)
Gibbons caught the real flavour of it, though. As he walked into his post-game presser, he announced to the room, "Everybody loves a winner."
What didn't need to be said is how they feel about the other thing.
Cathal Kelly