Lately, it seems, it’s hard to remember the good times as far as the Blue Jays are concerned.

Alex Anthopoulos, Paul Beeston and David Price are all gone, while the team’s new boss, Mark Shapiro, has hardly endeared himself to fans, who quickly renewed their cynicism after the late-summer’s unfamiliar jubilation.

So it’s easy to forget this year was mostly a fun one for the Jays and their long-suffering fan base. With the calendar about to flip, it feels like a good time to look back at the Top 10 Blue Jays’ moments of 2015.

10. Donaldson’s first walk-off

Josh Donaldson’s first walk-off as a Blue Jay came two weeks into the season on April 18 when he homered in the bottom of the 10th inning, KO’ing Atlanta Braves’ reliever, Sugar Ray Marimon. The Jays had seven walk-off victories in 2015 and their dynamic third baseman was the hero in four of them, including three walk-off homers, which set a new franchise record. Since 2013, Donaldson has seven walk-off homers, while no other player has more than three. It seemed almost scripted when his final walk-off of the season came in the Jays’ final regular-season home game — the cherry on top of an unforgettable season.

9. Encarnacion’s hat trick

While the Jays may have captivated the city’s sporting attention this summer, Toronto will always be a hockey town. That was clear in August when fans showered the Rogers Centre field with hats after Edwin Encarnacion hit his third home run of the game on Aug. 29 in a 15-1 drubbing of the Detroit Tigers. It was a zany spectacle, the likes of which Jays’ players and coaches had never seen. But it was a fitting tribute to Encarnacion — who drove in nine runs on the day, tying a 39-year-old franchise record — and the Jays’ thundering August, when they won a whopping 21 games.

8. Deadline fever

It started early Tuesday morning, when Anthopoulos pulled off a middle-of-the-night blockbuster, sending shortstop Jose Reyes and a trio of minor-league pitching prospects to the Colorado Rockies for perennial all-star Troy Tulowitzki and veteran reliever LaTroy Hawkins. Two days later, Anthopoulos did it again, acquiring ace lefty David Price — the most prized trade chip on the market — from the Detroit Tigers for another package of prospects. Hours before Friday’s deadline, Anthopoulos continued to add, picking up left fielder Ben Revere and hard-throwing reliever Mark Lowe. In a frenzied few days, Anthopoulos addressed every one of the team’s holes, creating a beastly juggernaut and paving the way for the best second-half in franchise history. The Jays went 41-18 after the deadline en route to their first playoff berth since 1993.

7. Price is right

David Price made his first appearance in the Jays’ dugout at the end of that heady week, just in time to watch his new teammates walk-off the Kansas City Royals. But it wasn’t until the following Monday that he made his debut on the mound, and he did so in front of an adoring sold-out crowd of 45,766, who were revved up by the preceding week’s excitement and giddy with anticipation about the possibilities ahead of them. Price allowed just three hits over eight nearly flawless innings on Aug. 3, retiring his final 15 batters in a row and clapping his glove in the crowd’s direction as he walked off the mound. He seemed to be in awe himself. “That was the best atmosphere I’ve ever been in,” Price said after the game. “I’ve pitched in really big games . . . but that atmosphere today, that takes the cake.”

6. Stroman’s ‘legendary’ return

It was borderline miraculous. Marcus Stroman was never supposed to pitch in 2015 after tearing the ACL in his left knee while taking part in a routine bunt-fielding drill in spring training. Fans openly grieved for the budding ace on Twitter. But the relentlessly positive right-hander kept promising a comeback. “The return shall be legendary,” he tweeted on March 12, just two days after what, by all accounts, should have been a season-ending injury. Few believed him at first. It was too much of a long shot. But Stroman kept exceeding expectations, tweeting updates every step along the way. By midsummer, when everything seemed to be falling the Jays’ way, he was pitching in rehab games. On Sept. 12, six months after his surgery, Stroman — who has never seen a spotlight he didn’t like — took the mound at Yankee Stadium in New York City in one of the biggest series of the season. He made four starts down the stretch, posting a 1.67 ERA and playing a key post-season role in the Jays’ rotation.

5. Martin’s fireworks

It was eclipsed by much bigger hits in the post-season, but Russell Martin’s game-breaking, three-run homer in the seventh inning of the Jays’ final game of the season against their closest rival was the decisive blow in the race for the American League East. The 4-0 victory gave the Jays a 3.5-game lead over New York with just 10 games remaining. The 32-year-old Montrealer, whom the Jays signed to the largest free-agent contract in franchise history in the off-season, hit 23 homers in his first year in Toronto while throwing out more runners than any other catcher and even earning a couple down-ballot MVP votes.

4. MVP! MVP!

The chants echoed around the Rogers Centre all season. The choice was always clear to Jays’ fans, who watched Donaldson’s nearly nightly heroics in his first season in Toronto. But it wasn’t official until Nov. 19, when he received 23 of 30 first-place votes to edge Mike Trout as just the second player in Jays’ history to win the American League MVP. On paper, Donaldson put together arguably the greatest season by a position player in franchise history. He hit 41 homers and 41 doubles, led the league in runs scored and RBI, while also playing stellar defence and adding value on the base paths. For Jays’ fans, however, Donaldson offered even more. He was the team’s big, beating heart throughout the season, diving headlong into the seats to snare a foul ball, contorting his body to evade a tag at home plate and delivering game-winning hits with remarkable regularity. His 2015 season will be remembered as among the best in team history.

3. Cue the comeback

The Jays first post-season in more than two decades got off to a sputtering start as they dropped their first two games to the red-hot Texas Rangers. It looked like this long-awaited taste of October baseball would be maddeningly short-lived. But as the series shifted to Texas on Oct. 11, the Jays came to life — thanks largely to Marco Estrada and Troy Tulowitzki. The former threw a gem, allowing just one run over 6 1/3 innings; the latter tied a franchise record by driving in four runs, including a tension-busting three-run homer. With that the Jays found their stride and stormed back to win the series.

2. Oh so close

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No, it didn’t end well, but despite the fateful outcome it’s worth remembering that the Jays’ final game of the 2015 season on Oct. 23 also featured one of the greatest individual playoff performances in franchise history. On the 22nd anniversary of Joe Carter’s World Series walk-off, Jose Bautista nearly single-handedly kept the Jays’ season alive in Game 6 of the ALCS, hitting a pair of homers, including a game-tying, two-run shot in the eighth inning. An inning later, after the Royals re-took the lead, Bautista was waiting in the on-deck circle when Donaldson grounded out to end the season.

1. Bat flip for the ages

Instantly iconic. The lasting image of one of the craziest games in Jays’ history will of course be Bautista, nostrils flared, flamboyantly flinging his bat aside after blasting a season-salvaging, go-ahead homer in the deciding Game 5 of the division series against Texas. Bautista was already among the team’s all-time greats, but The Flip made him indelible. If the 2015 season is remembered for one thing, this will be it.