2023 Game One-Hundred-Sixty-Four (Wild Card Game Two): Twins 2, Blue Jays 0

 

I believe Yusei speaks for the room

Naturally, I would have preferred Vladimir Guerrero Jr. not to have been picked off at second base (the unpicked Vladdy; let us consider him in the realm of forms) with two runners on and Bo Bichette at the plate, two outs and a full count in the fourth, much as I would have welcomed any outcome other than than an inning-ending double play when Matt Chapman came up with the bases loaded in the sixth. But it was that kind of day: despite eleven base runners (nine hits—all singles—and a pair of walks), the Blue Jays couldn't push a thing across. This has been a theme all season long, really, with the Blue Jays' runs scored (that most vital of offensive stats) lagging behind every single way to measure the inputs that corelate with scoring runs. An awful lot of that is noise, no doubt, and variation that you can't actually do a whole lot about, and it's not not noise just because it happened again in October (after a high-end September in which it didn't actually happen very much at all); but man, what a drag. 

I must admit that I remain mystified by how much attention is being focused on John Schneider's unusual move to Yusei Kikuchi in the fourth, with José Berrios largely dealing, but having just surrendered a walk just ahead of a run of lefties in the Twins lineup. Berrios' splits against lefties this year reveal that he has struggled with them (within the overall context of a season-long performance for which we are all grateful), and Kikuchi perhaps seemed the better bet in a pinch, if that's what this was. Though he could not have been thrilled about the quick hook, Berrios, a team player if ever there was one (I really like this guy), immediately switched into cheerleader mode with deep and moving sincerity, all while the Blue Jays commentary team and the splintered legions of the Blue Jays internet went largely berserk. It's true that the inning did not unfold ideally from there: infield single, walk, ground-ball single to centre, a run-producing double play, an inning-ending groundout to Bo at short. That's one run charged to Berrios, and one to Kikuchi, and so between them, this somewhat unlikely pair held the Twins to two into the sixth, at which point Yimi, Swanson and Romano held the Minnesota bats scoreless the rest of the way. This is to say that, to me, however unconventional this particular hook may have been (and indeed was: forty-seven pitches, even under the strain of postseason baseball, is light work, to be sure), the Blue Jays' overall pitching strategy (let us not place all of this on John Schneider) was something very close to wonderfully effective. By any reasonable measure, neither the Blue Jays' pitching strategy nor the Blue Jays pitchers themselves were the problem at all, nor were they anywhere near the problem, except for in the very literal sense that the dugout isn't all that big and everybody gets pretty cozy all together in there (many of them are huggers). The percentage of baseball games you can win, even in the lower-run environment of the playoffs, while allowing two runs—or even three, as was the case in Kevin Gausman's Game One—is reasonably high! The percentage of games you can win whilst scoring exactly zero runs, though, has got to be vanishingly small (I have not fully run the numbers on that one myself, but back-of-the-envelope style, it's not looking good). 

So where do we go from here? Well, home for the fall, I suppose, in the most immediate sense. Looking ahead even a little, though, there will be a handful of departures that will change the feel of the club at least a little: Matt Chapman is sure to be tendered a qualifying offer from the Blue Jays, and is just as sure to decline it (my friend David—a Yankees fan since before the inception of the Blue Jays, making it understandable, and almost forgivable—rightly notes that the Yankees seem like a good fit); Kevin Keirmaier, fresh off just a lovely season, is by his own account likely to seek literally greener pastures, in the sense that he would like his aging knees to know real grass in an ongoing way before they are ground to dust; Brandon Belt may yet retire (I am reminded that earlier today, I read that Joey Votto would play next year were the Reds to pick up his option, that he is open to playing a final season elsewhere if it comes to that, but that he has also applied to cooking school in case he changes his mind about any of that). But the best pitching staff we have had in decades will be back next year, and while we cannot reasonably expect quite this level of performance (to say nothing of health) to repeat, it should still be a genuine strength. Varsho and Springer will still be in the outfield; Bo, Vladdy, Kirk/Jansen will still be around the diamond, with some combination of Biggio, Espinal, and Schneider filling it out. A big bat for left field? A lefty bat to DH and spell Kirk or Jansen (whichever one isn't catching on a given day)? George Springer has almost certainly entered the genteel decline stage of his fine career, but there's every reason to expect improvement (on the aggregate) from the rest of the boys. Way back in the spring, FanGraphs projected these 2023 Blue Jays at eighty-eight wins, and we finished with eighty-nine. I would expect both of those numbers to be more or less the situation next year, too. 

As I said the other day, just as the regular season was winding down (which feels weeks ago, all of a sudden), I've really enjoyed this season, just as I've really enjoyed each of these winning seasons from the dark but strangely consoling 2020 season onwards. You'd never know it from the discourse the last few days, but these are the good times: the Blue Jays are a .557 team over the last four years, and if you find yourself daunted by our oh-and-six in playoff games over that same span, then I feel that you are as-yet-untutored in the routine failures of baseball, and I mean the ones routine to the Toronto Blue Jays, a big-city team that can afford good players, that has more seasons above .500 than below, that makes the playoffs a little over twenty percent of the time, and who are in fact the only team other than the Yankees to win back-to-back World Series championships in the forty-seven years the Blue Jays have even been around. If watching the Blue Jays feels too gnarly, imagine the plight of those doomed souls attached to the Mariners, the Rangers, the poor Brewers (eliminated the same day as the Blue Jays; Bob Uecker told me all about it on the radio), or even the last thirty years of the Reds, to say nothing of, like, the Rockies, or the deliberately woeful Athletics. What I mean to suggest here is that as unpleasant as it may have been in the moment (plenty!), we'll get through Vladdy picked off at second, or a pitching change that few cared for in game that ended 2-0. It's all still very much baseball. 

As will the remaining postseason be, I'm sure! I'm honestly looking forward to it: it's all low-key and stress-free from here on in (for me at least; I have friends still deeply involved). I don't imagine I'll post again until things get going next season, though, so I will take this opportunity to thank you very much for reading throughout the summer. See you in the spring, maybe?  

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Sixty-Three (Wild Card Game One): Twins 3, Blue Jays 1

 

oh no

The tying run came to the plate (in the sense of "being at bat") with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, embodied in the eager person of George Springer, who ripped a screamer just to the right of first baseman Donavan Solano. Solano, who'd come on as a pinch hitter earlier, but had struck around after, made a nice little play on it, and that was that: Twins 3, Blue Jays 1. Honestly I did not mind any of this quite like you might think? It was discouraging, certainly, that Kevin Gausman struggled early, and allowed two home runs to only-recently-uninjured rookie masher Royce Lewis in the first three innings, while all and sundry (I think I identify as "sundry" more than "all" in this instance, but I'm sure I've been both) speculated as to whether or not the Twins did indeed have something on Gausman's splitter. The extraordinarily great Minnesota crowd roared whenever a Twin laid off of a low pitch, which I'm sure was a lot of fun for them (they have suffered, and have earned whatever rewards they may gather). It was both a drag and a surprise that Gausman went only four innings, and I'm sure he would be the first to tell you that things did not go well, or at all like he'd hoped, but at the end of the day, Kevin Gausman threw two centre-cut fastballs that we did not enjoy; it's not like he walked the world, or anything truly agonizing like that. Nobody wanted to see the bullpen in action that early (unless it was to Unleash the Kooch [which did not happen]), but it must be said that every move that John Schneider made in that regard felt correct in the moment, and was then justified immediately, as every reliever turned in more of the great work we have come to expect of them over the long season: Swanson, Mayza, Green, the enigmatic (and fired up) Genesis Cabrera (it is all part of his ever-deepening enigma), and Jordan Hicks allowed nary a run between them. Great job, guys! That was a lot of innings! As to the bats: well, it would have really been something had Matt Chapman's inning-ending fly ball to the wall with two runners on somehow eluded the leaping Michael A. Taylor; I'll sure say that! Bo and Keirmaier were the only Blue Jays with two hits (Bo scored the lone run; Keirmaier knocked him in), though Vladdy doubled in the eighth and Chapman singled, too (that was earlier). The play that is getting the most attention, for what I feel are the wrong reasons, saw Bo thrown out at the plate to end the third as he scurried homeward on a Keirmaier chopper that pulled third baseman Jorge Polanco out of position, leaving the ball in what seemed like no man's land. To me, it was a good, smart, aggressive play from a player who is all three of those things, but an unlikely and quite frankly perfect play from Carlos Correa—who, like young Royce Lewis, just came off the injured list—cut Bo down at home. Although I have not actively sought anything like this out, a good deal of criticism of Bichette's decision has nevertheless appeared before me, and every bit of it is silly. Cheers to Carlos Correa, who made a great play; and to Pablo Lopez, who pitched ably into the sixth; and to the Minnesota fans, who created a perfect playoff atmosphere. I just don't feel like the Blue Jays blew this one even a little? I feel like they played a good baseball game against a good baseball team and lost the good baseball game? It's not what you want to see, but it's hard to feel bad about it.    

And so it falls to José Berrios and a cast of potentially everyone (John Schneider has said that Kevin Gausman is the only player unavailable today) to see if we can keep the series and indeed the season going a little longer. Sonny Gray is every bit as good as Pablo Lopez, I think you'd have to say, so it will be a tall task, but honestly the boys put together some really nice at-bats yesterday. A few more like that, and we're bound to put at least a couple runs on the board, and with all hands on deck, that might be all we need? 

KS 

2023 Game One-Hundred-Sixty-Two: Rays 12, Blue Jays 8

you know what: generally not an on-field smiler

With the Blue Jays' playoff status secured by Saturday night's Texas win/Seattle loss (as Téo grounds to Marcus Semien, we remember what was [and what could be again? {no, the past is gone, never to return}]), the only real goal heading into play Sunday was to get through it unharmed, and with Kevin Gausman firmly rooted to the bench, so as to be at the ready Tuesday afternoon in Minnesota. And we did it! I was a little worried when Bo stumbled around second, and plunged, helmet over his eyes, into third base for what was admittedly a pretty sweet triple: it would be an awkward time for another lower-body injury to our best hitter who is also our shortstop! Bo, you are both of these guys at once—please be careful! But he seemed well enough, and in good cheer throughout the dugout ministrations of trainer José Ministral. To everyone's surprise, starting pitching duties fell to the unheralded and honestly unheard of Wes Parsons, harmlessly cooked for eight runs (including a grand slam!) before a single out was recorded in the second (imagine if Alek Manoah had simply accepted, in an uncomplicated way, his assignment to Buffalo, had kept throwing, and came back up to get some outs on the last day of the season; he'd have received a hero's welcome, despite his ongoing disaster). Parsons could be heard to swear as loudly as anyone has managed all season, and then, to his great credit, made it through four complete. Though his line was indeed hideous, every out he managed is one more the regulars didn't have to worry about, and we thank him for his service. There was obviously a ramshackle quality to the whole affair Sunday, but lots to like for this huge crowd assembled for the weird day. They were particularly pleasant about young Cam Eden's first major-league hit (he is a speedy guy! he might well be on the playoff roster because of it!).  

So here we are. We made it. And although we did not win the ninety games that, for whatever reason, is the only way I can truly be happy about baseball (this is not really true, but is truer than is in any sense reasonable), we did slightly outperform the FanGraphs model that had us at eighty-eight wins, as you will almost certainly recall without checking. I'm very pleased that we're off to Minnesota, rather than to Tampa, not because I don't think we can hang with the Rays (the Rays are actually not quite the Rays anymore, which probably means this is the year they finally win the whole thing), but because I have always been fond of the Twins, and this fondness has only grown in recent years (relatively speaking) once they moved into their absolutely lovely new ballpark. Though I miss the billowing pines (松濤, shōtō, pine waves) that have since been replaced by an also-good living wall, it is still a top ballpark in either league, æsthetically. Unfortunately, the Twins starting pitching is really very good, especially their top two of Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray (simply outstanding starting pitcher names, especially in tandem like that), and if things go their way even a little, we won't even get a look at their third starter. The Blue Jays are going with Kevin Gausman for game one, obviously, and have José Berrios slotted in behind him, with Chris Bassitt scheduled for game three, should it come to be. I think I like that order after Gausman? Probably no bad calls here, but I do think I like the idea of Bassitt (aka the Mound Hound) in the potentially decisive game three over even Berrios, and if one were to counter "but we might not even get to a game three!" I would counter-counter thus: brother, if we do not win when Kevin Gausman pitches, I will be so sad that it will all be of little consequence. And Gausman actually looked shaky against the Twins this year! They were laying of the splitter! It was awful! 

But before I descend too deeply into cares, I would like to say that whatever happens from here on out, this season has really been a lot of fun, and, to me, is an unqualified success already. And this whole era of Blue Jays baseball, for that matter, the Bo/Vladdy period, is already a success, and one of the best times there has ever been to be a Blue Jays fan (to me, it has honestly been the most fun). I would of course welcome an AL pennant, or a World Series championship! Please do not mistake me! But I am old enough that it is difficult to take anything other than the long view: the Blue Jays have played forty-seven seasons (only a few short seasons more than my own), and have made the postseason ten times; it is worth remembering that three of those ten times have occurred over the last four years (and the team that missed, the ninety-one-win 2021 team that mashed, was maybe the best of the bunch). This has been, and continues to be, a great time for Blue Jays baseball. And the way this team is put together, there's every reason to expect we'll be good for a few more summers, too. Whether or not things turn out the way we'd like this fall, or any fall, who knows? But it really is the summers that count.  

KS