KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Unusual and convoluted post-season clinch scenarios are nothing new for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Remember 2015, when it was only discovered in the middle of the night that they had secured their first playoff appearance since 1993 because the head-to-head games between the teams chasing them meant no one had enough runway to catch them? How about 2020, when they celebrated a return to the post-season at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field, the stands empty save for 2,857 cardboard fan cut-outs, amid MLB’s COVID-19 protocols? Or 2022, when the Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-3 during a Blue Jays off-day to secure them a wild-card berth?
“I remember because I was walking down by the water watching that game,” said manager John Schneider. “And then we celebrated the next day.”
Given all that, the moving parts necessary to lock up the franchise’s 11th post-season appearance were relatively straightforward, even if the math to get there was not – beat the Kansas City Royals and hope that any two of Detroit (hosting Atlanta), Boston (at Tampa Bay) and Cleveland (at Minnesota) lost. In case there was any confusion, Schneider’s sons, Gunner and Greyson, wrote the steps on a whiteboard in their father’s office.
“Gunner understands the scenarios in which we can make the playoffs probably better than I do,” Schneider quipped.
The starting point, of course, needed to be a win at Kauffman Stadium, and that unravelled on the Blue Jays almost immediately after George Springer’s 63rd career leadoff homer, as Max Scherzer couldn’t escape a seven-run, 45-pitch first in an eventual 20-1 Royals pounding.
“I took a haymaker to the face,” is how Scherzer described the outing, the shortest of his Hall of Fame career that didn’t involve an injury.
Only one of the other necessary clinch pieces fell into place, as Atlanta hammered Detroit 10-1, but Boston outlasted Tampa Bay 11-7 and Cleveland downed Minnesota 6-2. Meanwhile, Baltimore beat the Yankees 4-2 to keep the Blue Jays’ lead atop the AL East at three games, so they’ll be in a similar position Saturday, when Shane Bieber starts against lefty Noah Cameron.
They’ll head into that contest having lost three straight after a six-game win streak and with their bullpen worn down after Braydon Fisher, Tommy Nance, Yariel Rodriguez and Brendon Little covered 5.1 innings. Catcher Tyler Heineman took over in the seventh and got one out in the eighth while facing 17 batters and allowing 10 runs on 13 hits, which forced Isiah Kiner-Falefa to finish the inning.
Intriguingly, Jose Berrios was in the bullpen, and while he didn’t pitch, he’ll continue to be a relief option, said Schneider.
They’re also in a funk at the plate, with only 10 runs over their past five outings as the end of 13 games in 13 days approaches. Michael Lorenzen limited them to three hits — including Springer’s 30th homer of the season — and two walks over 7.2 innings, the collective-approach pressure that’s been a Blue Jays trademark once again lacking.
Atop it all, both pitching coach Pete Walker — after Scherzer didn’t get a borderline full-count pitch to Maikel Garcia in the first — and Schneider in the sixth were ejected, emblematic of how frustrating a night it was all around after the auspicious start.
“You get off to a good start, George hits the homer, and then the game totally flips on you in the bottom of the first,” lamented Schneider. “I'd be lying to you guys if I said the guys weren't kind of feeling it and pressing a little bit. Not that guys are trying to get out of what they've normally done, but it's a natural thing to do when you are where you are and everyone's scoreboard watching a little bit. Not making excuses, but I think this is a really good example of what we've been good at all year. You get your teeth kicked in tonight, and you have to come out tomorrow and be ready to play. And I've said it over and over, these guys are really good at moving on to the next thing and we really have to do that tomorrow.”
Scherzer was in trouble immediately, as Carter Jensen opened the first with the first of his three doubles, promptly scored on a single by Bobby Witt Jr., who came around on a double by Vinnie Pasquantino, who had four hits.
After losing Garcia on the disputed pitch, Salvador Perez launched his 30th homer, a three-run blow that made it 5-1 and ignited the crowd of 26,459, while Michael Massey followed a Jac Caglianone strikeout — the first out of the inning — which made it 7-1. A John Rave strikeout and second Jensen double later, Schneider came to get Scherzer, who said he felt good physically and was “OK” with the location of his pitches, but needed to look at some more “advanced things” to figure out what went wrong.
“There's only one pitch that's really in the middle of the plate ... outside of that, it's not like I'm hanging sliders, I'm hanging curveballs right on the plate,” Scherzer explained. “They got to some pitches that were in a good area, that they put a better swing on. You stay up late at night when you hang stuff, when you leave stuff in the middle. I just don't feel like I was constantly hanging stuff in the middle. I'm not going to sit here and say, I made great pitches and these were great locations. But you're never as good as you think you are, you're never as bad as you think you are.”
The beatdown came after the Blue Jays watched Bo Bichette, trying to work his way back from a PCL sprain in his left knee, begin hitting, taking some flips and doing some tee work, which Schneider said had “energized” the shortstop.
Anthony Santander, meanwhile, was given the night off at triple-A Buffalo, but will continue his rehab with games in the outfield Saturday and Sunday before the Blue Jays decide whether he’ll rejoin the team next week in Toronto.
Their statuses are for later sorting, as more immediate is pulling out of the current slide and keeping it from getting worse, with the focus reeled back to the very present and the pathway there.
“No matter what anyone else is doing, no matter what the standings say, we've got to play the way we've played all year that has gotten us to this point,” said Schneider. “That's what I see. You can put all the excuses in the world you want against Tampa and the atmosphere and their pitching, but today you just expected it to be a little bit different, and it wasn't. So we've got to realize that and make adjustments.”
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