Today in Blue Jays History: The Donaldson Dash

Three Years Ago Today

Why does it feel like more than three years?

Josh Donaldson scored from second base on a ground ball to short, to win us game three of the ALDS and sweep the Rangers.

With the game tied in the 10th inning, Donaldson led off with a double, off everyone’s favorite Matt Bush. The Rangers decided to walk Edwin Encarnacion (who hit .375/.474/.938 in the series). Next up, Jose Bautista struck out, on a full count pitch(he had a tough game, going 0 for 5 with 2 strikeouts). Russell Martin followed, hitting a double play ball to shortstop Elvis Andrus. Andrus made the flip to Rougned Odor but Odor threw wide of first. Mitch Moreland did a nice job to block the throw, but Donaldson rounded third and headed for home and beat the throw home.

The Rangers challenged Edwin’s slide at second but even Joe West couldn’t mess that up.

For the second year in a row, Rangers’ infield errors helped us pull out a win.

It had been an interesting game.

Aaron Sanchez started for the good guys. He gave up a single to Carlos Gomez, who stole second and scored on two ground outs to get the Rangers a run in the first.

We would score three in the second. Ezequiel Carrera (leading off) singled. An out later, Edwin would homer and then, another out later Martin would homer.

The Rangers got one back in the third on a Andrus home run.

Then we got two in the bottom of the inning. Carrera, leadoff with a single, stole second and scored on Donaldson’s ground-rule double. Donaldson would score on a single from Encarnacion.

The Rangers got two in the fourth, Carlos Beltran walked and Odor homered. We were still up but now it was 5-4.

In the sixth the Rangers scored two more to take the lead. With two outs, Sanchez walked Odor and gave up a single to Jonathon Lucroy and that would be the game for Aaron. Joe Biagini came in and gave up a two-run double to Moreland. We were down 6-5.

Sanchez would go 5.2, allowing 3 hits, but 4 walks, 5 strikeouts and 2 home runs, for 6 earned. Two of the earned runs came after he left the game.

We tied it in the bottom of the sixth. Troy Tulowitzki hit a one-out single. He went to third on Melvin Upton’s double (remember him). After Kevin Pillar was intentionally walked, reliever Keone Kela threw a wild pitch and the game was tied.

We got three innings of scoreless work from relievers Jason Grilli (one inning) and Roberto Osuna (two innings).

The Rangers got two scoreless innings out of Matt Bush, but he ran into troubles in the tenth.

I took a fair bit of glee in Odor making the error that won us the series.

We had a lot of players do get in the series:

• Carrera hit .333/.429/.583 and scored 4 runs.
• Donaldson hit .538/.471/.846, with 4 doubles and 4 runs. And he played some good defense. Plus that game winning dash.
• Encarnacion hit .417/.500/.917 with 2 home runs, 4 runs and 4 RBI.
• Tulowitzki hit .462/.462/.846 with a triple and a home run, and 5 RBI.
• Marco Estrada pitched 8.1 innings of 4 hit ball in his start. He was terrific in the playoff for us.
• Osuna pitched 3.2 innings of scoreless ball, allowing just 1 hit with 4 strikeouts.

We played the Rangers in the ALDS two seasons in a row and we got a lifetime’s worth of great memories (and Minor Leaguer came up with a couple of very nice t-shirts, here is the post on the Donaldson Dash shirt).