Step Two Poop

image via mlb dot com

Game one of the A.L.C.S should have been a lot better. The Mariners were coming off a 15 inning win a couple of days later in which they used their #1 and #2 starters and were forced to use their #5 starter Bryce Miller who was terrible during the regular season with a 4-6 record and a near six E.R.A. What happened? The Jays were nearly no hit and other than the first inning did absolutely nothing offensively and now all the pressure is on a rookie pitcher to dominate and knot the series at one.

That is an awful lot to ask from a kid who has four starts in his major league career. Albeit one of them was a his historic one in the playoffs against the Yankees, but this is a must win situation. I saw bits and parts of Game 5 of the Mariners game on Friday and noticed that their offense other than Raleigh is not much of anything. They have talent with guys in the lineup, but generally their overall numbers are terrible. A lot of sub .250 batting averages and a whole lot of 0fers. The one guy that came up big during this game was Jorge Polanco and he did it again against the Jays.

On top of losing the game, the Jays also lost Lukes and if he is out long term that will be a major problem. He has come up huge all year for the team and having Miles Straw or Schneider out there instead is a major drop in production. The team needs someone else to step up in his absence which is something the team has done all year, but Seattle's pitching scares me.

Springer has shown signs of coming out of his mini funk, but Kirk needs to get hot again and Vladdy needs to stay hot for the team to have a chance to make things close with the Mariners and whoever they would play in the World Series. Am I confident that this will happen? Not really. I need to see it first. Bichette was also left off the roster and Scherzer and Bassitt were added. This was a no brainer with this being a best of seven series and the team needing four starters. My guess is that Bassitt starts Game Four and Scherzer is the first to come out of the bullpen if Bassitt struggles early. That or the other way around. I hope Scherzer steps up and shows his veteran moxy because he has been awful in the last couple of months of the season.

One other thing about the Yankees series is the classless nature of some of their fans. Yesavage started his presser yesterday by mentioning that some of his family members were being bullied online by Yankees fans and just grow. the f up people. It is sports and is supposed to be loved and shared by everyone, but what else can you expect from people that toss garbage at people just because their team lost? I am not saying that this does not happen in other cities, but the narrative for Yankees fans is that they do this sort of thing a lot and that is why players leave. Similar to why hockey players leave Toronto, but rarely do Maple Leafs fans resort to tossing things at people. Actually, I am pretty sure that has never happened. Toss things on the ice sure, but at people nope.

Back to baseball, in order for the Jays to win Game Two they need to score early and often. I do not have faith that they can score against the high leverage guys the Mariners have coming out of the bullpen, so if they are down in the late innings, that situation will not be favorable. Get on Castilla who might be rusty since he pitched on Friday and has lost a step or two since his more productive years. He is stil la very good pitcher, but not lights out like he was when he was an all star in Cincy and his earlier years in Seattle.