5 most painful Blue Jays postseason moments in recent memory

Professional sports can give teams and their fans some of the most amazing highs. However, the flip side of this addictive feeling is that it can also make you experience the lowest of the lows.

The Blue Jays have been fortunate enough to win two World Series during their time in the league. However, it's been a long time since this last happened, with the second championship won 30 years ago. Fortunately, the 2023 season will present the team with another chance at a third, as they have successfully clinched a spot in the postseason.

Since then, the Blue Jays have only experienced heartbreak in their quest for more World Series glory. We delve into the history books, to count down the five most painful postseason moments in recent memory.

5) Wild Card woes in surreal circumstances (2020)

The 2020 season was a strange one, as professional sports leagues attempted to navigate the choppy waters of COVID-19. Major League Baseball was no different.

At one point it seemed conceivable there would no baseball altogether, as negotiations between the owners and players became contentious. Fortunately for fans the two sides eventually came to a compromise.

On the negative side, only 60 regular season games would be played by each team. On the plus side 16 teams would qualify for the playoffs -- eight in both leagues -- with all games played at neutral sites except the first round.

The expanded playoffs ultimately benefited the Blue Jays, with them going 32-28 and ranking as the seventh seed in the AL. In any other season they would have missed out.

The Blue Jays headed to Tampa Bay for their best-of-three playoff series versus the Rays. What ultimately made it painful, was being over-matched versus their divisional rivals, as they were swept 2-0.

The first game was the closer of the two, as the Rays won 3-1 in a contest where hits were at a premium. The Blue Jays did not manage one until the sixth inning, had five in total -- the Rays had just four -- and scored their solitary run in the eighth, when they were already down 3-0.

Any hopes of getting back into the series were dashed early in Game 2, courtesy of a six-run scoring blitz by the home side in the second inning. The Blue Jays could not recover, as the Rays went on to win 8-2 and move on to the second round.

4) A painful 'what if?' (2021)

Okay, so this one isn't technically a postseason memory. However, it's still worthy of being included, given how it played out and what could have been.

The 2021 season was a year when the Blue Jays had one of the most dangerous offenses in all of baseball. They scored the third-most runs in the Majors, while also having the fifth-best run differential.

Highlighting their offensive prowess, the Blue Jays had four players hit 100+ RBI on the year. They were the first team to achieve this feat since 2003 and historically speaking, only the 1936 Yankees have ever bettered this, with five players reaching 100 RBI that season.

The four players in question for the Blue Jays were Teoscar Hernández (116), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (111), Bo Bichette (102) and Marcus Semien (102). Guerrero in particular stood out, as he finished second in AL MVP voting, behind one Shohei Ohtani.

The Blue Jays would go in to finish the 2021 season with an impressive 91 victories. However, this wouldn't be enough to qualify for the playoffs, with them missing out agonizingly by just one game.

This was extremely frustrating, given the Blue Jays had a better record versus the AL East compared to the Red Sox and Yankees, who both finished one win ahead of them. For the Yankees specifically, the Blue Jays won the season series 11-8. (They were 9-10 versus the Red Sox.)

Further adding to the frustration, the Blue Jays did not get to play any games in Toronto until July 30, translating to 47 games without homefield advantage. This was due to ongoing travel restrictions as part of the fallout from COVID-19, but those extra 47 true home games could have made all the difference.

3) On the doorstep (2016)

Following on from an extremely successful 2015 season -- more on this after -- big things were expected in 2016. The Blue Jays duly obliged, by making the playoffs for a second consecutive year.

The Blue Jays weren't quite as dynamic as a year earlier, 'only' finishing ninth in the Majors in scoring. They also qualified as just a wild card this time around, but after having a 21-year playoff drought broken just a season earlier, fans weren't exactly going to complain.

In any event, the Blue Jays dispatched the Orioles at home in the sudden-death wild card round. It did take extra innings, but they were fully deserving of their 5-2 win, as they out-hit their rivals 9-4 and were just the better team overall.

This set up the much anticipated rematch with the Rangers, one year after an absorbing series which featured the iconic bat flip that arguably saved baseball. This time around though the Blue Jays swept the series 3-0 despite not having homefield advantage, with the only real drama coming in the clinching game, where they took 10 innings to win 7-6 in Toronto.

As a result, the Blue Jays found themselves on the doorstep of the World Series for a second straight year. The then-Indians had homefield advantage and won the season series 4-3, but it was all set to be a closely-contested ALCS.

Instead, what transpired was a hugely disappointed showing from the Blue Jays, who just couldn't get going. The offense in particular was terrible, with just eight combined runs over five games, including five in their solitary win.

What was really galling, was how little the Blue Jays took advantage of their three games in Toronto. In many ways the 3-0 loss in the clinching Game 5 to the then-Indians highlighted the ineptitude of a Blue Jays team that was capable of so much more.

1) The best team since winning the World Series (2015)

Feel free to dispute this, but it is our contention the 2015 version of the Blue Jays was the best since their last World Series win in 1993. And for 2015 in its own right, they were arguably the best team in the Majors.

To back up this claim, consider the Blue Jays easily had the most runs at 891, which was 127 ahead of anyone else. In addition, their run differential of +221 was 99 better than second place.

Despite this offensive arsenal and winning 93 games, the Blue Jays would finish two behind the Royals in the AL. After dispatching the Rangers in one of the most thrilling playoff series in Major League history, the ALCS matchup was set and started in Kansas City.

Despite not having homefield advantage, the Blue Jays entered the series in a confident mood. They had won the season series 4-3 versus the Royals and even though they had only one victory in three games in Kansas City, they had still outscored them 20-12.

We would contend there were three specific games in the ALCS which provide harsh flashbacks. The first was the opening game, when the Blue Jays unexpectedly came out flat and were blanked 5-0.

The second one was after the Blue Jays had returned home and got back into the series with a 11-8 win in Game 3. In Game 4, they gave an inexcusable account of themselves and were humiliated 14-2, which notable as their biggest ever postseason loss.

The last tough moment came in Game 6, when the series was decided in Kansas City. The Blue Jays fought hard and had tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the eighth, only for the Royals to score the winning run in the bottom half of the inning and ultimately advance to the World Series.