If you saw that coming, you can go stand in the corner, where you will find it very lonely.
The Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays exiting the American League wild-card round of the playoffs might not be a complete shock, but the way it happened takes a lot of explaining. Which you can be sure will go on until next February when spring training begins with people still searching for answers to the same question: “What happened?”
For openers what happened was that the American League East, arguably the best in baseball, took a huge hit, with the Orioles the only team standing as baseball moves into the Division Series round of the playoffs. You can almost hear the “AL Least” jokes being whispered in the background.
It wasn’t that the Blue Jays and Rays got beat, but the fact they went out with a thud that startled a baseball world digesting four teams getting swept out of the playoffs. None of the best-of-three series were very competitive, with the Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins in the AL and the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks moving on with relative ease.
But the big story line here was the offensive ineptness of both the Blue Jays and Rays, who combined for the astonishing total of one run in 36 innings. In the case of the Rays, the lone run in yesterday’s 7-1 loss to the Rangers broke a streak of 33 scoreless postseason innings dating back to last year, when they were swept by the Cleveland Guardians.
After starting the season with a 13-game winning streak, the Rays were blanked in the wild-card round for a second straight year. It continued a similar pattern as the Rays, who have lost 14 of their last 18 postseason games, including nine of the last 10.
In their defense, it must be said that the Rays have been decimated by injuries, with only 16 of the 26 players on the wild-card roster having been on the Opening Day roster.
Coming up short at the end has also been a problem for the Jays, who went into the season with perhaps the highest expectations of all the AL East teams. But they were inconsistent on offense and mistake-prone throughout a year that can only be classified as disappointing, a trend never more evident than when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got picked off second base in what proved to be a pivotal point of Game 2. One inning later, the Jays loaded the bases with one out and Matt Chapman, after barely missing a double down the left field line, grounded into a double play.
As if the missed opportunities weren’t enough, Jays manager John Schneider had to take the heat for a curious pitching move, one that Rays manager Kevin Cash can certainly relate to. After breezing through four innings, Jays’ starter José Berríos was removed from a scoreless game after walking the leadoff hitter in the fifth inning.
It was a strategic decision, one planned in advance in an effort to “flip” the Twins’ heavily platooned lineup. The next three Twins’ batters reached base, producing the only runs of the game.
In the postgame discussion, it became obvious the move with Berríos was eerily similar to Cash’s removal of Blake Snell with a 1-0 lead in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series. The results were pretty much the same each time. We’ll never know what might have happened had the moves not been made — only what did happen after.
If it is any consolation, Cash is still managing the Rays and, occasionally, he gets asked about the Snell move. Assuming he gets the same treatment as his colleague, Schneider will have the same opportunity when spring training starts and the first question is: “What happened?”
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox