CREDIT: "JOSE BAUTISTA" BY KEITH ALLISON ON FLICKR (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The 2015 Blue Jays' season was one to remember as they proved that they were a team to fear.

With October in the rearview mirror, we say goodbye to yet another baseball season. From spring to fall, we experienced a rollercoaster of emotions with our favourite team, from the miraculous victories to the heartbreaking losses.

As a long time Toronto Blue Jays fan, this season was particularly special. The last time the Jays won the World Series was in 1993. This was followed by several decades of mediocrity and, at the beginning of the 2015 season, the Blue Jays had the longest playoff drought of any Major League Baseball (MLB) team.

Opening Day expectations were tempered. The blockbuster trade in 2012 with the Miami Marlins in which the Blue Jays acquired Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson and others turned out to largely be a failure.

The team finished with an 83-79 record in 2014 and hopes were not much higher for the 2015 team. For the first half of the season, it appeared that expectations would be correct. The Blue Jays acquired Josh Donaldson from the Oakland A’s for Brett Lawrie which provided some much-needed defense at third base, but for the majority of the months of May, June and July, the Jays were dwelling near the bottom of the AL East and fans were resigning themselves with the all-too-familiar, “there’s always next year”.

Then came the Trade Deadline.

General Manager Alex Anthopolous had started to make waves when he dealt shortstop Jose Reyes to the Colorado Rockies in exchange for all-star Troy Tulowitzki.

However, Anthopolous wasn’t done yet. The Blue Jays made headlines all across North America when, on July 30th, Anthopolous pulled the trigger on a deal that sent star pitcher David Price from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for prospects.

The Blue Jays were all-in; they were a team that, at the time of the trades, had a 52-51 record and were 6.0 games behind division rivals, the New York Yankees. While Anthopolous and the Blue Jays believed this team was good enough to get into the playoffs, the fans weren’t immediately convinced.

It didn’t take long for the Jays to prove to fans and the rest of North America that they were serious. Armed with new talent, they quickly closed the gap by going 12-2 in the two weeks following the Trade Deadline, claiming first place in the AL East on August 12.

The Jays didn’t lose momentum down the stretch, going 21-6 in the month of August and 18-9 in September to finish the regular season as American League East Champions, with a 6.0 game lead over the second place Yankees. The drought was over. Toronto would see playoff baseball for the first time in 22 years.

The Blue Jays faced a tough opponent in their ALDS matchup with the Texas Rangers. Losing their first two games at home, the Jays came back to win games 3 and 4 in Arlington to send the series back home for the decisive game 5. One team would advance while the other would see their season end.

That game was one for the ages. Between benches clearing several times, a run scored on an obscure call at the plate and the epic Jose Bautista bat flip that will certainly be shown on sports highlight reels for years to come, the Jays did the unthinkable and won three in a row to face the Kansas City Royals.

The roller coaster of feelings had been weathered for the better part of six months, but the six games of the ALCS were enough to take Jays’ fans on a ride of emotional peaks and valleys. The Jays again lost their first two games but could not surmount a comeback this time. The Royals defeated the Jays in game six, ending one of the best series a Toronto baseball fan could hope for.

Whether you’ve followed the team through the dizzying highs and the terrifying lows, or if you’re a bandwagon fan that started watching this fall, I welcome you, from one fan to another. The promotional hashtag used by the team, #Come- Together, has never been so fitting.