Last night's game reminds us of the randomized danger and chaos of the Wild Card

Entering last night, I felt total, Schwarzenegger-level confidence in our 2017 wild card-bound juggernaut. Sure, we knew the Blue Jays would play hard; that's because they're poor sports. But Hurricane Jose Bautista is 35, going on Betty White, their sickly lineup has too many Goins on not enough Gomes, and - hell - those health care-crazy Canadians are already tailgating for the hockey season. We were on a Calgary stampede, roaring to the finish line, ready to clinch the prestigious, limited edition, wild card home field advantage crown of bronze.

Then comes a well-delivered pineapple, a colonoscopic reminder of all the shit that can roll our way in one single, measly, stupid game.

After six months of daily grind, the notion that your team's fate shall boil down to one rotten, stinking game - one dice roll, one stiff breeze, one cutting of the cards - shrinks my gonads to the size of a Doanes pill. If our pitcher gets cramps while theirs eats his "Wheaties"... if the home plate umpire stretches our strike zones and squeezes theirs to the size of Hitler's heart... if our home run misses the foul pole and theirs grazes the paint... so many variables. What if in the third inning, young Byron Buxton's testicles finally drop, turning him into a Reggie? Jeez... one game.   

Now, I can imagine one game deciding a football or basketball season, because over 60 punishing minutes, the raw, brute force of hunger will usually prevail. But there is a reason why the lords of baseball went nearly 100 years requiring five or seven game series to decide a championship - why they scorned the one-game, winner-take-all. And last night, we received yet another glimpse of how fast things can go south in a nine-inning season.

Of course, we won't let Masahiro Tanaka near our wild card game. I'm not even sure he should see the playoffs, period. He is 12-12. His ERA is 4.94. If he pitched on the West Coast, home run balls would fly so far into the Pacific that we'd think Kim Jong Un was testing rockets. But it's not just Tanaka. What about Dellin Betances? If he cannot throw strikes, a three-run lead is a joke. And what if our defense decides to, as it does some nights, hold soccer practice on a few ground balls, or if our big hitters get flashbacks to the home run derby?

For years, I have argued that baseball should return to the 154-game schedule - giving pitchers more rest and resetting HR records back to the Ruth era. It would allow the wild carders to play a best-of-three series over the final weekend. That, or eliminate the final wild card slot. But hell... neither will happen. There's money involved.

So get ready, folks. One game. And last night, we saw just how bad one game can be.