Inspired by the disappointing results of the last two games, though haunted would be the better word, maybe we should talk turkey about the playoff setup up, how that setup would affect the Blue Jays, and what we need to understand about their present circumstances.
First of all, let’s look at how it works, who plays whom and where.
Obviously the setup is the same for both leagues, but I’ll refer to the American League, and the teams that are currently in the mix in the AL. Five teams “make” the playoffs, but only the division winners are guaranteed a full series of games, in one of the two American League Division Series (ALDS), which are best of five series. The winners of the two ALDS play a best of seven American League Championship Series (ALCS), the winner of which is the league’s champion and representative in the World Series.
So how do the two non-division winners with the next-best records, the “Wild Card” teams, fit into this picture? Well, the first Wild Card position was created to provide four teams for the ALDS when baseball went to the three divisions in each league. The original Wild Card team was in the happy position of being in a full ALDS. The second one was created to provide added “interest” and “excitement” to the late season proceedings. We can read this as simply a money-maker for the teams involved and the league, as attendance remains high for all teams in contention for a Wild Card spot. For the teams who “win” these spots, it’s not such a great deal, because the two teams play a single sudden-death play-in game, hosted by the team with the better record. So you make the playoffs and are finished after one game, as happened to the Yankees and the Pirates, who had the second-best regular-season record in all of baseball last year.
Once the Wild Card winner has been determined, the pairings for the ALDS are the number one seed, the team with the best record, playing the Wild Card winner, and the second and third seeds, the other two division winners, playing against one another. Home team advantage is held by the first and second seeds.
As it stands right now, with Toronto and Baltimore tied for the two Wild Card spots, they would play in the stadium of the team that won the season series, which at this moment stands in favour of Toronto by 9-7, with next week’s three game series in Toronto yet to be played. If the Blue Jays won the Wild Card game, they would face Texas in one ALDS, with Texas holding the home team advantage, and Boston would play Cleveland, with the home team up in the air at this point.
It’s obvious that winning the division is a huge advantage. At this stage, with the Jays four games behind Boston with thirteen games to go, is it a foregone conclusion that Boston wins the division? Not necessarily. First, Boston has a full series left in Baltimore, and the Blue Jays still finish the season with three at Fenway. Based on how they’re playing right now, it’s a tough road, but if the Sox slow down and the Jays brace up, it’s doable.
But if it’s not doable, then, assuming that Toronto doesn’t fall out of the playoff picture altogether, which I don’t see happening, then we face the crap shoot of the Wild Card game. And, if you’ll forgive me, that’s just one game away from seeing the whole season going into the crapper.
Just a final reflection here on last year’s playoff run, and the end of the season shenanigans indulged in by Jays’ manager John Gibbons. It’s probably been noted that yer humble scribe has more than a little antipathy to our folksy, long-suffering peerless leader, and I freely admit it. More than a little of that antipathy stems from Gibbie’s decisions regarding lineups and resting players after we clinched the division last year. Until the final weekend, we were in contention with the Royals for the top seed in the league. Securing that would have given us two advantages in the playoffs, home field advantage all the way through, and a first-round matchup with Houston, the Wild Card winner, rather than the ding-dong brawl of a series we had with Texas. Even if we had tied with the Royals we would have had the first seed because we had earlier closed out the season series in our favour against them.
To me it was ridiculous for big league players making big league salaries to all sit the second game of the doubleheader after we clinched in the first game, and then to sit the final regular season game. In both of these games, Gibbie basically fielded the Buffalo Bisons’ starters instead of the Blue Jays. We lost both games, naturally, and the Royals took the first seed. In “real life” I’m the least likely person to wink at the mistreatment of workers by their bosses, but ball players aren’t workers, and as much as I love it, baseball ain’t “real life”. Rest the players that need resting judiciously and in ones or twos over a week, but two wholesale sitdowns with significant results at stake? No way.
By the same token, I’m not prepared to hear any downscaling of aspirations coming out of Gibbie over the next week or so, none of his “that’s okay, we can do it”. Until we’re mathematically eliminated from the division, every game is crucial, including last night’s stinker, and this afternoon’s dozy shutout loss to the Halos.
The pitching matchup for today’s closing game of the Jays-Angels series in Anaheim was so unbalanced, yet so eerily similar to a number of the matchups we’ve seen in the last few weeks, that though it gave rise to at least some optimism that we had the advantage, it also inspired a bit of dread lurking just below the surface, dread that it was going to happen again.
It, in this case, is the phenomenon of the contending team throwing its set rotation against a team that’s basically playing out the string. Though these games in September take on supreme importance to a team like Toronto, struggling to secure not only a spot in the playoffs, but a coveted division title, their value is seen in a different light by opponents languishing deep in the standings. Such teams are in essence already preparing for next year, and one of the things that they want to do is audition players who have been moving up in their system in order to see which ones might be able to contribute in 2017.
Marcus Stroman took the hill for the Blue Jays today. Stroman has been gradually trying to rebuild his confidence in his approach after a disastrous mid-season swoon, and he’s been meeting with some game-to-game success, which has resulted in several quality starts, though not much success in the win column. If the Jays do indeed make a full playoff series, there is no question that Stroman will receive regular starting assignments, so not only is it important for him to keep his team in these crucial games, and give it a chance to win, but it’s also important for him to feel that he is returning to the peak form we saw from him last fall.
Alex Meyer, on the other hand, a long, skinny drink of water with a nice easy motion, has taken quite a while to get to the position where he could be ready to play a role for the Angels next year. Drafted in 2012 out of the University of Kentucky, he had a couple not very successful appearances in relief for the Twins in 2015, and one so-so start for them last spring, after which he spent the entire season in Triple A as a starter. Traded to the Angels along with last night’s starter Ricky Nolasco from the Twins on August first this year, this would be his third start for the Angels. His combined Twins/Angels record going into today’s game was 0-3 with an ERA of 8.18.
So when Meyer walked Devon Travis to lead off the game, it looked like a good thing. But it didn’t look so good when he struck out the next four batters in a row, and threw in a fifth strikeout to end the second inning to count five punchouts on his first six outs of the game.
Helped by a couple of examples of both Toronto’s hitting blues and their base-running misadventures, which I hope are not spreading, Meyer continued to stifle the Jays through five effective innings. In the third the Jays saw some promise snuffed out by the dreaded double play. With one out, Meyer walked Kevin Pillar on four pitches and then was started for second as Devon Travis hit a little flare to right that served as an effective hit and run. But Josh Donaldson hit a hard grounder to third and the Angels turned two.
In the fourth Edwin Encarnacion led off with a ringing double to left, and then wisely held second when Jose Bautista grounded out to the shortstop. Not. Edwin must have been sitting next to Devon Travis on the bench and gotten some of Travis’ je ne sais quoi rubbed off on him, because he exuberantly broke for third with the hit, and was DOA. Is there a season statistic for wasting leadoff doubles by running into the first out at third? By now we must lead the league. After that, they went quietly.
In the fifth Meyer pitched around a walk to Michael Saunders to finish an effective five innings of shutout ball, on two hits, three walks, seven strikeouts, and 79 pitches. Oh, did I say seven strikeouts?
After Meyer, the Angels bullpen kept the barn door firmly closed with the horses still whinnying inside. Jose Valdez struck out the side in the sixth. Deolis Guerra, helped by a nice diving stop by Yunel Escobar at third that robbed Troy Tulowitzki, stranded a Dioner Navarro single in the seventh. In the eighth J.C. Ramirez erased his walk to Travis with a double-play ball from Edwin, and in the ninth the Jays wasted another leadoff double, this time by Jose Bautista. I know that they needed more than a small-ball run at that point, but how frustrating is it that two smart hitters like Russell Martin and Tulo both ground out to the shortstop after a leadoff double? Maybe they were just testing Bautista’s base-running smarts, to see if he would break for third.
Though he still had trouble throwing strikes, Marcus Stroman’s start was certainly strong enough to be rewarded with a win, if he weren’t backed up, that is, by an offence that is taking its lumber to the plate in the form of kleenexes from the tissue box, rather than bats from the bat rack. With a line of 2 runs, seven hits, two walks, three strikeouts, and 105 pitches over six innings, he chalked up another quality start, though the way Toronto’s been hitting, that and a loony will only get you a really bad cup of coffee.
Stroman was victimized by home plate umpire CB Bucknor and his own catcher in the second to allow the Angels to chalk up their first run. Albert Pujols walked when Bucknor called three consecutive pitches up in the zone balls, all in almost the exact location where he had called strike one. C.J. Cron singled to centre, Pujols going to third. Rafael Ortega reached on catcher’s interference on a foul tip of a 1-1 pitch, perhaps prolonging the inning. Rookie catcher Juan Gaterol, who maybe shouldn’t have gotten to the plate with only one out, grounded into a fielder’s choice to score Pujols, who maybe shouldn’t have reached base to begin with.
At any rate, Stroman left after six down only two-nothing, the Angels having scored a perfectly acceptable run in the fifth when Pujols singled home Mike Trout, who had doubled. Brett Cecil started the seventh and won the lefty matchup, striking out Kole Calhoun. The usually dependable Joe Biagini came in next, tasked with keeping the game close against the heart of the order.
But Biagini, who might be getting a little ragged around the edges, saw the lead extended, not controlled, albeit with more than a little help from an uncharacteristically befuddled Bautista in right, though this is not reflected in the box score, as the Angels’ scorer appears never to have seen an error that he didn’t want to turn into a hit. I appreciate the kindness of not wanting to score errors, but come on, this guy (gal?) wouldn’t give an error to a fan who fumbles a bag of peanuts when the peanut vendor makes a perfect toss.
Biagini didn’t help himself by walking Trout and giving up a single to Pujols, which of course sent Trout to third. He didn’t throw a strike to Trout, which raises suspicions of pitching “carefully” but walking him with one out to get to the skilled but ponderous Pujols isn’t such a bad idea any time . That left Biagini a double play away from ending the inning, and how many times has he done that this year? He didn’t get the ground ball, but he got the next best thing. The Angels started Pujols from first, like they like to do, and C.J.Cron lofted a lazy fly ball to short right. Pujols was slow to pick up what happened, and slow to react. Bautista had a real chance to double him off first and end the inning before Trout scored on the sac fly. But from only third-base distance away from first, he airmailed the ball over Edwin’s head, Pujols got back safely, and Trout scored.
Note on rules: I double-checked the rules, and my narrative is correct. Attempting to double a runner off base after a caught ball is a “time play”, and when the out is recorded is germane to whether the run counts. If Encarnacion had the ball in his glove before Trout crossed the plate, the run would not count. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in his glove, but sailing over his head!
With the inning extended, Biagini walked Andrelton Simmons and gave up a bloop single to Rafael Ortega, which scored Pujols. Instead of escaping with the lead still at two, it was now four, and the hill had become a mountain for the Jays to climb.
Aaron Loup and Bo Schultz managed the eighth, but it hardly mattered, because the Blue Jays weren’t able to dent the Angels’ relievers anyway.
In other circumstances this game would have been a turn-the-page, maybe we’ll hit better tomorrow type of outcome. But in the context of the ongoing hitting slump, and the tightening noose around the Blue Jays’ championship hopes, it became much, much more than that. Now we have to take two out of three in Seattle to salvage a winning record on the road trip; pretty daunting, you might say. Nail-biting time, fer sure!
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