Russell Martin can’t tell you the exact date, but he remembers an afternoon late last summer when he took stock of the standings with a couple of teammates in the Toronto clubhouse. The Blue Jays were under .500 and stuck in the same spot in the American League East they’d occupied all season: last place. Still, the wild card race was so densely packed that the Jays were somehow just a few games out of a playoff spot. Encouraged, Martin turned to Aaron Sanchez. “We still have a puncher’s chance,” he told the 2016 all-star.

For Sanchez, too, that exchange still stands out months later. The focused professionalism that had helped him persevere all year in the face of constant injuries to his pitching hand lapsed for a moment. He hadn’t been able to take the mound in a game since July 19. He knew how much his absence had cost the team, and that his return was no sure thing. The frustration was overwhelming. But looking at the standings with Martin, he was suddenly hit with a competing emotion: excitement at the possibility of contending after months of losing. Who knows, maybe he could contribute out of the bullpen? “I wanted to cry and, like, be so happy in the same sentence,” Sanchez recalls. “That was the hardest part in it all.”

“Sanchie took it like, ‘Damn,’” Martin says. “It can be frustrating; energy-sapping. When you’re a competitor, you want to go out there and compete. When you can’t, you’re just stuck.”