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It certainly didn’t work out, but “that’s baseball sometimes?� The key moment of the Jays’ Game 2 loss – the removal of starting pitching José Berríos in the fourth inning after having perhaps his best stuff of the year, striking out five and allowing only one ball to be hit in the air against him — certainly didn’t look like baseball to a lot of observers.

The decision had been made — well in advance — that in order to best utilize all the players on the roster in a must-win game, Berrios was coming out when the Twins’ middle-of-the-order left-handed hitters came up for the second time in the game.

Why the Jays’ brass felt the need to utilize all the players on the roster is a mystery, but that’s what they decided.

Had there been a four- or five-run Jays’ cushion, Berríos would have been allowed to continue. But given that the bats were scuffling, the fact that Berríos was carving up his former team bore no weight. He was coming out.

“It is (frustrating), honestly,’ said Berríos after the game. The right-hander is still under contract with the Jays for five more seasons. “You know I’m a competitive guy. Everybody knows I work hard myself, but like I said, we were in an elimination game so we don’t have any room to give chances to other teams.�

Thing is, he wasn’t giving the Twins any room, either, but the plug was pulled regardless.

“I was trying my hardest, pitch by pitch. In that fourth inning I started with the walk … so we don’t have much room to (give them a) chance. I understand the move so I have to deal with it.�

The veteran right-hander, who finished 10th in the American League with a 3.65 ERA, was asked if he really did understand the rationale behind his early hook.

“Honestly, I don’t know,� said Berríos. “But I can’t control that. I did my best, first 12 batters, so that’s what it is. I don’t have control of that.�

The 29-year-old wasn’t the only one left with his head shaking.

“Everybody was surprised at the decision,� said first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., now 0 for 6 lifetime in playoff games. “But, I mean, things that you cannot control. You can ask yourself many times, but it’s a hard decision. But yeah, we were surprised.�

It was a hard decision, but it shouldn’t have been.

The pre-game script said to get a left-hander in to force the Twins to pinch hit for lefties Alex Kirilloff and Matt Wallner, in order to give the Jays’ tough right-handed relievers the platoon advantage later in the game, when it was supposed to matter (it didn’t, because the Jays fell behind immediately after Berríos was replaced and never scored), but it didn’t account for the game that Berríos wound up pitching.

He was brilliant. He might not have continued to be brilliant deep into the game, but he was at least owed the opportunity to get into a spot of trouble before getting yanked.

That might not look like baseball, but it’s certainly what baseball has become.

Long gone are the days when a front office puts a roster together and hands it to a manager who says “Thanks. Now go away and let me do my job.� These days, managers are in place to work collaboratively with those above them, but the final say goes to baseball operations, not to the field manager.

Schneider, who managed in the Jays’ system under both J.P. Ricciardi and Alex Anthopoulos before Ross Atkins took over, has worked under three very different regimes. His current bosses, as have most present-day baseball operations departments, have put a larger stamp on the on-field strategy than any group before them.

Not wanting (or able) to defy his bosses, even if he didn’t agree with them, Schneider came out to meet the media and take the hits after Wednesday’s loss, but reading between the lines of his comments — with tears in his eyes — it didn’t take much detective work to see how he felt.

“You can sit here and second-guess me,� said Schneider, “second-guess the organization, second-guess anybody. I get that. I get that. It’s tough.�

“There are a lot of numbers involved,� Schneider continued, “and there are a lot of opinions involved and I think that not only us as an organization or me as a manager or us as a staff, we’ve showed throughout the course of the year that you trust people.�

Except not this time. They didn’t trust what they saw in Berrios. Schneider wanted to. But the script had been writ.

Asked about walking from the dugout, hook in hand, to pull Berrios, Schneider replied “it was tough to watch it unfold. But at the same time when you’re so diligent with your work and you trust the people that you’re working with and the people that you’re going to battle with, both on the field and off, you just try to make the best decision that you can for the guys who are on the field to win.�

It’s not like a big-league manager to use the passive voice like that. He didn’t watch it unfold, he took the ball from his starter and pointed to the bullpen for Yusei Kikuchi.

Another illustration of the role he played in the second “too cute by half� move the Jays made with their pitching staff in the playoffs in the last four years.

So what happens now? Clearly the front office, the binders, the Ivy League number-crunchers, whoever you want to blame for this, didn’t learn a lesson from yanking a cruising Matt Shoemaker after three innings of Game 1 of their 2020 wild card series because that’s what the script said to do, or holding back then-ace Hyun Jin Ryu for Game 2 of that set. Will a lesson hit home this time? Prepare as best you can, for every possible scenario, but watch the damn game, too?

One can only hope. And two of the most important Blue Jays appear to hope so, too.

“I think there’s a lot of reflection needed,� said shortstop Bo Bichette after being swept out of the playoffs a second straight season, “from players but from the organization from top to down. Everybody needs to reflect and see what we can do better, that’s the next step.�

His first baseman was more blunt.

“Decisions,� said Guerrero. “I think we gotta make better decisions on everything.�

Sometimes, those decisions should be to let players who are performing well keep performing until they give you a reason to remove them. Even if the script says otherwise.