TORONTO — There’s an accomplishment in simply getting to this point not only for the Toronto Blue Jays, who overcame more than most, but for Major League Baseball as a whole. This shortened 60-game season was a welcomed respite from pandemic life, and things nearly fell apart when the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals suffered early COVID-19 outbreaks. As fans poured over results from the field, executives lived and died with results from the labs.
Despite all the challenges and risks, the first finish line arrived Sunday with the regular season’s end and the Blue Jays are among the 16 teams who get to continue pursuing the second. A 7-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles capped a 32-28 campaign and locked them into the eighth seed and a first-round playoff series against the Tampa Bay Rays.
The matchup is an intriguing one given manager Charlie Montoyo’s long history with the Rays, the Blue Jays’ aspirations to emulate the Rays’ efficiency, and a 10-game season series with a cumulative score of 48-44.
The Blue Jays went 4-6 against a team that’s really become their arch-nemesis, 1-4 in the five one-run contests and 2-1 in three two-run affairs. A 12-4 Blue Jays win and a 4-1 Rays victory were the outliers.
Much of the focus in recent days has been on how the Blue Jays will line up their rotation — there’s been a lot of talk about “keeping our options open” and “how we can maximize and optimize” the pitching – and that will be an important subplot.
There are no similar games from the Rays, who lined up their best with Blake Snell in Game 1, Tyler Glasnow in Game 2 and, if necessary, Charlie Morton for Game 3.
That Hyun-Jin Ryu wasn’t their automatic pick for Game 1 after throwing 100 pitches and seven innings for the first time this season in Thursday’s playoff-clinching win over Yankees raised questions about whether something is up. Montoyo insisted his ace is fine, but Matt Shoemaker’s scheduled start Saturday getting cancelled to throw a bullpen with Robbie Ray sure made it look like the pair will tandem up for the opener.
Objectively, the first game is very important as since 1995, when the wild-card era began, the team that wins it is 126-49 in the series, regardless of round or length. Teams that go up 2-0, meanwhile, are 88-9 while those who take a 3-0 lead are 17-1.
In a best-of-three, of course, taking the first game forces the opposition to immediately face elimination, so there’s a case to be made for ensuring your best arm gets the ball. But if Ryu feels like he’d benefit from an extra day, well, you’d probably want to set him up for the best.
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Offensively, the Blue Jays appear to be set up well. Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who left Saturday’s game after fouling a ball off his foot, returned to the lineup for the finale and went 4-for-4 with a homer and two doubles while Vladimir Guerrero Jr., capped a 12-for-27 with his ninth homer of the season.
The duo, along with Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette at the top of the lineup, will go a long way in determining where things go.
While Tanner Roark allowed four runs, two earned, in four innings to cap an uneven debut season in which he was second on the Blue Jays with 47.2 innings but finished with a 6.99 ERA, and Shun Yamaguchi was roughed up for a three-spot in the decisive fifth, the most important development on the mound related to Jordan Romano’s live batting practice earlier in the day.
The Canadian right-hander threw his all at the outing and as long as he doesn’t come up sore Monday, he should be on the post-season roster. He’s been out since suffering a pulley strain in his right middle finger, an injury similar to the one Aaron Sanchez suffered in 2017 and needed surgery to repair.
