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