The Toronto Blue Jays will host their final home series of the regular season this week and it sure is a doozy. The Baltimore Orioles, who sit one game back of the first wild-card spot the Blue Jays currently hold, are coming to town for three incredibly important games.
A 2–1 series win for the Blue Jays could push the Orioles out of the playoffs; the same for the Orioles would leave the two teams with equal records heading into the season’s final weekend.
A sweep for either side would all but ensure that team the right to host the American League wild-card game next Tuesday.
Here’s what to watch out for:
Tuesday, September 27 — 7:07 pm EST
Kevin Gausman vs. Aaron Sanchez
Wednesday, September 28 — 7:07 pm EST
Chris Tillman vs. Francisco Liriano
Thursday, September 28 — 7:07 pm EST
Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Marcus Stroman
Sanchez gets the opener
The Blue Jays have been creative with Aaron Sanchez’s workload all season, getting the 24-year-old extra rest whenever possible. All that maneuvering has allowed the club to line up the right-hander to start the opener of this series, and the final game of the season, if needed. If the Blue Jays have already clinched a playoff spot by that point, Sanchez could be skipped and saved for the wild-card game or the first game of a potential ALDS.
The all-star has been one of the club’s best pitchers all season, posting a 3.12 ERA over his 179 innings. He was brilliant his last time out, holding the Seattle Mariners to a run on four hits over six strong innings. He was also very good the last time he faced Baltimore, allowing only an unearned run over six innings in a 5–3 Blue Jays victory last month. The club will be looking for more of the same out of the hard-throwing Sanchez in Tuesday’s opener.
Tillman’s north-of-the-border woes
Chris Tillman is scheduled to start Wednesday’s game for the Orioles. He was one of Baltimore’s most reliable starters for most of the season, pitching to a 3.18 ERA through his first 21 outings. But in eight starts since July 26, Tillman has a 6.00 ERA, allowing 26 runs in 39 innings pitched as he’s played through a shoulder issue.
And a visit to Rogers Centre won’t make things any easier. The 28-year-old has a 7.51 ERA in 12 career starts north of the border, allowing a whopping 20 homers in 62.1 innings. Several Blue Jays have hit Tillman exceptionally well over their careers, including Edwin Encarnacion (17-for-56), Jose Bautista (12-for-44), Kevin Pillar (8-for-22) and Russell Martin (6-for-12).
Carrying it over
The Blue Jays are coming off of an extremely emotional game with the New York Yankees, which featured two bench-clearing incidents, a blown save by the usually reliable Jason Grilli, and a near comeback from a four-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning.
All four games the Blue Jays played against the Yankees this past weekend were passionate affairs, and third baseman Josh Donaldson expects his team to bring the same level of intensity into these next three games with Baltimore.
“We’ve had a lot of emotional games this year. We’ve just got to bounce back and go to the next one. And I have confidence in our team that we’re going to be able to do that,” Donaldson said. “There were a lot of positives in [Monday’s] game and there were some negatives as well. You try to learn from everything that happened and, at the end of it, carry forward the positives.”
First baseman Justin Smoak, who was the recipient of a 99-mph fastball in the calf that sparked Monday’s most aggressive moments, agreed.
“We know what we have to do right now. And that’s win games,” Smoak said. “At this point of the year, in our situation, you just have to win ball games. If we win, the ball’s in our court.”
The melee with the Yankees will no doubt still be fresh in everyone’s minds come Tuesday’s series opener. Especially considering the Blue Jays could be without key set-up man Joaquin Benoit and leadoff hitter Devon Travis for that game, and potentially many more, after both were injured in the brawl.
Losing those two would be a significant blow to the Blue Jays season. But given the amount of confrontation and intentional plunkings that Monday’s game featured, things could have been much worse. Kevin Pillar summed things up nicely.
“When that stuff happens, your emotions take over. But I guess I leaned back on some experiences from earlier in the year and realized that in that moment it’s not worth it. We’re playing for something bigger. They’re not really playing for much,” Pillar said. “You’re not going to not go out there and defend your guy. But, to take it to the level where normally I would take it to—thinking about the big picture crept into my head. I know what the suspension is for fighting. And I can do math. And I knew this wasn’t worth it. So I wanted to be out there for his defence. But, really, this time I tried to play peacemaker, because we’re playing for something bigger than what happened [Monday].”
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