TORONTO – A popular stat this time of year is playoff probability, in which the projected performance of a roster and its current record are used in simulations of the season’s remainder thousands of times. The results are averaged out and then voila, post-season odds.
For front offices, who typically have proprietary systems but also tend to check them against the publicly available measures, the projections can be used, to varying degrees, as a factor in their decision-making. For fans, the measure can be useful in managing hopes and expectations while assessing the legitimacy of their team’s chances.
For players, on the other hand, playoff probabilities can easily become unwanted distraction.
Regardless of whether a team’s playoff odds are 99.9 per cent, like the Chicago White Sox, or 11.5 per cent like the Toronto Blue Jays’ were before Thursday’s 10-7 loss to the AL Central leaders, there can be no variance in their commitment, effort or determination.
“I don’t know what our playoff probability is or anything like that,” said Bo Bichette, whose RBI single preceded Marcus Semien’s second homer of the game during a five-run rally in the sixth that made things close, but not close enough.
“For me, it’s we come here, prepare as hard as we can, play as hard as we can and that’s all we can control. It doesn’t really matter what anybody else is doing (in the standings). What they’re doing is what they’re going to do. We can’t control that. We come here and give our best to win the game. That’s all I’m worried about.”
The Blue Jays certainly did that in the finale of a disappointing seven-game homestand that ate away at their playoff odds.
Hyun Jin Ryu didn’t make it out of the fourth, giving up a solo shot to Cesar Hernandez in the second, a two-run homer to Luis Robert followed immediately by Jose Abreu solo job in the third and a two-run double by Leury Garcia and Tim Anderson RBI single in the fourth.
All that quickly buried the first-inning homer from Semien that staked the Blue Jays to a 1-0 lead. They chipped away from there, getting a Semien RBI single in the fifth, and after an RBI double from Seby Zavala and Anderson off Brad Hand in the sixth, put up their five spot in the bottom half to make a game of it.
But former Blue Jays reliever Ryan Tepera settled things down in the seventh, Garrett Crochet cut through them in the eighth and Craig Kimbrel locked things down in the ninth.
