Toronto Blue Jays

Toronto Blue Jays: A Team That's Becoming Easy To Hate

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Toronto Blue Jays are rapidly developing into a team that you love to hate. Much like the New York Yankees of recent vintage, they bring a swagger onto the field that purposively can’t go unnoticed. And they seem to like it that way. All of which suggests that they could bring a new dimension to the American League playoffs this year.

In a recent game with the New York Yankees, the Toronto Blue Jays were involved in not one, but two bench clearing incidents (video below). They have been known to ceremoniously “bat flip ” on an intentional walk. They have a pitcher who screams at batters to get off the field when he strikes them out. And much to the chagrin of many of their opponents, they are very close to qualifying as a Wild Card team in this year’s American League playoffs.

C.C. Sabathia put it very succinctly in the New York Post dead panning to reporters, “guess it just tells you a lot about their team.”

Not to be lost in the matter is that two Blue Jays, one of whom was an effective reliever lately for the Blue Jays, Joaquin Benoit, were injured in the fracas and will, according to Yahoo Sports, be missing crucial time as the season moves into its final days. There is also the matter of potential suspensions that have yet to be announced.

All teams have a personality. Some are more vivid than others and that’s certainly the case with the Blue Jays, who seem to pride themselves on the fact that they play the game with emotion. And they see nothing wrong with displaying it.

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Here’s how Jose Bautista , who should be given credit for inventing the bat flip, put it to the star.com, “It’s almost like being at war and running low on ammo and the next thing you know here comes a little parachute with a crate. And it lands right next to you and it’s full of ammo. You’re like, ‘Yeah, baby.”

Well okay, but you better be ready for some blowback from other teams if you are going that route. This is not football or basketball where trash talk is commonplace and even encouraged as part of the game.

The playoffs are emotional to begin with. When they begin, one team at a time will be going home for the winter. Add a little extra spice to the games as the Blue Jays have a tendency to do and anything can happen.

We remember from last year the now infamous Utley take out slide that was fueled largely by unbridled emotion and you see what can quickly happen as the Mets rallied behind that incident to put away the Dodgers.

The Blue Jays obviously have the right to play the game any way they choose. But they might be wise to tone it down a bit as we move to these already emotionally charged playoff games. Just saying…

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