TORONTO — It was less than a half hour after the Toronto Blue Jays earned a 10-1 win in Game 1 of the ALDS, and Nathan Lukes stood in front of his locker in the clubhouse trying to find the words for what he’d just experienced.
“I mean, it’s just…” the 31-year-old Lukes said, unable to complete his thought at first.
“I’ve grinded my entire life to be here,” he said, when the words came to him. “Just to see it all play out, it’s a dream come true.”
The journeyman outfielder who debuted in the big leagues eight years after he was drafted made his playoff debut on Saturday afternoon, a full decade after he was Cleveland’s seventh-round pick. And for the guy teammates call “Lukey,” you couldn’t have scripted it much better.
He made a diving catch in the fifth, blew the game open with a two-run double in the seventh, and earned his third RBI with a single in the eighth to cash the Blue Jays’ final run in an eventual drubbing of the New York Yankees.
“I feel like I was just taking it all in,” a smiling Lukes said, when it was over.
The Blue Jays were up 2-0 in the fifth when Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. sent a rope to right field, and Lukes sprinted and dove and slid, hitting the side wall, holding his glove up to show the evidence of his catch as more than 44,000 fans at the Rogers Centre lost it.
Then in the seventh, an inning after the Blue Jays survivedbases loaded and none out with both Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton up to bat — Toronto gave up just one run in the sixth thanks to starter Kevin Gausman (he struck out Judge) and unflappable reliever Louis Varland (he struck out Stanton) — Lukes was up, this time with the bases loaded for the Blue Jays. He was 0-3 to that point at the plate, it was 3-1 Toronto, and there was one out.
“I’d be lying to you if I didn’t tell you I was nervous. My knees were shaking a little bit,” Lukes said. “But it’s every kid’s dream, being in that situation.”
Batting second in the order, Luke knew he had Vladimir Guerrero Jr. coming up behind him, the slugger who opened Game 1 with a home run in his first at-bat. Lukes’ goal was to make sure Guerrero Jr. got up to cash some of those runners.
Not everyone on the team was thinking they’d have to wait for Guerrero Jr. for that to happen, though.
“Lukey has been one of those guys all year, one of the guys that steps up, gets a big hit,” said closer Jeff Hoffman, who served up the final three outs, ending the game with a strikeout. “He’s done it time and time again, and we were happy he was the guy in that spot because we know he can do it.”
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Lukes did it by first working a 3-0 count, and then he took a strike. The fifth pitch he saw, Lukes swung and sent a 94.1 m.p.h four-seam fastball to the right field corner, cashing both Andres Gimenez and Ernie Clement.
As he pulled up to second base, Lukes pumped a fist and yelled, “Let’s go!” while the crowd lost it for him again. He’d given the Blue Jays a 5-1 lead in an eventual four-run seventh inning after a hold-your-breath top of the sixth that saw each of Judge and Stanton a swing away from blowing the game open for the Yankees.
It was Blue Jays centre fielder Daulton Varsho who walked to open the seventh inning, teeing up the bases-loaded situation for Lukes. “He’s been a big part of our clubhouse, a big part of the lineup,” Varsho said of Lukes. “When he’s able to do that, and just seeing his first playoff moment and it wasn’t too big a stage, he could just be himself, it’s really cool.”
“We love to see it,” Hoffman added. “His journey obviously wasn’t easy, and couldn’t happen to a better guy.”
Lukes’ journey saw him drafted back in 2015 by Cleveland, and he started to doubt the MLB dream not long after he and his wife Taylor welcomed their first child, a daughter named Remi, in November of 2021. That same month, he signed a minor league contract with the Blue Jays.
“It had always gone through my mind when I hadn’t debuted [in MLB] yet — I told my wife in my first year of free agency [2022], ‘Let’s do this year, see where it leads, and then I think it could be time to just be a dad,’” Lukes said. “It was at the end of that year Russ [Atkins, the Blue Jays General Manager] called me and told me I was on the 40-man roster. So, I mean, that’s the golden ticket.”
Taylor, Remi, and new addition, six-month-old Jett, were all in the crowd on Saturday.
After the Blue Jays earned their first playoff win since 2016 in resounding fashion, Lukes, Varsho and Myles Straw all met in centre field for a group hug, and Lukes took in what he identified as “probably” his favourite moment of his post-season debut, soaking up the atmosphere.
“Hearing the crowd after the final out in the ninth, seeing all the lights go off, with all the fans screaming,” he said, with a smile. “It was unbelievable. It’s what we live for.”