Toronto Blue Jays protest game

Toronto Blue Jays players celebrate with fans after winning Game 5 of baseball’s American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers, Wednesday, October 14, 2015, in Toronto.

The 2001 Yankees also did it against Oakland, and the 2012 Giants did it against Cincinnati. Both the work at the plate and on the mound were at their best with Johnny Cueto coming up big with both runs given up on two hits while striking out eight through eight innings to pick up the win.

Toronto now heads to Kansas City to face the Royals in Game 1 of the ALCS on Friday. Toronto’s Jose Bautista was second (1,403) while Blue Jays slugger Edwin Encarnacion was third (1,353).

Bautista’s homer capped an event-filled, 53-minute seventh inning that took a turn when Toronto catcher Russell Martin’s seemingly routine throw back to the pitcher deflected off batter Shin-Soo Choo and allowed the tiebreaking to score. Game 1 of the ALCS is Friday night. “With all that happened, we did a good job of keeping our emotions in check”. A game that seemed bound to be remembered in the worst possible way for crowd-deflating replays, managerial jawing and beer cans tossed onto the field by angry idiot fans.

The Rangers started the bottom half by making errors on three straight groundballs, and Toronto rallied. The Blue Jays scored all three of their runs in the top of the ninth inning, including a two-run double from Al Oliver, to move to within a win of its first World Series appearance.

Roberto Osuna got the final five outs for his first postseason save.

“The highly unfortunate reactions of a group of fans at Rogers Centre in Wednesday’s game represented a major source of concern”, MLB said in a statement Thursday. The feud boiled over in the eighth inning, when Toronto reliever Aaron Sanchez was ejected for hitting Kansas City’s Alcides Escobar with a pitch. Martin was charged with an error.

But after Sam Dyson replaced Cole Hamels, Josh Donaldson drove in a run on a forceout and Jose Bautista hit a long homer to put Toronto up 6-3.

“It’s just one of those moments, and it created an opportunity for us to do something special”.

“I woke up today on the right foot”, Cueto said.

If the batter interferes with the catcher’s throw to retire a runner by stepping out of the batter’s box, interference shall be called on the batter under Official Baseball Rule 6.03(a)(3) (former OBR 6.06(c)).