[jg2977]

COLIN COWHERD:
I’m gonna start here, because people love box scores and miss the point. Toronto hit twenty times. Their guy Devin Thorn hit three home runs — three! — drove in seven, tied a playoff record… and they lost.
That tells you everything you need to know about October baseball.
This wasn’t about offense. This was about who could survive dysfunction longer, and Tampa Bay is built for that. Toronto? They’re explosive. They’re dangerous. They’re also volatile. You light them up once, they light you up twice — but when the game turns weird, when it goes ten innings and everyone’s bullpen is leaking oil? I trust Tampa.
Because Tampa doesn’t need perfect. They just need one more swing.
MIKE FRANCESA:
Yeah but Colin, lemme tell ya somethin’, this game was nuts. I mean absolutely outta control. Fifteen to fourteen, twenty hits apiece, nobody could get anybody out. This was not crisp baseball — this was who blinks first.
And Toronto blinked.
You can’t hit three home runs from one guy and lose a playoff game. You just can’t. That’s a bullpen failure, that’s a managerial problem, that’s everybody lookin’ around sayin’, “Who’s gettin’ the out?”
And nobody did.
COWHERD:
Exactly. Toronto won the headline battle. Tampa won the game. And in October, headlines don’t advance you.
Let’s talk about the moment. Bottom of the tenth. Tie game. Crowd buzzing. Tanner Faller steps in — not your loudest star, not your flashiest name — and delivers the walk-off single. That’s Tampa Bay baseball.
Not sexy.
Not viral.
Effective.
That’s how you win a seven-game series.
FRANCESA:
And I gotta tell ya, Toronto’s pitchers? They were throwin’ gasoline on a bonfire. Curtis comes in, can’t stop anybody, inherits runners, they all score — all of ‘em. You can’t do that in the ALCS. You just can’t.
Now Tampa’s pitchers weren’t great either, let’s be honest, but when it mattered late? They got just enough. Clay shuts it down in the tenth, and that’s the ballgame.
That’s playoff baseball. Ugly wins still count.
COWHERD:
And here’s the broader takeaway. Tampa Bay now leads the series 1–0, and they’ve already absorbed Toronto’s best punch. Thorn went nuclear. The offense went bananas. And Tampa still walked them off.
Psychologically? That matters.
Toronto is thinking, “What else do we have?”
Tampa is thinking, “We survived that.”
Big difference.
FRANCESA:
Yeah, Toronto’s gotta be sick today. You score fourteen runs, your guy has one of the greatest playoff games anybody’s ever had — and you’re down 1–0.
That’s a long walk back to the clubhouse.
COWHERD:
This series is gonna be loud. It’s gonna be messy. But Game 1 told us something important:
Toronto might be more explosive.
Tampa Bay is more durable.
And in October? I’ll take durability every time.