All, right, we've had a few days to rest and relax our nerves. Now it's back to the tense TV watching. (Unless you're lucky enough to see the games in person)

Strikes me that Straw has no splits at the plate, not this year, not career (actually better vRHP for career), and that his defense would be more important in Seattle's park than most any other park in baseball.

Twitter notes that these were the SP the jays threw at Seattle in their 2 series this year:

Gausman
Berrios
Francis x3
Lucas
Urena

we did not send our best.

but we still went 4-2.



up against

Woo
Gilbert
Castillo x2
Miller
Evans

8:03pm EDT?

so now that the rosters are settled, here's my best attempt to match up the rosters.

First with this year's stats:

And with Fangraphs Combined Projections:

I ended up pretty much ordering them by war pace. It seemed to work out best.

Posted lineups:

Arozarena, 7
Raleigh, 2
Rodriguez, 8
Polanco, 4
Naylor, 3
Suarez, 5
Canzone, 0
Robles, 9
Crawford, 6

Springer, 0
Lukes, 9
Guerrero, 3
Barger, 5
Kirk, 2
Varsho, 8
Clement, 4
Santander, 7
Gimenez, 6

Issue with Straw is that there's basically no scenario where he is in the best OF VS RHP. varsho,Lukes,Santander, and Schneider all would be ahead of him IMO. I imagine Jays will lift Santander early if leading so Straw should still get plenty of playing time. Schneider might start him one game too but it would mean sitting Santander and Schneider both which seems like not a great idea to me.

manager did something clever there - there's only one lefty in the lineup that's overly exposed vs LHP, and that's Barger, so he stuck him in between two of his best hitters vladdy and Kirk instead of further down the lineup in order to make it as tough as possible on them to think about bringing in a lefty. This is the kind of thing Boone should have tried around Grisham to make his lineup less vulnerable.

But while I appreciate that the idea of Santander is enough to make other managers hesitate still, I really hope he starts hitting sooner or later because he's a pretty big downgrade both offensively and defensively from Schneider in LF at the moment.

Barger-Kirk-Varsho wouldn't be the worst spot for a lefty.

yeah but it's not a vulnerable split either. Kirk and Varsho have never had any significant L/R splits and Varsho is actually on an absolute tear against LHP since he came from injury, including in the first series.

if barger was slotted down closer to Gimenez then there'd be a pretty obvious alley for a LHP there.

Seattle only has one lefty.

2

OK, boys. Let's have it.

attaboy bargie. huge play.

and boom

Springer dinger!!!

Springer is so good. Perfect start to the game!

monstrous at bat by Lukes. what a beast.

Good Gaus is good.

Jays had Miller on the ropes, and have stopped taking pitches..

Swinging at first pitch way too often.

pressure back on gausman now thanks to the batters taking their foot off the gas.

A few really hard line outs directly at guys too.

like 20 pitches for Miller the last 3 innings.

man that sucks.

gaus is doing his part let's go bats time to show up.

hoo boy. no margin for error now for gaus against the top of their order 3rd time through. this is a big inning.

Early on it looked like the Blue Jays were in position to take command of the game. Now it’s a tense and close contest.

gave him nothing to hit until that meatball. dang it.

Judge, Ohtani, Raleigh…you just can’t let these elite-of-the-elite hitters (who are especially good in the RC) beat you.

polanco has torched LHP this year.....manager must have some interesting pitch type stats going on.

Very questionable managing/pitch selection this inning.

well this was a weird one, coach. not sure i follow.

anyways, bats can show up any time now against their battered pitching staff.

Would be nice if Jays hitters could get on base.

Quick hook imo. Not Berrios quick, but I think Gaus could've kept going.

Would have been nice to have Schneider instead of Straw in this game. Someone to see pitches and have power. Straw's two pitch popup is pretty par for the course for the offense right now.

letting Miller on short rest have a better outing than Gausman tonight is criminal.

in a 2-3-2 series losing this one can be deadly.

Very lucky that stayed in the yard.

Why are our pitchers constantly 2-0 and 3-0 to the bottom of their order/

If you have truly decided not to let Raleigh (1200+ OPS at Rogers Centre) beat you, then with 2 out and the bases empty in the sixth inning of a 1-0 game you have to walk him or give him nothing to hit. The next batter, J-Rod, has not had much success against Gausman in his career.

Presumably Raleigh timed up the splitter on the two pitches that preceded the home run.

Nice work to get out of it unscathed!  How about a little life at the plate now, fellas?

maybe that'll give the bats and crowd some life.

let's go.

ouch.

Just so so many terrible abs.

This felt very predictable around the 3rd inning. Really don’t like the hook on Gausman.

Behind on so many hitters, and Jays' hitters seem to be 0-2 and 1-2 a lot.

It's not Berrios-level, but the hook on Gausman to have Little face a hitter much better against lefties is extremely questionable.

It feels like the Berrios game in that there will be a ton of discussion about the pitching but none of it matters if you can't score.

Another argument in favour of walking Raleigh with two out in the sixth is that he’s slow (2nd percentile baserunner). It would have taken a lot to bring him home (probably at least a couple of hits, unless someone homered).

pulling your Ace on 76 pitches at the first sign of trouble for some iffy relievers just has so many ways of going wrong.

and really, every move the manager has made tonight has backfired so far.

but none of that matters when you can't buy a hit.



but there's some big decisions left for John - next inning he has to figure out how to pinch hit for both Gimenez and Straw and maintain an advantage.

Absolutely hated the Gausman pull, and you knew Schneider was going to do it. This is a 7 game series and Gausman wasn't even at 80 pitches. This "we had a plan before the game" nonsense is so irritating about modern baseball.

I also don't get why they used Straw as the replacement for Lukes instead of Davis Schneider. It's a 1 run game. You need offense. Let's see if he pinch hits for Gimenez or Straw in the 8th or let's them hit.

2 hits, 3 walks, and they've only thrown 92 pitches.

and their pitching was ravaged.

what a terrible performace.

We can fault the offense for its collective approach but Gausman had shut down the M’s offense, other than the mistake pitch to Raleigh. Seattle didn’t have much going on until Little came in.

a nation turns its lonely eyes to you, vladito.

Takeaways:

Gausman pull was premature, ill advised.

Raleigh needs Judge treatment.

Missed opportunity to punish the M's pitching by getting dominated by Miller.

BTW, Bucky's been a bit too complimentary of these Ms if you ask me.

just a massive, massive shift in the odds tonight. this was painful.

One of the worst offensive performances of the year. Nothing else matters much.

Did the Jays miss an opportunity to bury the Ms early or did Bryce Miller pitch the game of his life?

Shut up, Buck.

Embarrassing work by the guys swinging the lumber tonight. The road to the World Series just got significantly steeper.

I thought two key PA came in the first inning when the Blue Jays were up 1-0 and had runners on first and second with one out, and Miller’s pitch count was rapidly climbing.

Kirk pulled off a 2-2 sweeper and popped it up. Varsho lined out on the first pitch. Inning over.

And that was it for the offense for the entire game.

I guess the Man in White is home for Thanksgiving.

I miss when the Jays were "cheating" at home. Go back to that tomorrow, please.

The proverbial having the pitcher on the ropes moment. Getting another run or two would have forced Wilson into a tough spot of going into the underbelly of the bullpen or leaving Miller in.

A lot of weight on Yesavage's shoulders tomorrow.

I'm going to predict Jays in FIVE if Lukes is back tomorrow. I have faith in Bieber, Gausman, Yesavage and Scherzer with Bassitt for bullpen relief. Schneider and Lukes are key cogs in the wheel to run those pitch counts up. Vlad, Kirk and Clement seemed to be a bit swing happy tonight.

Logan Gilbert starting tomorrow.

Logan Gilbert tomorrow.

At least this went better than the last time Schneider pulled Gasuman in a playoff game against the Mariners for a left-handed reliever in order to turn around a switch-hitter.

Yes be Savage tomorrow.

After the first inning, I'm not sure the Jays had any good abs. Maybe hit the ball hard 2/3 times. (Santander did anyway). To me, the ab that sums up the game was Barger in the 3rd inning. Lukes and Vlad went down on like 7 pitches and Barger ground out feebly on a splitter well out of the zone. There's nothing wrong with swinging at the first pitch but you need to only swing if it's your pitch. Felt like the Jays all night were doing that.

At least this went better than the last time Schneider pulled Gasuman in a playoff game against the Mariners for a left-handed reliever in order to turn around a switch-hitter.

Yes and no! (I thought of that too!) While three-run homers by the other team are always bad, Mayza still left that game with a three run lead.

Fun fact. This is just the third time that the ALCS has opened in Toronto. First time they won the opener and lost the series. Second time they lost the opener and won the series.

John Schneider and Pete Walker seem to be locked into an 80 pitch limit for the starters, not how well they're throwing at any point or the situation. My main gripe was bringing Little in to follow Gausman with a runner on base.

You need a strike thrower to shut down the momentum and keep the game even, not someone who makes his catcher do gymnastics trying to block the balls he continually spikes into the ground.

Speaking of strikes, the Seattle pitchers threw 100 pitches between them, 74 for strikes. The Jay's hitters will have to figure out how to hit them or it will be a short series. I expect a much better game today from them.

I see the value in pulling your starter (even an ace) prematurely but I don't agree with it because it's risky and because they didn't add enough high end arms to the bullpen. If they had one more arm added in the vein of Matt Brash or Cade Smith then sure, go to the bullpen early with Dominguez, Fluharty, Hoffman, Smith and Varland all standing by.

I don't see the similarity if it's Little instead of Smith. I'm disregarding arm sides here but my point is that they are missing another top arm to do the premature pulls like they want to. Little doesn't throw strikes.

Not-so-fun-fact. The Jays hit .042 (1-24) on their BallsInPlay in the first game, which seems hard to do.

Not so bad tbh.


Sarah Langs
@SlangsOnSports
In postseason history, teams winning Game 1 in any best-of-seven series have gone on to take that series 126 of 194 times (64.9%)

In series with the current 2-3-2 format, teams winning Game 1 on the road have gone on to take that series 40 of 71 times (56.3%)

Alex Fast
@AlexFast8
·
1h
TOR recorded a .042 BABIP last night.

That's the:
- Lowest BABIP for a postseason game this year
- Tied for the 5th lowest BABIP for any game this year (regular and postseason)
- One of the 50 lowest BABIPs for a single game (regular & post) in the last 5 seasons.

In the end, whoever was used on the mound didn't matter. Jays were swinging at everything after the first inning. Many innings with sub 10 pitches - a dream for any pitcher. Lots of line drives right at people it seemed too which explains that 042 BABIP. Hopefully they don't play like they need to get to bed early tonight.

Jays got a extremely unlucky in the first. Both Vlad and Varsho scorched their balls and if either drops, it's a completely different game but after that, Jays had low BABIP because they hit the ball feably. Soft grounders, pop puts lazy fly balls. It want bad luck, it was bad hitting.

a lot of those dropped in against the yanks.

The Jays were swinging at everything because the Seattle pitchers were throwing a lot of strikes. The trouble was they were not fouling off many except for Luke first at bat and one of Santander's. To me, ever since Kirk's 2 homerun game, he's been swinging for the fences instead of just trying to make solid contact. The Jays really need his bat to come alive.