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Blue Jays beat themselves and go meekly into off-season after being swept by Twins
The body bags were strewn about Target Field on Wednesday afternoon and evening with plenty of Blue Jays candidates to fill them after Canada’s team was meekly swept from Major League Baseball’s post-season yet again. But the fingerprints of a loss that may be the most infuriating of the Mark Shapiro-Ross Atkins era lie throughout an organization that has become near impossible to embrace. A pitching change by manager John Schneider in the fourth inning of an elimination game in the Twin Cities, stunningly aborting an outstanding effort from starter Jose Berrios, kept the season narrative for the Jays intact. And that move, which triggered a 2-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins, furthered the philosophical approach of a front office convinced it is smarter than the rest and determined to micro-manage to the smallest of details, damn the consequences. When left-handed starter-turned-reliever for part of a day, Yusei Kikuchi, couldn’t get out of that fourth inning before allowing a pair of Twins runs to score, a second consecutive sweep from the AL wild card round was expedited for the Jays. Yes, you read that right: Berrios was dealing and replaced by Kikuchi, a starter who had an outstanding season, but regressed in the late going. An homage to analytics, the move immediately enraged a fan base that already had great difficulty embracing this team throughout an 89-win season that failed to meet self-proclaimed expectations. And as much as many are calling for Schneider’s carcass, let it be known that the call was made by a cabal of co-conspirators. They stuck with the process, all right. And after a blanking and a sweep, they now have a long season to answer for a Jays team that started poorly and never found its stride. The loss won’t sit well with anyone, including Schneider, who was trotted out to a podium at Target Field and forced to answer for an entire organization. “You can sit here and second-guess me, second-guess the organization, second-guess anybody,” a visibly deflated Schneider told reporters in his post-game news conference. “(Berrios) had electric stuff. Tough to take him out.” And, let’s be honest, tough to stomach for many, including the pitcher, his fellow starters and perhaps even the manager himself. The botched pitching change in a tight ball game looms as a flash point for the latest debacle of a regime overseen by team president Shapiro and his GM Atkins, of course, but the failures were deep, plentiful and on full display on Wednesday. When Atkins deliberately subtracted offence last off-season, he promised that improved pitching and defence would carry the freight. How’s that working out for a team that managed just one measly run in two games? And what will be the consequences? Then there were the avowals of attention to detail, of being smart on the bases and not “beating yourself.” We take you to the top of the fifth, when the actual players on the field had an opportunity to make up for the geniuses pulling the strings. With runners on second and third and two out with the Jays’ best hitter, Bo Bichette, at the plate, a bone-headed Vlad Guerrero Jr. was outsmarted by wily Twins starter Sonny Gray, who perfectly executed the pickoff play. The sellout crowd at Target Field recognized smart baseball (and the dumb version from the visitors, of course) and erupted in glee. For those scoring at home — and we were — the Jays had two runners on in each of the first, second, fifth and sixth innings and had not a run to show for it. That type of output was symptomatic of the Jays’ 89-win regular season, of course, a dry attack that carried into Tuesday’s opener of the best-of-three series, a 3-1 loss. Meanwhile, the drama of the Berrios affair was fascinating to watch unfold, especially as it became clear what the Jays braintrust was cooking up. Cameras caught Kikuchi warming up on multiple occasions and unless it was some elaborate ruse to get savvy Twins manager Rocco Baldellli off the scent, it was shocking when it became clear what was coming. So even though Berrios had thrown just 47 pitches, allowed three hits and struck out five through his three-plus innings of work, his afternoon ended early. “Honestly? I don’t know,” Berrios told reporters in the visiting clubhouse following the game when asked about the rationale for his hook. “I pitched my a– off.” Which he did in an inspiring performance that never should have ended when it did. The front office, through spokesperson Schneider, stood by the call, offering convoluted and half-hearted explanations. But this is also a franchise that trumpeted (accurately) riding one of the best starting rotations in baseball. So what is the messaging to that group now? That they will pay Berrios $130 million US for seven years and even when he’s having one of his most clutch outings in a Jays uniform, they won’t trust him to do the job? That the matchup analytics are so far superior to the eye test that what a manager and pitching coach see happening in front of them doesn’t matter? Get used to it, Blue Jays fans. It’s going to take some time — and much more than the planned off-season renovations to the Rogers Centre — to rekindle what had the potential to be such a good thing. If you thought this was a team in turmoil over the previous days, you may not have seen anything yet.
Publish Date : 2023-10-04 23:54:21
Image and News Source : torontosun
