Elliott: Jays come home from Ohio with ... a T-shirt maybe?
The nickname held up for the man holding the sign, but not the Blue Jays offence.
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
Your Toronto Blue Jays sent 32 hitters to the plate in the Ohio twilight Saturday afternoon.
They managed one run.
And on Friday the Jays sent 35 hitters to the batter’s box without scoring a single run.
So, no doubt there was a little frustration when the Jays heard of the bottom of the first Saturday at Wrigley Field that Dexter Fowler singled and Kris Bryant doubled to give the Chicago Cubs a 1-0 lead.
The Cubs scored seven pitches into their game with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Jays scored one run seeing 270 pitches in 18 innings.
The Jays game started in the shadows Saturday and was under the bright lights on Friday as they now trail 2-0 in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series. Toronto hitters have to put runs on the board or it’s turn off the Rogers Centre lights after Game 4 ... see you in April.
The Jays were losing 2-1 in the sixth as Cleveland reliever Brian Shaw fell behind Troy Tulowitzki 2-0. TBS’ Ron Darling said something like “you get the feeling that this Toronto team is going to come out of it ... soon.”
Shaw evened the count 2-2 and Tulowitzki bounced to Shaw. Inning over. The Jays didn’t have another base runner going nine up, nine down, seven strikeouts, facing Andrew Miller, six in a row, and Cody Allen, a 1-2-3 ninth.
When will the Jays hitters “come out of it?”
Monday night during Game 3.
Maybe Tuesday in Game 4.
Or next February in Dunedin before a whole new cast of players?
Players were quick to point out it was a lot like last season: the Jays dropped the first two games against the Texas Rangers in the best-of-five AL Division Series, but rallied to win three straight including a tie-breaking Bautista homer a bat flip.
It was also a little like last year’s ALCS best-of-seven against the Kansas City Royals. The Jays had runners at first and second with none out, down a run, threatening to tie the score and force a Game 7 to decide who went to the World Series. Ben Revere struck out and Dioneer Navarro did the same. Josh Donaldson bounced out and it was warm up the bus.
The Jays home-run-or-bust offence did have two homers from Jose Bautista but it also had 11 strikeouts than night in KC.
In falling behind 2-0 they managed three hits -- two singles and a Donaldson double -- they were walking back to the dugout, head down, shaking side to side, grinding teeth and kicking dust a total of 13 times. The Indians are the 28th team since 1985 to take a 2-0 LCS lead. All but three of previous 27 advanced to the World Series.
Unlike Game 1 when the Jays went 0-for-5 with men in scoring position they were 1-for-2 raising the age-old question: is it better to not have scored at all with so many chances or not to even have chances to score?
The first five Jays went down in order before Russell Martin singled and then Michael Saunders struck out against Josh Tomlin. Darwin Barney singled and scored on Donaldson’s double to right in the third with two out, Tomlin pitched around Edwin Encarnacion issuing a non-intentional bases on balls and then struck out Bautista.
Tomlin retired the next nine in a row before Bautista walked with two out in the sixth. That’s when Shaw got the ground ball from Tulowitzki and despite Darling’s thoughts, the Jays did not break out of it.
On came the 6-foot-7 Miller mowing down the Jays like a runaway John Deere mower which slipped from the grounds keeper’s grasp and roared down the berm above the 16th hole. Allen did the same in the ninth.
Carlos Santana homered to left in the second and then JA Happ issued a lead-off walk to No. 9 hitter Robert Perez, who hit .183 on eight pitches. Ex-Jay Rajai Davis erased Perez with a ground ball, stole second, went to third as Martin boxed a ball in the dirt and scored on a Francisco Lindor single up the middle.
The organization that gave you Ed Sprague going deep in Atlanta, Robbie Alomar leaving the building in Oakland, Bautista settling matters and flipping the bat at the Rogers Centre as well as Joe Carter going into the bullpen for the walk-off three-run World Series winning drive has a decision to make: hit the ball where it is pitched or keep swinging for the fences and produce.
It’s too late to ask for the Rogers Centre fences to be moved in.
THE GOOD: Happ allowed two runs as he appeared to have better command and control than in Game 2 against the Rangers. However, he only went five innings throwing 94 pitches as he allowed four hits, walked four and struck out one ... Joe Biagini pitched two scoreless innings, walking one ... Roberto Osuna had a 1-2-3 eighth.
THE BAD: Jays have fanned 10 times in 3 2/3 innings facing Miller ... Jays managed to get two men in scoring position, both in the third inning. They had more than one base runner only once (third) and are 1-for-7 in the first two games ... Happ ran up his pitch count a la JA Happ 1.0 so many pitches where he reached his limit after five frames. He received little run support but many expected a longer outing.
HURTING: 2B Devon Travis returned to Toronto Saturday morning had an MRI and was removed from the playoff roster. Travis would be ineligible for the World Series if healthy. We heard someone say “let the second guessing begin.” Well if Travis could only go half a game in the ALCS before his knee bothered him how could he be expected to play in the World Series -- if there is a World Series.
NUMBERS: Some numbers from Game 2 of the ALCS ...
Zero _ Innings that the Indians have collected more than one hit against Jays pitching.
Two _ Wins from the World Series for Cleveland, which has not been that far since 1997 when they played the Florida Marlins. Cleveland has not won it all since 1948, representing the longest drought in the AL.
Four _ Of Santana’s 34 homers came against left-handers.
14 _ Hitless at-bats for Bautista in post-season play, he’s 0-for-6 against the Indians.
17 _ Strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings for Miller after he fanned five of the six hitters he faced.
22 _ Runs by the Jays against Texas in three ALDS games thanks to eight homers. Meanwhile one run and 10 hits — eight singles and a pair of doubles — in two games against Cleveland.
25 -- Strikeouts for the Jays in first two games of a series, with 13 coming in 7-through-9 innings.
CUBS BOOMING BAT: Javier Baez has made an impact for the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS. He was known to some Ontario high schoolers long before this post season. Playing for a Jacksonville high school team Baez went against the Ontario Terriers at Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg during the spring of 2011. Johnathan Palumbo (Georgetown, Ont.) came on in relief and Baez tagged him for two homers ... one over the fence and an inside-the-park job. He was 13-for-36 in post-season play with two doubles, two homers and six RBIs.