Blue Jays outplay M’s to force deciding Game 7

With these Jays the defence never rests

Recall on Thursday, it was the eldest of the team’s 26 ALCS roster players, 41-year-old Max Scherzer, that brought the Blue Jays back into the thick of the seven-game series with his Game 4 win at T-Mobile Park, tying the ALCS at two games apiece, after Shane Bieber had ensured the M’s would be sweepless in Seattle. Then on Sunday night at Rogers Centre in front of a raucous full house, it was the opposite. It became the youngest Blue Jay, 22-year-old Trey Yesavage pitching 5.2 gritty innings, helping to stave off elimination, bringing his team to an ultimate Game 7 with a chance to advance to the World Series for the first time in 22 years.

“This was the most electric, energized crowd I’ve ever played in front of before,” Yesavage said. “And the team rallied behind the fans and were extreme motivation for us.”

Sure, the easy observation was the homers by Vlad Guerrero Jr and Addison Barger, with multiple hits by Ernie Clement and Nathan Lukes that propelled the Jays’ offence, but what separated this team on this night from the M’s was defence, including double plays in three consecutive innings behind Yesavage, all of them difficult in concept, yet effortless in their execution.

In consecutive innings early in Game 6, facing the East Carolina University product in his first full professional season, the Mariners threatened in all three and failed to score in any of the third, fourth and fifth. All three innings ended dramatically with a trio of grounded into double plays turned by the Jays’ superior defence, on this night, and in fact, on most nights. Offensively, the M’s in those three key frames were 4-for-10-.400, with three walks … and no runs.

“Our pitchers talk about (the defence) openly,” manager John Schneider said. “They’re not afraid to be in the zone. Sometimes you get burned, but it’s how we’re built. It’s allowed us to have comeback wins. Every guy on the mound trusts that.

“When you look at it, we’ve got four or five Gold Glove finalists. We’ve got guys that have won Gold Gloves, guys that are going to win one this year. So, they trust that plays are going to be made behind them.”

And they were.

It wasn’t just the actual plays that were made that kept the M’s off the Game 6 scoresheet through five, it was intimidation of the M’s lineup and baserunners thinking plays that MIGHT be made, due to the individual and team reputations of Jays defenders.

Examples? After Yesavage had retired the first six hitters, four on strikeouts, JP Crawford led off the third with a walk. With one out, Leo Rivas lifted a deep flyball to right-centre. Barger leapt and the ball hit the top of the fence, bouncing back to a perfectly positioned Daulton Varsho. At the end of the play, Crawford was on second and Rivas on first.

It should, under normal circumstances, have been second and third, one out. The correct move by Crawford would have been to have watched the flight of the ball, having one foot on second base, so if the ball hit the wall he could head to third with a chance to score. If the ball was caught against the fence, he could retreat to first, no harm.

But the M’s know that Barger has a big arm, so not wanting to be doubled off first base, Crawford crept just two-thirds of the way to second, cautiously leaning back towards first when the ball bounded off the wall to the centre fielder. That’s the intimidation.

At that point the Jays executed a subtle back-pick at first on Rivas with two runners on. It would have worked, but Guerrero Jr bumped the edge of the base on the sweep tag, allowing Rivas to reach his fingers out to touch the base safely. It was yet another thing the M’s had to think about. After Julio Rodriguez walked to load the bases was when Vlad Guerrero Jr started a superb 3-6-1 double play.

Then in the next inning, with one out, the M’s proceeded to load the bases on two singles and a walk. This time, it was Crawford slashing a screeching one-hopper at Isiah Kiner-Falefa who underhanded to Andres Gimenez, who fired to Vlad to end it. In the fifth inning, a leadoff single by Dominic Canzone ended two batters later with a nifty 6-4-3 twin-killing grounded into by Rodriguez. By then it was 5-0 Jays and it became an easier bullpen job..

Contrast that classy run prevention effort by the Jays to the second-inning of shoddy glovework by the M’s that gave the home side an early lead they never relinquished. Following a Varsho single to left-centre that clanked off the leather of J-Rod, Ernie Clement grounded to third and Eugenio Suarez came up for the throw, but he left the ball on the ground for an error. Barger’s RBI single was followed by a chopper at 61.3 m.p.h. to third that Suarez tried and failed to barehand for an RBI single.

The Jays took advantage of more shaky M’s D in the seventh to stretch the lead to 6-2. Varsho swung at a Matt Brash breaking ball in the dirt that got away. Raleigh kept the loose ball in front of his big dumper and as Vlad made a mad dash for third, spiked a throw that eluded Suarez allowing the Jays star to score the sixth run.

Fool me once… Following the Game 5 Brendon Little debacle, with second guessing becoming Canada’s second national sport, the plan was to call upon closer Jeff Hoffman with any sort of lead to pitch two innings and take the series to the max. The manager acknowledged at much with a terse one word answer: “Yes!”

That ultimate Game 7 starts at 8:10 p.m. on Monday at Rogers Centre and features former Cy Young winner Shane Bieber, supported by everyone on the Jays staff, with the exception of Yesavage. It’s win or go home and the Jays don’t want to go home.

“It means everything,” Bieber said in the quiet euphoria of the Game 6 post-game. “I think, especially throughout the playoffs, we’ve been doing a really good job of passing the baton. Ultimately every game is an individual game. That’s the beautiful thing about baseball. You never know how it’s going to unfold, so I’m excited to be out there.”

And 44,000 at the ballpark and millions of fans across the country will share in that excitement.