Jays need to channel playoff collapse into motivation

It was over before we knew it. A Blue Jays season that began with big hopes and expectations ended in a flash. Many pundits and oddsmakers had pegged the Jays as not only the top team in the AL East, but also as a real threat to win it all. But they came up short.

It will be an even more painful winter because they lost Game 2 in historic fashion. The 10-9 loss to the Mariners was the biggest road comeback (Seattle was down 8-1) win in MLB playoff history and the largest comeback to clinch a series. It was a horrific turn of events.

Despite the disappointment, Jays fans can be proud of the effort of their players. 

In Game 2, Whit Merrifield was hit in the head with a pitch and stayed in the game to run the bases before being replaced by Ramiel Tapia defensively. Tapia later made a mad dash to track down a sinking liner in left field, leading with his heart – he literally dove chest first into the ground to try and make the play.

Matt Chapman raced down the first baseline in the seventh inning, diving to beat the pitcher to the base. In the fourth inning, George Springer ranged to his right to run down a ball just as he got to the wall, bumping his injured hand that was wrapped after getting hit by a pitch on Friday afternoon. Then in the fifth, Springer ran after a ball hit to the wall and made a valiant leaping effort to catch a liner off the bat of Carlos Santana, crashing hard into the wall. 

In the eighth inning came the play Jays fans won’t soon forget. Springer and Bo Bichette gave everything they had, diving and colliding on a sinking pop up in centre field. Springer left the game on a cart and is under evaluation, while Bichette banged up his right arm. 

The Jays gave it their all. Their struggles weren’t due to a lack of effort or caring. They just weren’t good enough on the night.

This loss will leave a bad taste in the mouth of the players, and they need to really taste it. Never forget how bad it tastes, and then make sure you never taste it again. Use it as motivation.

The Jays finally fell behind in the ninth inning on an Adam Frazier double. They couldn’t muster a run in the bottom of the inning against rookie pitcher George Kirby. But this game was not lost in the ninth inning, it was lost in the sixth.

I am not one to second-guess a manager, but I must admit that I did not understand why Jays manager John Schneider took Kevin Gausman out of the game with two outs and the bases loaded in the sixth. Sure, Gausman had loaded the bases with three straight singles to start the inning. But after a mound visit, he retired Adam Frazier and Mitch Haniger. The crowd was fired up at that point because the Jays had a chance to get out of the jam without giving up any runs. 

But Schneider decided to remove Gausman from the game and call upon lefty Tim Mayza so he could have the switch-hitting Santana hit from the right side instead of the left. The move made no sense to me because Santana is a much better hitter from the right side (.265/.387/.402) than he is from the left (.178/.288/366). So, the pitching change made the hitter stronger and the pitcher weaker. Mayza is not nearly as effective against right-handed hitters (.291) than he is lefties (.162).

To be fair to Schneider, Santana had ripped a double off the top of the wall in an earlier at-bat against Gausman, which may have scared him away from a rematch. Coming into the game though, Santana had gone 4-for-17 against Gausman in his career. The Jays manager said he liked the matchup.  My only question would have been, “What exactly did you like about it?”  

The Jays are now done. The Mariners advance and play the top-seeded American League team in the Houston Astros. That would have been a very tough matchup for the Jays, but a challenge they surely desired. Now they will have to wait until next year.

For a general manager, it is a 162-game marathon (and hopefully a playoff appearance) and then the real work starts. Ross Atkins and his staff will be back at it this week, dissecting the season. They will evaluate what they did well and what they did poorly, which decisions went wrong, and which were right. This is a time of year where organizations challenge their processes and systems. They make a detailed inventory of their player personnel and an accounting of the scouting, player development, analytics, medical and strength and coaching staffs.

Most of the Jays’ roster is set to return next season. The Jays should expect to be a good team once again.

Pitcher Ross Stripling is a free agent and will be missed if he doesn’t re-sign. Anthony Bass and Jackie Bradley Jr. were acquired late in the season and are both free agents at the end of the year. 

The Jays will need to address the depth and quality of their starting rotation, with Hyun Jin-Ryu recovering from Tommy John surgery, the struggles of Yusei Kikuchi and the free agency of Stripling.

They will also need to reconstruct the bullpen. The Blue Jays need pitchers with swing-and-miss stuff. The best bullpens have power arms that strike out hitters. Jays pitchers allowed too much contact that found too many holes. We saw that play out in Game 2 against the Mariners. The Jays were ranked 10th among the 12 playoff teams in strikeouts per nine innings. That will need to change.

The other off-season consideration is whether the Jays are going to keep Bo Bichette at shortstop or move him to second base. There are potentially four premium shortstops available this winter, including Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa, Trea Turner and Dansby Swanson. One more big bat in the lineup would really help the offence and the infield reconfiguration would improve the defence.

Toronto could use some balance in the lineup as well. Swapping a right-handed bat like Lourdes Gurriel Jr. for a left-handed bat could help address that need. Another option would be signing a left-handed hitting left fielder like free-agent-to-be Andrew Benintendi and then packaging Gurriel with others to get a premium pitcher in return.

The Jays could have major league trade candidates available in Gurriel, Cavan Biggio, Santiago Espinal, Danny Jansen and Gabby Moreno.

Toronto will be a fun team to follow in the winter because they have a lot of good players, financial wherewithal, quality trade pieces, and motivation.

It’s also time for the Jays to sign their young core. Former Jays’ general manager Alex Anthopoulos has signed numerous young players with the Atlanta Braves. He is assured of keeping his core in place for the next six to eight years. Atlanta serves as a role model for how it is done. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bichette, Alejandro Kirk, and Alek Manoah are all candidates for long-term deals where the Jays buy a couple of years of free agency.

Winter is coming but spring training is just four months away. It will be here before you know it.