MINNEAPOLIS — José BerrÃos was dealing.
His command was on point and the velocity was up on all four pitches. In his return to the ballpark he once called home, BerrÃos was doing everything he could to keep the Blue Jays alive in a must-win game.
BerrÃos faced the minimum in the first inning. He allowed a harmless infield single in the second and another meaningless two-out single in the third. He didn’t allow any contact that exceeded 95 mph and the Twins had yet to put a runner in scoring position through the first third of the game.
Things were going great until Royce Lewis stepped to the plate in the fourth. Before Game 2, manager John Schneider talked about how the Jays planned on being cautious with the promising rookie, who one day prior hit a pair of homers off Kevin Gausman to help the Minnesota Twins take Game 1.
Both sides dug in, and Lewis eventually drew an eight-pitch walk. It wasn’t ideal, yet considering how sharp BerrÃos looked, there was no reason to panic. Three baserunners had already been erased, this was his chance to make it four.
Then the strangest thing happened.
Schneider emerged from the dugout and signalled to the bullpen. The door in left-centre field swung open and out came starter Yusei Kikuchi to make his first relief appearance of the year. The next three batters reached base and just like that a tie ball game turned into a 2-0 loss within a matter of minutes.
Now some of you are probably wondering, why the heck would they do that? Because it was the “plan†and one that had been decided hours, if not days, before. Not just by the manager either, but by members throughout the organization. This is how they roll, sometimes to their own detriment.
“It’s tough, it’s tough,†a dejected Schneider said after the loss. “(José) had arguably the best stuff he’s had all year, and coming into his former team, a place that he’s familiar with, it was tough to watch it unfold.
“But at the same time, I think that when you’re so diligent with your work and you trust the people that you’re working with … both on the field and off, you just try to make the best decision that you can for the guys that are on the field to win.â€
If the scene looked familiar that’s because Jays fans lived through this nightmare before. During Game 1 of the 2020 AL wild-card series against the Tampa Bay Rays, Matt Shoemaker tossed three scoreless innings before he was suddenly pulled in favour of lefty Robbie Ray.
The move backfired then too. Ray surrendered a leadoff triple and then allowed a run to score on a wild pitch. To his credit, it was the only run Ray surrendered over three innings, but it put the Jays in a hole they never got out of. It wasn’t necessarily the reason they lost, but it certainly didn’t help them win.
The Shoemaker decision came out of nowhere. The Kikuchi decision was arguably even more shocking, but it probably shouldn’t have been because the Jays had been telegraphing it for awhile. Over the last couple days, they boasted about Kikuchi’s versatility and how he could be used at any time against a predominantly left-handed hitting team.
Still, it’s one thing to have Kikuchi available for a specific pocket of lefties during a time of need, or as protection for extra innings. It’s quite another to put him on the mound at the tiniest hint of trouble. By the time BerrÃos walked off the field, he had thrown 47 pitches. Prior to Wednesday, his season low was 71.
“I didn’t have control of that,†said BerrÃos, who struck out five. “I just control what I can control. I pitched my ass off, from my first pitch to No. 47. Other than that, I don’t feel good about it. I don’t feel happy, I feel frustrated because I lost, but life (goes) on.â€
The strategy of swapping BerrÃos with Kikuchi clearly didn’t work, but it wasn’t the only reason the Jays were swept out of the playoffs for the third time over the last four years. A team can’t win if it can’t hit, and these Jays have been allergic to getting on base during times of need for a while.
In 2020, they scored three runs in a two-game sweep by the Rays. Last year, they were shut out in the opener against Seattle before the bats finally showed up in a Game 2 loss. During this series, the only run they scored came on an RBI single in Game 1 by Kevin Kiermaier.
This version of the Jays centred around Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette has lost the only six playoff games they ever played. During that stretch, the Jays hit .230 (46-for-200) while scoring 2.2 runs per game.
That’s worse than bad, it’s straight up embarrassing — but if BerrÃos hadn’t been pulled, maybe there would have been more time to come through.
“Obviously everybody was surprised,†Guerrero admitted through an interpreter. “Everybody was surprised by the decision, but there are things you can’t control. You can ask yourself many times, it was a hard decision, but yeah, we were surprised.â€
In the wake of Wednesday’s sudden exit there will surely be calls for Schneider’s dismissal, but anyone who wants to solely blame the manager for the Jays’ poor strategy is probably missing the point. The Jays tried to pull the same stunt in 2020. Schneider wasn’t the manager then, Charlie Montoyo was. And does anyone actually believe the idea originated with them?
This isn’t about the coaching staff, at least not entirely. The front office guys in khakis deserve just as much scrutiny, if not more, than those in uniform. They put their faith in the almighty algorithm instead of responding in real time to the events unfolding on the field, and they’re paying the price, again.
The Jays thought they were going to show everyone how smart they were this week. Instead, all they did was expose their back sides to the entire world while getting swept in the process.
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