Let's be thankful for the Blue Jays

Being that today is Thanksgiving, and that I am sappy, I composed a mini essay on Twitter of things to be thankful for from this season. I've decided to compile them here. Bear with me.

No matter what, we have so much to be thankful for this year. Let's be thankful for the amazing season, and the end of a playoff drought.

Let's be thankful for all the times we got to stand on our feet and scream, yell and holler - not in outrage, but from excitement.

Let's be thankful for all the records broken and firsts that were achieved this year. 

Let's be thankful for all the good memories, inside jokes, hilarious reaction GIFs and memorable quotes this team has blessed us with.

Let's be thankful for the fact that David Price was, and is, for the immediate future, a Toronto Blue Jay.

Let's be thankful for Josh Donaldson and his 42 rainstorms (and his hair). Heck, let's be thankful for Josh Donaldson in general.

Let's be thankful that Jose Bautista has worked his butt off for us for so long and he was finally rewarded with a post-season appearance.

Let's be thankful for Mark Buehrle, who gave us everything until he literally couldn't anymore and never asked for anything in return.

Let's be thankful for Marco Estrada, who wasn't even supposed to be a starter and then blew our minds with two near no-hitters in a row.

Let's be thankful for all the quiet wisdom, eloquence, and logic-defying knuckleballs brought to us by RA Dickey.

Let's be thankful for being able to proudly say that we have a Canadian behind the plate in Russell Martin, and he proves we can play baseball as well as anyone.

Let's be thankful for Edwin Encarnacion's parrot wanting three walks in one day (and 36 other times this year) and for Dioner Navarro knowing what the hats meant.

Let's be thankful for the miraculously healing bodies of Marcus Stroman and Troy Tulowitzki.

Speaking of Stroman, let's be thankful for the boundless balls of energy that are him and Ben Revere.

Let's be thankful for the underdogs like Kevin Pillar and Chris Colabello, who were never supposed to even get a chance, but did, and got to shine.

Let's be thankful for Ryan Goins, already an A+ defender, basically reinventing himself at the plate and hitting a walkoff I know I'll remember forever.

Let's be thankful for Brett Cecil turning around his season and returning to be the shut-down pitcher we know and love.

Let's be thankful for Roberto Osuna, who magically struck out A-Rod as the first batter he ever faced and didn't look back (K'd him twice more too).

Let's be thankful for all the times Pillar and Donaldson and Dalton Pompey made us believe, even for a second, that men really could fly.

Let's be thankful for all the times this beautiful bunch of guys gave us (and Tulo) a reason to smile.

Let's be thankful that Justin Smoak has a powerful bat and a name that lends itself easily to puns. Because I know we baseball fans love our puns. 

Let's be thankful for Devon Travis just because we can. Let's be thankful for his cheerful smile and his dedication to rooting for his team even after he was injured.

Let's be thankful for the unsung heroes of the bullpen, who have a really tough job and without whom, we wouldn't be here. 

Let's be thankful for Gibby, who always knows what's best and doesn't listen to the idiots telling him otherwise.

Let's be thankful for Alex Anthopolous, who must know hypnotism or something to be able to pull off the moves he did.

Let's be thankful for a team that sticks up for one another and believes in each other as much as we believe in them, if not more.

Let's be thankful for the fact that we really did #ComeTogether in a display of unity like nothing I've seen in my lifetime.

Let's be thankful for our ability to keep our senses of humour and community even when things weren't going so well.

Let's be thankful, that for the first time in a long time, we've really had something special to be thankful about. 

Know your Jays: Edwin Encarnacion

Also known as Eddie, Big E, or Double-E, he's the always-reliable 4th batter in the lineup, following friend (and fellow Dominican) Jose Bautista. When there are days he isn't playing first base, he's probably the designated hitter because he's such an important part of the batting order!

Does he have Twitter - Yes, under the clever first-last blending name @Encadwin but he doesn't use it very often. He has an Instagram under the same name as well, those posts are few and far between. But if you can read Spanish, go ahead and take a look!

Irrelvant Facts - When Toronto acquired him in 2009 from the Reds, the Jays GM had been trying to get pitching. Reds management wouldn't accept the trade unless the Jays also took Edwin alongside the two intended pitchers. Your loss is our gain, Cincinnati!

Things He's Good at - He hits a lot of home runs. And I mean a lot. He holds the Blue Jays team record for the most home runs hit in a single month - 16 in August of this year - and is also one of only 3 Jays players to homer three times in one game, and he's done it twice.

He also hits them far, including to the 500 level of the SkyDome - making him one of only a handful of Jays players to ever do this.

 

Things He's Not So Good At - He doesn't run terribly fast, but when you're hitting no-doubt homers all the time, who needs running? That's actually a theory of mine - he hits so many homers so he can take his time going around the bases. It's more fun that way.

He also has various injuries that tend to pop up at random throughout the season and make him unavailable for days or even weeks at a time. But he always makes the most of his time at the plate! 


2015 season highlights - On June 9th the Blue Jays were trailing 3-2 in the 9th inning against the Miami Marlins when Edwin, returning from a shoulder injury, hit a home run that drove in Josh Donaldson and walked off the game. In the video he can clearly be seen pointing to his shoulder as he reaches home plate, reminding his teammates to be careful!


On August 29th, EE hit 3 homers in the same game, including a grand slam (his third of the season) and 9 RBI. His previous personal record for RBIs in one game was 6 - he also tied the team record with 9 in a single game, a record that has stood since their inaugural 1976 season and hadn't even been tied since. The third grand slam in one season also meant he tied a team record.

This was only the second time in Edwin's career he'd accomplished the 'hat trick' - a fact Canadian fans acknowledged by throwing their caps on the field and giving him a 5-minute standing ovation while the grounds crew ran around cleaning them up. He became the first ever Blue Jay to hit a grand slam and a 3-run homer in the same game, and was just a solo homer short of hitting for the 'home run cycle'. Interestingly enough, in the first inning of the game the following day, he hit a solo home run. Since there had been no bottom ninth the day before, as the Blue Jays were winning, he technically hit a 'home run cycle' within nine consecutive innings.

His home runs that day also extended his personal-best hit streak to 24 games. It was the longest streak this season in MLB at that point. He eventually reached 26 games in the streak, the longest ever for a Blue Jay player, but his on-base streak continued well into September (as he had walked in the first game when he didn't record a hit).

He received the AL Player of the Month award for all his hitting in August. This is even more impressive when you take into consideration the fact that he was out injured for several games at the beginning of the month.

Off-field antics: He always seems to be enjoying himself in the dugout with his teammates, and his reactions are sometimes the most dramatic of anyone.

One of my personal favourite Edwin stories is this, when he met a young boy at a game who had a prosthetic leg with a Blue Jays design on it. He took the leg and got the other members of the team to sign it (with the family's permission, of course!)
When he had his 'hat trick' game, he promised that he would sign each of the hats thrown on the field by fans, and sign them, and try to return them to their rightful owners. Which would be a heck of a task to undertake, but such a sweet gesture!

Fictional/Cartoon Character He Resembles: I was actually kind of stumped for this one, until one day my sister was watching The Lion King and it hit me - he's Pumbaa! Now this is in no way an insinuation that he smells bad (how would I know, I've never met the guy) but think about it - he's a big strong dude, which could be physically intimidating at first, but he's got a heart of gold. He's also part of an inseparable duo - which by extension I guess would mean Jose Bautista is Timon.

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