Blue Jays succumb to baseball's chaos, eliminated from postseason contention

BALTIMORE -- That’s baseball.

You’ve heard manager John Schneider say it a hundred times this season, or at least one of its variations. Baseball happened. Baseball is going to baseball. It’s his own version of “c’est la vie.”

Hidden inside that is everything that’s gone wrong for the 2026 Blue Jays, who were mathematically -- and perhaps mercifully -- elimated from postseason contention on Wednesday in Baltimore. Those who live the baseball life, from players to coaches and team staff, learn to accept that so much of this game exists outside of their control. There are injuries, bad bounces, awful seasons from star players and another team trying to beat you every night.

It’s about limiting how much of the game exists beyond their control, and in 2026, the Blue Jays left the barn doors wide open for baseball to blow in and create its chaos.

This game is a living, breathing thing, and it’s prone to mood swings. A year ago, baseball was kind and gentle to the Blue Jays. We’ve seen what it looks like when everything goes right, and now, what it looks like when everything goes wrong. There’s the old saying that all teams win one-third of their games and lose one-third, and it’s the other third that decides their season. That third went from a masterpiece to a mess.

When Schneider has said this throughout the season, it’s too often been interpreted as an excuse, but that’s not what this is.

Great teams are built to weather the moods of baseball, built to have a second, third and fourth way to win ball games when the game itself decides to turn on them. Great teams can wrestle some control back from the game, driving their own success and leaving less room for those year-to-year swings to determine their fate. That is how the 2025 Blue Jays dragged themselves to the doorstep of immortality in Game 7 of the World Series, but it’s also why the ‘26 team has fallen so painfully short. They allowed baseball to keep happening to them.

This team entered the season with World Series expectations, because of course they did. The work done in the offseason was strong, too. Dylan Cease is a true ace, Tyler Rogers is a dream setup man, Kazuma Okamoto was one of the best value deals signed last winter and finding Rule 5 wonder Spencer Miles, dollar for dollar, may have been the move of the offseason.

“When you have expectations to go back [to the World Series] and finish the job, it feels good to have support from the fans to go out and try to do that,” Schneider said, “but it’s frustrating that we didn’t fulfill our end of it.”

How did this happen, then? The Blue Jays, stumbling towards a losing record, have one of the worst offenses in baseball, and it’s because they haven’t found other ways to win. This season has been one long, frustrating power outage. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has hit just nine home runs, and in a lineup built for contact around Guerrero as its engine, this has sunk the Blue Jays. Last year’s team could find other ways to win, but it rarely felt like this year’s could.

“I have to learn a lot from this year,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “It’s a process. Especially when you go to the World Series, that was my goal again this year. You put that pressure on yourself, trying to take your team back to the World Series. It didn’t happen.”

• Vlad Jr. expands on comments about his contract, disappointing season

Great teams become undeniable, whether it be superstars taking over games or a true team identity, which is so hard to find. Last year’s team had both, in a clear offensive identity and in Vladdy, whose postseason was one of the greatest stretches we’ve seen in Toronto.

“We showed last year we can play all the way into the World Series. This year, we’re not going to the playoffs. We didn’t accomplish our goals,” Max Scherzer said. “It’s frustrating. Whatever words you want to say are fair to say.”

Now, we’re left to look back on just how special 2025 was, fading a full year into the rearview mirror. There may be no better feeling in sports, as a fan, than your ball team making a postseason run. It’s every night, a freight train of momentum no other sport can offer. On the other side, though, there are few things more frustrating than watching your ball team fall short… because it’s every night.

This is what the other side looks like, from the summit back down to the base of the mountain in just 11 months. That’s baseball.