http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/sports/baseball/toronto-beats-texas-advance-to-american-league-championship.html 2016-10-10 07:23:20 With Help From an Error, the Blue Jays Sweep the Rangers and Advance Toronto completed a sweep over the Texas Rangers after Rougned Odor made a wild throw while trying to turn a double play in the bottom of the 10th inning. === TORONTO — It was not obvious, not a ground ball through the legs or a fastball down the middle just begging to be a home run. But the record will show that the play that sent the Second baseman Rougned Odor, who punched the Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista in the jaw in May, made a wild throw while trying to turn a double play in the bottom of the 10th inning at Rogers Centre in Game 3 of this division series. Josh Donaldson, who had led off the inning with a double, slid headfirst into home to complete Toronto’s 7-6 victory and a three-games-to-none sweep. Toronto returns to the A.L.C.S. after having lost in six games to the Bautista — whose bat flip in last year’s division series had angered the Rangers — had a chance to win the series against Matt Bush, the reliever who had plunked him in May before Bautista’s hard slide led to Odor’s punch. But after Donaldson’s double and an intentional walk to Edwin Encarnacion, Bush struck out Bautista to bring up Russell Martin. Martin lashed a grounder in the hole, where shortstop Elvis Andrus backhanded it and flipped to Odor covering the bag. Under pressure from a sliding Encarnacion, Odor fired a one-hop throw that pulled Mitch Moreland off first base. The ball skipped off the glove of Moreland, who scrambled to pick it up and throw home. But he was too late. “I threw it a little bit to the side,” Odor said. “I pulled the ball a little bit. I tried to do my best, and that’s it. I had a chance at first. If it was a good throw, we can make the double play.” Bush was working his third inning; the Rangers never used their closer, Sam Dyson, who did not pitch in the series. The Blue Jays’ closer, Roberto Osuna, worked two perfect innings for the victory. The Blue Jays became the latest team to take flight at the end of the regular season and ride a victory in the wild-card game deep into October. Two years ago, the Royals and the San Francisco Giants met in the World Series as wild cards, and the Blue Jays know what happened then: Kansas City lost but channeled that letdown into a title in 2015. Now, the Blue Jays hope to move past the round that ended their season last fall. They have not reached the World Series since 1993, when Joe Carter’s home run clinched a championship. The Toronto Maple Leafs of the N.H.L. and the Toronto Raptors of the N.B.A. have not reached the finals in that time, either. Sunday’s victory should make for a happy Thanksgiving holiday in Canada. “Hopefully, the turkey will taste a little bit sweeter,” said Toronto outfielder Michael Saunders, from Victoria, British Columbia. The series played out in relative peace; there were no beanballs, punches or misbehavior by fans. The Rangers, who had the best record in the A.L., simply flopped twice at home and could not keep the two leads they held in Game 3. Facing elimination, they had turned to Colby Lewis, a 37-year-old medical marvel who has gone through two shoulder operations, flexor-tendon surgery, hip-resurfacing surgery, Tommy John surgery and two seasons in Japan. “I believe in grit,” Rangers Manager Jeff Banister said. “I believe in resilience. He has built as much of that as any one single player in the game today.” As much as the Rangers admire Lewis, though, they would not let him linger very long on Sunday. He faced just 11 batters but allowed enough damage to put his team in a 5-2 hole after three innings. The Rangers scored without a hit in the top of the first for their first lead of the series. It was gone in minutes. With one on and one out in the first, Encarnacion swung hard at Lewis’s first pitch and flung his bat into the third-base stands. His next swing sent something else to the stands: a towering home run. The blast — Encarnacion’s third in four playoff games — landed in roughly the same spot as his homer to end the wild-card game against the Baltimore Orioles last Tuesday. The crowd erupted, but it was just getting warm; two batters later, Martin ripped another homer to make it 3-1. Two hits started the third inning, chasing Lewis from the game. Encarnacion struck again with a run-scoring single off Tony Barnette, but Blue Jays starter Aaron Sanchez struggled to hold the lead. He allowed a homer by Elvis Andrus in the third and by Odor in the fourth. He walked four, three of which led to runs. The last walk came with two outs and the bases empty in the sixth, after a visit from the pitching coach Pete Walker. Sanchez pitched carefully to Odor, walking him to bring up Jonathan Lucroy, who was hitless in the series. But Lucroy knocked Sanchez out of the game with a single to left, and Moreland doubled in two off reliever Joe Biagini. That gave the Rangers a 6-5 lead — the six runs charged to Sanchez matched his season high — but, again, the lead did not even last a full inning. With one on and one out, Banister replaced a right-hander, Jeremy Jeffress, with a left-hander, Jake Diekman. Predictably, Toronto Manager John Gibbons then replaced his left-handed hitter, Saunders, with the right-handed Melvin Upton Jr. Gibbons’s move worked when Upton rifled Diekman’s first pitch down the left-field line for a double, bringing Troy Tulowitzki to third. He scampered home on a passed ball by Lucroy — he deflected an errant darting fastball by Keona Kela — to tie the game. Kela faced the meat of the Blue Jays’ order in the seventh: Donaldson, Encarnacion and Bautista. The crowd pleaded for a homer — the trio combined for 101 this season — but Kela would not give in. Donaldson whiffed on a high fastball, Encarnacion flied out harmlessly to right, and Bautista popped out to first. Kela screamed in celebration; it got so quiet, so quickly, that he could be heard from the third deck. The brigade of hard-throwing relievers, for both sides, had begun. Jason Grilli and Brett Cecil zipped through the Rangers’ 3-4-5 hitters in the top of the eighth, and Bush struck out three Blue Jays in a row in the bottom. His last strikeout, in the 10th, would be against Bautista, the Rangers’ nemesis. But one batter later, the series was over.