Things looked much bleaker for the Blue Jays flying to the West Coast. Ever since Seattle took away the first two games at the Rogers Centre, the Jays had dug themselves a deep hole they needed to climb out of if they wanted a shot at advancing to the World Series.

The Blue Jays’ first night in Seattle was full of offensive flair, with 18 hits in total and five of them being home runs. Toronto utterly demolished Seattle’s pitching by scoring 13 runs on Wednesday night to take the narrative back at T-Mobile Park. In theory, the Blue Jays were destined to lose their offence even more to the pitcher-friendly park in the west. T-Mobile Park is one of the hardest parks to produce any meaningful hits. Yet when the Blue Jays took the field, that lore dissipated as if it never existed in the first place.

The series was now 2-1 after Toronto’s convincing win, but the Blue Jays knew they needed to keep the same mindset heading into Game 4 because the playoffs are an enormously unpredictable beast that can’t be tamed. Any team could have the momentum at any time – Toronto needed to be as persistent as possible.

At the outset, not much was in the Blue Jays’ favour. Toronto had 41-year-old Max Scherzer starting, while Seattle nominated 32-year-old Luis Castillo as its starter. Throughout this year, Castillo has been the more consistent and dependable pitcher, compared to Scherzer, who’s had a wild roller coaster ride of a season filled with injury concerns. But once again, the Blue Jays proved everyone wrong by playing their way of baseball.

Scherzer may have given up a home run to Mississauga-raised first baseman Josh Naylor, but it didn’t take much time for the Blue Jays to catch up and chase Castillo away from the mound at the top of the third. To their dismay, the Jays’ lineup couldn’t cash in on the opportunity to score more with bases loaded that inning, but they still pummeled the Mariners in all kinds of ways to squeeze out runs.

One thing the 2025 Blue Jays have been wonderful at is being weird. This is the kind of weird that makes people rub their eyes, frown and stare in disbelief because this team has been a team that continues to win games in a variety of different ways. When they do weird really well, they don’t try to do too much at the plate, they make the pitches they need to, and they pound on their rivals’ defence until they get supremely exhausted.

When that weird factor was missing, Toronto dropped its games like a fly, and that couldn’t be truer in the earlier part of the ALCS. But this team found its mojo back by finding its way back to doing things the weird way.

The Blue Jays are at their best when everyone from top to bottom is doing something to explode offensively. Without Isiah Kiner-Falefa getting his double, Andrés Giménez’s second home run in the series wouldn’t have stood out. Without Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk and Nathan Lukes, getting on base, Daulton Varsho’s bases-loaded walk wouldn’t have felt as exhilarating. Besides, these two things all happened only at the top of the third.

Toronto continued to be relentless at the top of the fourth to make the score 5-1 and successfully tested Seattle on its fielding. At its best, this team puts pressure so that its opponent encounters failures sooner than expected.

Guerrero Jr.’s unbelievable home run at the top of the seventh certainly helped Toronto build the insurance. Then the Blue Jays’ lineup took the insurance to the next level by getting Ernie Clement and Addison Barger on base, Kiner-Falefa executing a perfect sacrifice bunt, and Giménez giving the decisive single that cashed in two more runs.

Let’s not forget how important Scherzer’s presence was for the Blue Jays experiencing their ALCS renaissance. The future Hall of Famer was exactly what the team was hoping for him to be, by pitching 5 2/3 innings and only giving up one run in that span. Toronto’s bullpen also came out of Game 4 relatively unscathed after surrendering only one run as a whole.

This was the perfect combination that the Blue Jays had been dreaming of for years. A veteran starting pitcher giving his all, a lineup doing everything it can to score runs left and right and relievers staying sharp inning after inning. The secret isn’t anything special because in the end, it’s all about how much grit you have.

The Blue Jays have proved the sheer tenacity they have in them in 162 games this regular season, before stepping into the playoffs. They weren’t the star-studded lineup clobbering home runs every second, but because their weirdly unforgiving plate approaches and borderline psychotic–a la Scherzer–pitching, they have been continuing their improbably storyline this deep into the playoffs.

In Games 3 and 4 for the ALCS alone, the Blue Jays scored 21 runs in total (with seven home runs) and recorded a .363 BA and 1.126 OPS. Good things happen to those who persist despite everything against them.

However, this is only the start of the ALCS. The Blue Jays still have a long way to go to even worry about the World Series. The job is far from being done because they need to win two more games to think about their future. But if those two sleepless nights in Seattle meant anything, Toronto will earn its chance to prove the world wrong again. Buckle up, the history of weird and wild things isn’t quite done just yet.