TORONTO – A path to the post-season seemed unlikely to be this straight-forward for the Toronto Blue Jays earlier this month, when that four-game sweep suffered at the hands of the Texas Rangers dropped their playoff odds all the way down to 33.6 per cent.
At that point, it looked like they’d be facing 2.5 weeks of attrition to leapfrog one of the American League West teams ahead of them for the final two wild-card spots, in need of some help from others.
Three days later, they were back in control of their own fate after a sweep of the Boston Red Sox pushed their odds, as calculated by FanGraphs, up to 78.5 per cent, and rather than stressing through their final regular-season homestand, they’re on the cusp of a clinch party instead.
A way more comfortable way to finish than expected after that Texas set, John Schneider?
“It was still tough – every night is a roller-coaster,” the Blue Jays manager replied. “But if you look at the last two weeks in a nutshell, it changes with every hour, every pitch. If you’re looking at odds to get in, it was a crazy week, it swung so many different ways. But I like the way it’s played out the last week, for sure. The biggest part of that, though, is just how we’re playing.”
Their recent run was interrupted Tuesday night when closer Jordan Romano, struggling for a second consecutive outing, gave up a two-run homer to Austin Wells on his second pitch of the ninth in a 2-0 loss to the New York Yankees.
The blow came after Kevin Gausman and Michael King had duelled brilliantly to a stalemate and Romano, who blew a save Saturday at the Tampa Bay Rays, took the helm of a 0-0 game. His second pitch of the inning was a single by Gleyber Torres and his third was Wells’ 367-foot drive into the left-field bullpen, stunning the crowd of 40,454.
Clay Holmes then locked things down in the ninth for the Blue Jays (87-70), who need either three wins or a combination of victories and Seattle Mariners losses totalling four to clinch. They began the night holding the second wild-card spot, up 1.5 games on the Houston Astros (86-71), who were at the Mariners (84-72).
Gausman had an inauspicious start, issuing his only two walks around a pair of loud outs, but recovered to get Isiah Kiner-Falefa on a grounder to second with his 28th pitch and cruised from there.
He didn’t allow a hit until Estevan Florial’s leadoff single in the sixth and didn’t get into trouble until the seventh, when Giancarlo Stanton hit a one-out double. The gargantuan slugger’s leaden legs helped Gausman get out of the jam, however, as he only took third on Kiner-Falefa’s single to right and then was thrown out by Bo Bichette trying to score on Oswaldo Cabrera’s chopper, Alejandro Kirk putting down a good tag after picking the relay on a hop.
That capped Gausman’s night at seven shutout frames, with five strikeouts.
King was similarly stingy, capitalizing on home-plate umpire Malachi Moore’s generous strike zone over six innings of one-hit ball. He worked around five walks two of them in the third after Kirk’s one-out single and Kevin Kiermaier’s fielder’s choice, with Guerrero eventually getting called out on a 3-2 pitch off the outside edge of the plate.
