While addressing the media during his end-of-season press conference, Toronto Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins spoke on the decision to remove Jose Berrios during the team’s Game 2 loss to the Minnesota Twins.
While he said that he “was surprised that [Berrios] was coming out,” Atkins said, “we stand by John [Schneider’s] decisions.”
“The thought process occurred to lean into our pitching as heavily as you could based on the three-game series, the depth of our starting pitching, having Yusei [Kikuchi] as someone opposite handed of the starter would allow us to hopefully get their right-handed hitters into the game to better deploy our very strong bullpen at the end of the game,” Atkins said of what went into the decision.
In the days since the Blue Jays’ playoff exit, there has been some question about the decision-making process for in-game moves and how the information flows from the front office to the dugout.
“Schneider has a group of individuals that he prepares with every day. His process, routine, his preparation was no different that day,” Atkins said. “The group is the staff that’s on the field. It’s not the front office. I do not attend these meetings and do not make those decisions.”
Berrios was removed from the game after pitching three scoreless innings while striking out five and allowing just four baserunners, with, by all accounts, some of his best stuff since being traded to Toronto.
The team turned to Kikuchi in the bottom of the fourth, with three of the next four scheduled Twins hitters taking their swings from the left side of the plate. The Blue Jays’ left-handed starter would end up having to face just five straight righties after Minnesota made two substitutions. The Twins pushed across their two runs of the game with Kikuchi on the mound in the inning.
Atkins called the decision “very courageous,” but that he ultimately understood the strategy in the moment and doesn’t believe in hindsight or second guessing.
The Blue Jays mustered just one run and one extra-base hit in the series, something the general manager pointed to as being a larger issue — not just in the playoffs — for the team all year.
“Working through the different levers to pulls and opportunities on which relievers to use is a very cumbersome exercise,” Atkins said. “I believe that [Schneider] and Pete [Walker] … have done an exceptional job this year of utilizing and deploying our pitching.
“Preventing runs was not our problem in the playoff series. It wasn’t our problem over the course of the year.”
