Jose Bautista shouts out 'rowdy' Toronto Blue Jays fans and explains why they're a competitive advantage
Few people know what it’s like to play in front of a rowdy Toronto Blue Jays crowd better than Jose Bautista.
The legendary Jays slugger joined First Up on TSN 1050 on Thursday to explain his thoughts on the typically raucous Toronto Blue Jays fanbase, and how that might factor into their playoff series getting underway this weekend.
“It’s insane… just making the opposing players feel that animosity, right? It’s going to be huge. It’s going to be a great competitive advantage,” Bautista told the hosts.
“Everybody, not only in the stadium, but in the city and in the country, [get] behind the players, you get a huge boost from it, because you feel that it’s tangible, and it’s a privilege for players to be in that position, and I think they know and realize that.”
Toronto will host Game 1 and 2 of the ALDS, waiting to find out the results of Thursday night’s matchup between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees to see who they’ll play next.
Bautista himself orchestrated one of the loudest crowd pops in Blue Jays history, hitting an infamous home run in Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS that gave Toronto a 6-3 lead over the Texas Rangers. The home run became Toronto legend not only for what it meant in the moment, but the iconic bat flip afterwards from Bautista.
“Obviously, huge moment for the fans, and I was lucky and happy to be in that position,” he shared.
One of the staples of the Blue Jays’ playoff experience is that if the fans really get going, it can actually change the experience for the viewers at home. In 2015 and 2016, it wasn’t uncommon for the stadium to be shaking so much that camera feeds were coming back choppy to those watching back home.
“This is going to be rowdy out there. It’s going to be insane, and hopefully the cameras don’t shake too much, because I may have to watch from a distance, at least for the first round, but we’ll see what happens,” Bautista added.
Do the Blue Jays have a competitive advantage at home in the playoffs?
The short answer: probably not.
Relative to many other MLB ballparks, there actually haven’t been that many playoff games played at the Rogers Centre.
But Toronto has gone 14-17 over that span at home, with four of their last five games losses. From Oct. 8, 1992 (Game 2 of the ALCS) through Oct. 18, 2016 (Game 4 of the ALCS), the Blue Jays went 12-8 at home during the postseason for a .600 record, but 12 MLB teams had as good or better playoff home records during that span.
Even in their two World Series wins in 1992 and 1993, Toronto went just 7-5 at home in the postseason: good enough to get the job done, but not nearly as impressive as their 9-3 run over those two years.
When the Blue Jays really get rolling at home, they might seem unbeatable, but it’s hard to say that’s been the case too often throughout history.
For the current Blue Jays, they can only hope to flip that narrative and make new memories for a whole different generation of Toronto fans.