TORONTO – Three times already have the Toronto Blue Jays stared down the end of their best season in two decades, and survived. The first two times they earned another game, the last time they earned another series. And now, after just four games in the American League Championship Series, they are once again on the brink, once again left to fight for another game, left to see where that takes them.

Rallying to win three straight against the Kansas City Royals, playing with the power and responsiveness of a Ferrari, will be exponentially more difficult than it was to run off three consecutive victories over the much weaker Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series. Frankly put, the Blue Jays are simply getting outhit, outpitched, outbullpenned and outdefended by the AL Central champions, even if they coughed up a Game 2 that was in their grasp.

Tuesday’s thoroughly humiliating 14-2 loss – putting the Royals up 3-1 in the best-of-seven – once again demonstrated that. R.A. Dickey was clubbed for four runs in the first, the soft-tossing Chris Young kept a lid on baseball’s most prolific offence, and eventually the vulnerable underbelly of the Blue Jays bullpen was exposed, leading to a spirit-breaking four-run seventh, three-run eighth and two-run ninth that eradicated all thoughts of a comeback before 49,501 at Rogers Centre.

“We’re going to have to play our best game in order to beat these guys, and we need to do that (Wednesday),” said Josh Donaldson. “We know what we have to do, they’ve played really well, and pretty much dominated all facets of the game today.”

The domination was so complete manager John Gibbons was forced into using utility-man Cliff Pennington to get the final out of the ninth, a first for a position player in postseason history. He relieved Mark Lowe, whom Gibbons had hoped to save for Wednesday but was needed to escape an eighth Ryan Tepera couldn’t get out of, burning him for Game 5.

Some fans cheered Pennington’s introduction – hey, they deserved some fun – but his stint on the mound is a shameful moment for the franchise, even if the bullpen was down a man because Aaron Loup had to return home because of a family matter.

“I hate to use position players,” lamented Gibbons. “We were trying to stay away from (Lowe), he had a tough time.”

Now, Marco Estrada is all that stands between the Royals and a return trip to the World Series, while Edinson Volquez stands between the Blue Jays and a Game 6 at Kauffman Stadium.

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That’s the overriding dynamic in play.

“There’s no doubt it’s a big challenge,” said Gibbons. “It’s a do or die game for us. But they (bounce back) all year. I think these guys will let this one go and they’ll show up to play. The key is to get a good outing out of Marco and we’ll see where it takes us. Not a more important game this season, really. I know these guys will be ready.”

Dickey – controversially pulled one out from a win in favour of David Price during a Game 4 win over the Rangers – pitched on seven days of rest and was fortunate to make it out of the first before failing to survive the second in the shortest start in Blue Jays postseason history.

The first-inning disaster went like this: Alcides Escobar bunt single; Ben Zobrist two-run homer; Lorenzo Cain walk and stolen base; Eric Hosmer single; passed ball to score Cain; Kendrys Morales groundout, advancing Hosmer to third; Mike Moustakas sacrifice fly.

In the second, Alex Rios hit a one-out solo shot before Escobar was hit by a pitch, and after a Zobrist groundout, Cain’s walk spelled the end for Dickey.

The worrying part from the Blue Jays perspective is that his knuckler was good, and still the Royals slapped him around.

“This is a really good team,” said Dickey. “They spit on a lot of good knuckleballs. They hit the ones that were a little bit flatter. Two singles and two home runs and I’m out of the game. It happened really quickly. This is my 103rd start for the Blue Jays and it’s the first time I’ve gone that short. So it was the anomaly for sure. But it’s a bad time to have the anomaly.”

Liam Hendriks, the only real bright spot for the Blue Jays, delivered 4.1 bullpen-saving innings of one-hit ball, but the offence could only muster a Donaldson RBI double and Jose Bautista run-scoring groundout in the third against Young, cutting the Royals lead to 5-2.

Young held firm until the fifth, when he was lifted with two outs after a Ben Revere single with Donaldson coming to the plate (hmmn, lifting a pitcher one out from victory despite a comfortable lead sounds familiar). Luke Hochevar induced a foul popper to end the frame and then he, Ryan Madson, Kelvin Herrera and Franklin Morales proceeded to lock things down, putting a vice-grip on the series.

“We’re going to stay positive,” said Dickey. “We’ve been here before where we’ve had to win three games in a row. Hopefully tomorrow Marco can keep us in it and we can win one. And then we’ll win another one. And then we’ll see where we stand. But you know, this team, we’ve had our back against the wall before. So this is nothing new. This is not uncharted territory for us.

“We believe in one another, and it’s going to be alright.”

The depth of quality in the Royals bullpen stood in stark contrast to what followed Hendriks, as LaTroy Hawkins took over in the seventh and allowed the first three batters to reach before Tepera followed him.

Escobar hit a sacrifice fly caught on the run by Kevin Pillar at the wall in centre, Gordon scored on a wild pitch, Zobrist walked, Cain hit an RBI single and Hosmer added another sacrifice fly.

Tepera came back out for the eighth, but ended up in more trouble, surrendering another sacrifice fly to Escobar and a two-run single to Cain before Gibbons was forced to bring in Lowe to stop the bleeding.

Lowe had to pitch the ninth, as well, which ended up wasting him when he might have been used right away in the seventh and perhaps held things at 5-2 to give the offence more time to try and rally. Instead, he managed only two outs and was at 29 pitches when he hit Gordon.

In came Pennington, who allowed a two-run single to Paulo Orlando before getting Zobrist on a foul popper caught against the Blue Jays dugout railing by Russell Martin.

“It was getting so ugly,” Gibbons said of turning to Lowe. “You try to have a little pride anyway.”

Over and over this season, the Blue Jays have found ways to pick themselves up from difficult losses and bad performances. Recovering from this mess is going to be their biggest challenge yet, with no second chances left.