TORONTO – Marcus Stroman will follow ace left-hander David Price in the Toronto Blue Jays’ rotation for the American League Division Series, getting the ball in Friday afternoon’s Game 2 against the Texas Rangers.
The ebullient right-hander first revealed the news via Twitter on Tuesday, supplying part of the answer to a subject of much conjecture in recent days.
Tore my ACL, finished my degree from @DukeU, rehabbed my knee in 5 months, and now pitching in Game 2 of the #ALDS. Crazy excited! #HDMH
— Marcus Stroman (@MStrooo6) October 6, 2015
“To me it was just an obvious choice,” said manager John Gibbons, who pointed out that Stroman has “dominated” since coming off the disabled list last month.
Marco Estrada, who finished fifth in the American League with a 3.13 ERA and had the lowest hits per nine against at 6.663, gets the ball for Game 3 while knuckleballer R.A. Dickey is slated for Game 4 against the team that drafted and developed him.
Price could also potentially start that game on short rest if the Blue Jays were in dire straits.
Over the weekend Gibbons hinted that Stroman would start Game 2, saying the Blue Jays wanted to open the series with their top pitchers, without revealing who exactly that is.
Rather than starting Dickey and his knuckleball in the controlled environment of the Rogers Centre, Gibbons said ahead of the season finale that going with whoever they felt was second best made sense because, “maybe if you win that first one, you can put the screws to them that second one.”
“Or maybe you lose that first one and you really need that second one, you know what I mean?” he continued. “In those scenarios you want that stud going that second game, don’t you?”
The Blue Jays also said left-hander Aaron Loup would be the club’s seventh man in the bullpen, to go with four starters, and that both Dalton Pompey and Ezequiel Carrera would be on the bench to provide speed if needed in the late innings.
