TORONTO — Two games? Never mind that. The Kansas City Royals have been on the Toronto Blue Jays since Sept. 1 — ‘on’ as in advance scouting the team — with an eye (or eyes) ahead to a playoff showdown.
Advance scouting is normal for playoff-bound teams as a way of collecting information on a possible opponent, and if you’re the Royals and you have your division clinched early in September, well, you have time to pick apart an opponent’s weakness. And Mike Arbuckle, the Royals senior advisor for scouting and player development, said that the organization was probably two weeks ahead of others in picking up coverage. As one uniformed Blue Jay said: “I don’t know when they started … but they seem to know a lot about us.”
The Blue Jays return home to the Rogers Centre for Game 3 of the American League Championship Series and if the ‘Man In White’ or whatever other imaginary offensive edge opponents have accused the Jays of possessing, he or they are urged to report to Gate 9 by 8 p.m. Monday. Ask for Alex.
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These Royals are a handful. They don’t strikeout. They don’t walk … but they make contact.
“Kauffman Stadium has a lot to do with that,” said Ben Zobrist, the Royals second baseman whose career OPS at the Rogers Centre of .915 with 27 extra-base hits in 60 games is one of the reasons the Blue Jays tried to trade for him at the deadline. “We’re built to put the ball in play. We have guys with a lot of power; it’s just that nobody’s trying to do it (hit homers.) Our offence doesn’t allow us to play that way.”
To that end, the move back to the spongy, wet-rag artificial turf at the Rogers Centre could be as much of a boon to the Blue Jays’ chances as the fact the ball should travel better (even with the roof closed). Gone are the days when, in Zobrist’s words, “the ball would roll forever” on the old turf at the Rogers Centre.
The Royals seventh-inning rally in Game 2 was, simply put, a soul-sucking experience for the Blue Jays. And it left some of them muttering about whether or not David Price, their starter, was tipping pitches or whether the Royals were stealing signs or tipping location. Was it just the disappearance of shadows that allowed the Royals to start barreling up some of Price’s soft stuff once they put a base runner on second? Or something else, besides terrific work by their advance scouts?
It could be a case of turnabout being foul play. After all, the Blue Jays have had many multi-run innings this season when they’ve hammered pitchers all over the park — when they’ve teed off on offerings in a way that has left teams muttering to themselves. Rogers Centre, after all, is the place where visiting catchers use multiple sign sequences when there isn’t anybody on second. The Boston Red Sox have done it for two years — which is interesting since their manager (John Farrell), bench coach and acting manager (Torey Lovullo), and third base coach (Brian Butterfield) have all managed or coached in the home dugout at the Rogers Centre. So, you’d think they’d know if it was B.S., right?
For now, let’s assume the Royals whirl-wind seventh on Sunday was approach-driven — probably a safe bet considering that even though it smelled the same as Sunday’s rally, the eighth-inning they put together against the Houston Astros in Game 4 of their AL Division Series came on the road.
How do you pitch a team that won’t walk … or strike out? Marcus Stroman, Monday night’s Blue Jays starter, said: “I don’t analyze lineups or situations. I do everything in my power to pitch my game and do everything I can to limit runs and to keep our high-powered offence in the best position.”
Of course he does. What else would he say? How about you, pitching coach Pete Walker?
“You look at all the teams we face, and they’re the one team that stands out,” Walker said, when asked whether the Royals were an anomaly. “When you look at the strikeouts and walks compared to other teams in baseball, they are definitely a different kind of team.
“They are patient when they need to be. They look for particular pitches in the count. They put some really tough at-bats on you late in the game. They are … an interesting team.”
Walker shook his head. He admitted that the Royals have been a little more aggressive early in the count than the Blue Jays anticipated. They have noted — to their credit, Walker said — that the Blue Jays had success in September using off-speed pitches in fastball counts.
“For us, it’s just going to come down to continuing to mix in our soft stuff and locating our fastballs better,” he said. “We need to make quality pitches — and sometimes that means quality balls, not making pitches on the plate.”
So perhaps these three games at the Rogers Centre can tilt the balance in the Blue Jays favour. It was a four-game series against the Royals here that turned the Blue Jays’ season around: they won three of the games and the win in the final game, on a dug-out clearing, bean-brawling Sunday afternoon, turned out to be the first of an 11-game winning streak that carried the Blue Jays from six back to going a half-game up in the AL East. Perhaps there are home-field advantages and home field advantages.
“We have to find a way to grind,” said Blue Jays left-fielder Ben Revere. “I thought we made pretty good contact against them in Game 1 and 2. We hit some balls right at guys. And every time we hit balls in the gaps, they went nowhere. You have to think that those balls will travel a little farther, here.”
Revere is in some ways the closest thing the Blue Jays have to a pure contact hitter. As such, he had to admit that part of him stood in the outfield and admired what the Royals did in Game 2.
“Tell you what … I played against them in 2012 when I was with the (Minnesota) Twins, and you’d be up four against them and the next thing you were down by two,” said Revere.
“I mean, they always seem to have that one inning. Against Houston it was single, single, single. Error. They’re like that. Down by three runs, it seems like every single hitter has a good at-bat and the ball’s in play. You make a mistake, and they pick up on it. It’s tough to play a team that can just turn it around on you as quickly as they can.”
Tough to play the Royals, who have so far seemed ready for everything the Blue Jays have thrown at them.