5 Things You May Have Missed from the Blue Jays’ Wild Card Win

No matter where you were last night during the Blue Jays-Orioles Wild Card game, it was absolutely worth at least one more re-viewing.

Luckily, Sportsnet replayed the game in its entirety earlier today; and it was even better than I remember. The defense and pitching was solid from both sides, but the Blue Jays supplied that slight edge in offense in the form of Edwin Encarnacion’s walk-off homer.

But here’s a few tiny things I picked up on from going back and watching the very end of the game a couple of times. It’s neat to notice all these little intricacies from the TV broadcast. And these ones below were just from the dying moments of the game.

Is this where Martin hurt his finger?

 
For whatever reason, as his teammates celebrated in the scrum at home plate, Russell Martin paused and pointed out something to the home plate umpire.

Thanks to John Lott and a few other folks on Twitter for deducing that this may have been the moment where Russell Martin suffered his unfortunate high-five injury.

Here’s a bit of footage just after the celebration in which Martin looks down at his hand, then walks to the dugout with Troy Tulowitzki.

The coaching staff’s celebration

 
The player and fan celebrations are always exciting to watch in the postseason, but one highly underrated aspect of the game is seeing how the coaches and managers react to a playoff win.

Keep a close eye on Dane Johnson as he hopped over the rail and started bolting for home plate, only to then jump sideways and run back into the dugout to celebrate with his fellow coaches. The camaraderie between John Gibbons and company is pretty endearing.

The Crying Jordan Orioles Bird

 
Credit to whoever had the foresight to go ahead and make a Baltimore Orioles bird Crying Jordan fathead and bring it to the game. This was flashed on the TBS broadcast just after Josh Donaldson’s single in the 11th inning. Normally I’m not a huge man of this meme, but given the final result of the game, it was too perfect.

Just keep swimming, Navarro

 
Hat tip to Drew (@DrewGROF of Birds All Day) for picking up on this special moment from Dioner Navarro. The Blue Jays backup catcher may not be regarded as “graceful” on the base paths, but his leaps into the air following Edwin Encarnacion’s home run were nothing short of beautiful.

Did Edwin Walk the Parrot?

 
Of course he did. Considering the gravity of the moment, I thought Edwin Encarnacion might break out of character. True to form, Eddie still walked the parrot after hitting the biggest home run of his career.