If you feel any better the ALCS broke the M’s.

Well it sure broke me

More specifically that ball that got stuck

At the same time, everyone last year was havig a career year essentially. That’s not realistic.

Vlad having a career worst year, Kirk has been bad since his early season injury, Barger injured all season, George Springer sucks again after a random career year last season, etc…

Injuries.

Jays lost Ponce before he pitched one game. Beiber, Yesavage and Berrios started on the DL. So was running a rotation with just Guasman, Cease, old man Max and spare arms for beginning of the season. It got so bad Jays had to sign Corbin to pitch.

Springer, Kirk, and Barger got hurt as well early on. Along with regression by most of the hitters, it has been an ugly season.

Only bright spots have been Varland, Okamoto, Valenzuela, Clement and Cease.

Started the season with half the team on the IL, immense pressure over expectations from a sold out stadium every night, momentum crushing games due to boneheaded manager decisions or a player choking.
It’s depressing.

Other people have mentioned the injuries – with the pitching injuries specifically, there was a long stretch where two games of every five were bullpen games. The bullpen has kept this team going in the absence of starters so they’re all tired all the time; the starters we have (some of whom have come back) mostly haven’t been able to go deep; on the nights the pitching’s good the bats have still been pretty anemic. It’s a mess, and now players are starting to screw up basic plays because they’re trying way too hard to not screw up. It’s like a team-wide rotating case of the yips.

I mean I haven’t seen the film so I can’t confirm it’s from there but I would expect most people in North America or at least the ones in this sub to be familiar with the most important plot points from the story.

2014 red Sox finished dead last but the 13 team managed to finish it off. Thankful the NL wasn’t what it is now

I do wonder if a lot of that is the daunting task of doing everything you did the previous year… but better. That’s how I felt at the start of this season and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if that’s how a lot of M’s players felt (especially Cal given his reaction at the end of Game 7).

I thought for sure the ball was gonna drop. They were that close

https://preview.redd.it/x9slkbjp8peh1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ff93dca41b64f66a7870ee57c14cc760cfff1d7

I am not even angry or resentful about moments like this since the Dodgers earned them, the same with Rojas’ magnificent homer.

I am resentful about the points where we could have by our own volition won the whole thing but didn’t (Walking Ohtani in the 7th; IKF and the third-base coach; walking before a walk is called; etc).

Felt the same about 2017 (even without knowing at the time what the Astros really did).

The way that series ended, especially Games 2 and 5 and then us laying the biggest Game 7 goose egg you can think of; I didn’t want to think about any sport for the next month, especially baseball. I had trouble sleeping, eating, watching TV. Nothing got me out of that depression; hell, just thinking about baseball made me sad and hopeless, considering I wasn’t alive for 1988 and that was my first ever World Series experience. Ending like that? I didn’t contemplate any return to sports until it was firmly the NFL’s playoff push.

I feel what Jays fans are going through, right now.

especially with how they were like an inch away multiple times… IKF not scoring, Pages making that catch and bulldozing Kiké… I’m not trying to twist the knife, tbh coming heartbreakingly agonizingly close is still probably better than your team completely humiliating themselves in front of everyone like the Yankees did

WS losers generally that missed the playoffs the following year, over the same time span:

Not a huge sample size although it is actually looking like the ⁴⁄₅ game losers are failing to come back more often than the 6 and 7-game losers. The 1993 Phillies are the only 6-game loser in this span to fail to come back the next year, and like with the 7-game cases there’s 10 of them (the 9 that made it back next year are the 1992 Braves, 95 Indians, 96 Braves, 03 Yankees, 09 Phillies, 13 Cardinals, 20 Rays, 21 Astros, and 22 Phillies)

Of course what’s funny about all this is that it turns out it’s more common for the winner to fail to make it back next year than the loser, at least more recently- the winners and losers were tracking similarly through 2008, but since then the 2023 Diamondbacks are the only WS loser that missed the playoffs the following year, and they only missed by losing a 3-way tiebreaker for the last two wild cards.

Springer currently has 0.1 fWAR and a 95 wRC+ as a DH only after posting 5.2 fWAR last year and a ridiculous 166 wRC+ which was a career best for a guy that looked done in by Father Time. The biggest change outside of the injuries bc that production is very hard to find let alone reproduce for a 36 year old

Clearly Isaiah Kiner-Falefa was the glue that held that team together

Bo barely played in the playoffs too. Santander too (at least nothing positive).

So realistically, the only guys we’re missing are Barger (most of the year), Lukes (a big chunk), Kirk (most of the year, but Valenzuela made up for it imo), Springer missed a decent amount too. There’s a handful of other guys that have missed like 15ish games.

But the rest are just regression and the most unclutch hitting (and fielding) I’ve ever seen. At the beginning of the year they were like 1-27 or some shit with the bases loaded or something crazy.

He destroyed his arm throwing out a runner in a blowout game for some reason.

Last I heard he picked up a stress fracture in his back when he was starting his swing rehab from his elbow exploding on one of the sickest outfield assists I’ve ever seen in my life

When Freddie grounded into that double play in the 7th with Vlad Jr. going 2nd to 1st, that’s when I accepted our fate and said congratulations to the new world champion Jays, as that play epitomized how Toronto dominated the Dodgers as a whole series and earned their flowers. But when Muncy homered in the 8th to make it 4-3 and guaranteed one final Shohei at bat in the 9th, it was game on once again.

Of course, I hoped Kiké and/or Miggy got on base for Ohtani’s chance when the 9th started. Kiké struck out and all of a sudden, it’s hoping Miggy got on base any which way he could.

And he did it…in the most unbelievable, random way possible. 🥹

I’ll never blame Hoffman for that WS loss

Agree 100%

3 relievers gave up homeruns

Not just back, back as the closer.

His savant page is interesting. Pitching metrics are so good but his pitching value is below average. Reeks of being a choke artist

I felt so badly for him on a personal level, too. He fought his way back to the major leagues, was clearly so happy to be with the team in spring training, and then gets a season-ending injury in his fist game. It’s like something out of a movie.

So many teams do this all the time.

They were so close to a championship, and they they spend the entire off-season thinking about what they’re going to do differently in the post-season, without realizing that they actually need to get to the post-season.

And what’s worse, everyone has thier eyes on them now.

This. Castoffs playing out of their mind is how a lot of teams win WS, look at the Giants run in the 2010s as an example. You can’t do much when your stars fall off.

No no, he’s got a point

not an option for us 😭 we can’t win the al central bc we’re on the west coast

insert ‘no sh*t captain obv’ comment here