Darryl Sittler, Carlos Delgado, Roy Halladay, Vince Carter, Chris Bosh. Considering how it seems to never end smoothly for big-time stars in Toronto, the confusion created by the American League playoff picture is probably the best we could have hoped for Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion.

They could be gone, you know. For good. The Blue Jays headed out to Boston Thursday night for the final series of the regular season not knowing whether they would be a wild-card team, let alone have the home-field advantage and, no, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. The 2016 season was about winning the AL East Division (at least doing that) and going on to the World Series and, in some manner, allowing for a proper cautionary farewell to Bautista and Encarnacion, who have played the biggest roles in the rebirth of fan interest in the Blue Jays and are eligible for free agency this winter.

They should all get to go out like David Ortiz. Hell, we should all get to go out like David Ortiz. But that might not be the case for the Blue Jays sluggers, who were as ineffective as the rest of their teammates last night in a 4-0 loss to the Baltimore Orioles that sucked them into the vortex of a battle for survival, never mind home-field advantage. It was a shockingly, stunningly flat performance – the kind that causes people to go poking into the darkest corners of a clubhouse looking for the dreaded “something” that explains where it’s all gone.

Bautista had three of the eight strikeouts recorded by the Orioles; Encarnacion drew a walk and hit a one-out double in the ninth. And it was the damnedest thing: neither received much in the way of an acknowledgment during their at-bats. In fact, many of the sell-out crowd of 47,991 had already left which either means: 1. they believe there will be a home playoff game next week, or: 2. that Encarnacion and Bautista will be back next year or; 3. that they’re so focussed on the race for the wild-card and that not making it is so unthinkable that they just, well, forgot.

“I’m not trying to think about that,” Bautista said later when asked if the thought had crossed his mind that he might have played his final home game in a Blue Jays jersey. “I’m trying to win a game and focus on making the playoffs.”

Encarnacion wasn’t as reserved. He sat quietly in the dugout for a few minutes after the game, acknowledging a few fans.

“I want to come back here again, one more time,” he said. “I don’t want to leave here like that. I want to come back here to the playoffs.”

Their divergent seasons have been well-chronicled. Bautista has been hurt and is no longer viewed by most Major League teams as an everyday right-fielder. Indeed, for wide swaths of the season his biggest offensive contributions have come from his ability to draw a base on balls as well as his reputation – the latter of which became less of a factor as the season went on. Encarnacion has broken the bank with his season, and will along with Mark Trumbo be a premier power threat on the market while showing National League teams that his defence is good enough to play first base every day.

Their seasons have been as different as the approaches each player took to their free agency in spring training: Bautista effectively demanding five years and $150 million, Encarnacion fudging his demands but making it clear he wouldn’t negotiate once the season starts. Both players agents were in town during the final homestand, but there is no indication there was any substantive discussions with club president Mark Shapiro – although this front office has shown it knows how to keep a secret. And, here’s a good rule of thumb: when late-bloomers get a shot at their one, big free-agent payday, the more teams involved in the process the tougher it is to re-sign them, particularly when a season is on the verge of ending as sourly as this one.

It would be a surprise if either is back. Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins have let it be known that this team will be younger next season with at least two more left-handed or switch-hitters. That’s not an economic imperative; it’s a philosophical bent that would appear prudent given the way the AL East, like baseball in general, is becoming a younger man’s game.

One of these two might fit in that scenario, and while Encarnacion would be the preferred player of the two – he has always seemed more of the happy warrior type than Bautista, who seems at times to be a mercenary with the soul of a tax collector – he’s also the guy who has seen his value skyrocket. It will take more money and more years to sign Encarnacion.

It was almost as if last night’s game didn’t happen – and if the Blue Jays don’t take their heads out of their asses at the plate; if they don’t make the playoffs at all, it’s going to feel as if the entire season didn’t happen. This is Toronto; there is a darkness that is never far from the surface of our sports soul, a bitterness just below the sweet. That was 503 home runs and 1,378 runs batted in that we saw at bat in the ninth inning and just like that they might be gone without so much as a tip of the cap – a bit like the 2016 season. They deserve better. We deserve better.