TORONTO — The ability to turn the page on a bad outing, to flush the previous day and reset as if nothing happened, that the Toronto Blue Jays have prided themselves on is really going to be tested now that their season is on the line.
Down 2-0 to the Seattle Mariners in an American League Championship Series rapidly slipping away from them after Monday evening’s 10-3 thumping, their margin-for-error in the best-of-seven isn’t down to zero, but it’s pretty close. History isn’t on their side, as the 93 times teams have previously gone up 2-0, they’ve won 78 times, with that total sitting at 26 of 30 for clubs that take the first two games on the road.
Daunting as those numbers may be, the bigger issue is that the Mariners simply executed at a much higher level over 24 fateful hours before a pair of stunned sellout crowds at Rogers Centre. The nitpicking over manager John Schneider’s in-game moves comes with the territory, but it also overlooks how the Blue Jays couldn’t pin down a Seattle offence taking its best damage swings, while their lineup hit a wall against a dominant pitching staff — a bad recipe anytime, but especially in the post-season, when the runway to rally is short.
“It's just all about that singular day,” veteran Chris Bassitt, who looked strong while throwing 1.2 innings of clean relief, said of the approach needed for his team’s difficult situation. “You can't really look and say, this game counts for four or five. You have to go out there and expect that if we play to our gameplan, we'll win. And that's it. You can't add anything more to it than that. Just trust. Trust in our gameplan. Trust in who we are. We obviously have the guys to do it. So it's just trusting each other.”
A shift west gives the Blue Jays a chance to catch their breath Tuesday before hitting T-Mobile Park for Wednesday’s Game 3 (Sportsnet and Sportsnet+, 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT), when Shane Bieber starts against George Kirby and tries to pull his team back into this series.
Monday’s loss left the Blue Jays with lots to lament and more to work on.
“Looking at the difference in these first two, slug hasn't been there for us, has been there for them, and you never know when it's going to turn,” said Schneider. “They've got a good pitching staff. They're featuring some good stuff. I thought today was way better than yesterday, obviously, and we hit some balls hard. I want these guys to continue to feel like they're on the attack. It's what we've done this entire season.
“Hopefully the luck turns,” he added, “and hopefully the slug shows up when we get there.”
Trey Yesavage, making the fifth big-league start of his career but second in the post-season after his dominant 11-strikeout outing versus the New York Yankees in the ALDS, couldn’t replicate his past success this time.
He looked to be off to a good start when his 1-2 slider caught enough of the outer edge that even Randy Arozarena started walking to dugout before realizing home-plate umpire Doug Eddings didn’t call it strike three. Two pitches later, Yesavage hit Arozarena, Cal Raleigh followed with a walk and Julio Rodriguez yanked a middle-up splitter over the wall in left field, the first homer Yesavage had allowed since Aug. 8, when he was at double-A New Hampshire.
After a one-out single by Josh Naylor, whose two-run homer in a three-run seventh really opened things up, Braydon Fisher began warming but Yesavage recovered to strike out Eugenio Suarez and Dominic Canzone to end a gruelling 33-pitch inning.
The Blue Jays pulled themselves, and a crowd of 44,814, back into the game during the bottom half against Logan Gilbert, back on the mound after throwing 34 pitches of relief during Friday night’s 15-inning win over the Detroit Tigers. George Springer doubled and scored when Naylor tossed away the relay on a Nathan Lukes infield single, while Alejandro Kirk’s RBI single later in the frame made it a one-run game.
In the next inning, Lukes, who had to leave Game 1 after fouling a ball off his right knee, ripped an RBI single that pulled the Blue Jays level, essentially cleaning the slate.
“Giving up three without an out recorded and then the offence coming through and tying it up there in the second inning, it's a huge momentum-gainer,” said Yesavage. “Gets the momentum in our dugout.”
It didn’t stay there, as Yesavage put up zeroes in the third and fourth innings, but with his velocity dipping, he came back out for a third turn through the lineup in the fifth. Arozarena led off with a groundball up the middle that went for a single and took second when Andres Gimenez’s errant throw hit Suarez, who was sitting at the opening to the visitors’ dugout.
After an unsuccessful challenge, perhaps buying time for Louis Varland to warm up, the Blue Jays walked Raleigh and brought in the hard-throwing right-hander, who’s pitched in each of the team’s six post-season games.
Like Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, this one didn’t go well. After a Rodriguez strikeout, Jorge Polanco, who had two RBI singles in Game 1, caught a down-and-away 98.1 m.p.h. fastball and clubbed it over the wall in right-centre to open a 6-3 lead.
J.P. Crawford’s RBI single in the sixth off Mason Fluharty, after centre-fielder Daulton Varsho got twisted up on a Mitch Garver drive off the wall that went for a triple, extended the advantage before Crawford’s sacrifice fly followed Naylor’s homer in the seventh for a 10-3 edge.
For an offence that managed only eight hits in two games, only one of them coming from the third inning onwards, that was far too much to overcome.
“Obviously we need to get better offensively,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is 0-for-7 with a walk in this series after crushing the Yankees last round, said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “For example, myself, I had big at-bats there and couldn't come through. …
“We don't like the position that we are in right now, but they've been playing great baseball, too. The only thing we can do is just get better, go to Seattle and try to win some games somehow.”
Compounding matters is that the Blue Jays ran through six relievers behind Yesavage, including Bassitt, and there may be a price to pay for that heavy bullpen usage the deeper this series gets. That’s in contrast to the Mariners, who watched Bryan Woo throw an encouraging live BP session before the game, positioning him to factor in a possible Game 5, while resetting their staff after the Tigers marathon.
“Our guys have proven over the course of the season to be very resilient,” said Mariners manager Dan Wilson. “They're just kind of built that way, whether it's emotional or mental, whatever. They're just resilient and they bounce back. To get an emotional win at home like that and come back here on the road — these guys were ready to go, and they knew we had more business to take care of.”
The Blue Jays, meanwhile, will use Tuesday’s downtime to rest their relievers and outfielder Anthony Santander, who woke up in the morning with lower back tightness and was a late scratch, although he could have pinch-hit if needed, he said.
Lukes, who had three hits despite his knee getting progressively worse over the course of the game, will use the time to “pretty much just get treatment all day and you're ready to go” Wednesday. “I don't see myself having any limitations going forward.”
As for what the team needs, he said the Blue Jays “have got to get back to our roots. We've been here before and there's a reason why this series is seven games and not three or five. Anything can happen and we're going to fight.”
Well before the game started, Schneider praised his team’s ability to shake off the highs and lows of post-season baseball, something that caught up with the wild-card clubs of 2022 and 2023.
“These guys don't want the season to end, you know what I mean?” he said. “Whatever the outcome is, I feel like these guys all want to get an Airbnb somewhere and hang out for the winter. That means a lot. They have shown they're really good at moving on to the next thing, which is hard to do. But I think they're very well-equipped to just say, OK, what's important now. I've been saying it all year: what do I need to do now to help us win?
“You go out and you play your game, you compete your ass off, and you see what happens. They're going to continue to do it. I've got all the faith in the world in them. I'm really excited to see how they come out today.”
The Blue Jays definitely didn’t like what happened afterwards and they’ll have to sit on it until Wednesday, when they’ll need a win to keep thoughts of off-season bookings away.
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