Blue Jays must confront wider issues after sweep by Twins

MINNEAPOLIS — There were more than enough questions about why process didn’t deliver results for the Toronto Blue Jays in this maddening season before John Schneider walked out to the mound in the fourth inning to pull a dealing Jose Berrios and replace him with Yusei Kikuchi.

Regardless of the outcome, good or bad — and it was the latter, of course, providing the defining moment Wednesday in a season-ending 2-0 loss to the Minnesota Twins — everything that went into the decision ties into the wider issues this team must confront.

None of this happens if an offence that was supposed to be a strength and wasn’t, capitalizes on the early opportunities it managed against an uneven Sonny Gray. Absent a lead the Blue Jays — and the use of the collective as opposed to Schneider here is intentional because this is an organizational decision, not solely a managerial one — took to managing as if they had to win 1-0. Under those circumstances, you can certainly argue that Berrios, whom lefties slugged .450 against during the regular season, shouldn’t face a run of lefties with a runner on.

But that the move ran counter to the game flow, to the way Twins hitters were reacting to Berrios, demonstrated a commitment to game-plan over feel, not to mention a shocking lack of trust for a right-hander the front office signed to a $131-million, seven-year extension only two falls ago. If the Blue Jays don’t trust Berrios enough to face Max Kepler and Alex Kirilloff twice in a game, then they should have committed all that money to someone they do instead.

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The thing is, trust, or lack thereof, goes two ways and players competing their hearts out need to believe in the game plans mapped out by the coaching staff and front office. This one felt like the Blue Jays were managing scared because it ran counter to the way they usually operate, even in a win-to-earn-tomorrow scenario, which players could easily read, fairly or not, as a lack of faith in them.

Berrios was pulled after a leadoff walk in the fourth to Royce Lewis, refusing to give in to the slugger with a full count and missing with a sinker away, which is exactly what he should have done. Remember, it was Kevin Gausman twice giving in to Lewis with fastballs in Game 1 that allowed the rookie slugger to go deep twice.

Now, sure, Berrios could have made a better pitch to get Lewis, but there were no clear and definitive red flags that pointed to the need for a change. And putting Kikuchi into a relatively unfamiliar situation is all kinds of risky and, maybe, counterbalances some of the platoon gain.

For all of those reasons, this wasn’t just a case of overmanaging, or singular bad decision-making, but part of the structural problems the Blue Jays must work through this off-season.

There was a strong case to be made for the oft-discussed pulling of Gausman in the Game 2 loss to the Seattle Mariners a year ago — he had one or two batters, at most left at the time after all — but Berrios probably had at least one or two innings left. And what was coming in behind him wasn’t all that much better than what he was featuring.

Kikuchi ran into some bad luck as Kepler hit a grounder that a diving Cavan Biggio knocked down at second but couldn’t relay to first in time. Pinch-hitter Donovan Solano walked before Carlos Correa squeezed a base hit up the middle to open the scoring. Another run came home on Willi Castro’s double-play ball before Ryan Jeffers grounded out to end the inning with the Blue Jays down 2-0 and a Target Field crowd of 38,518 rocking.

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The game and the season wasn’t lost there alone, of course, and the offensive shortcomings, the gap between quality of contact and results, are of pressing importance.

The Blue Jays stranded two runners in the first, two more in the second, had Vladimir Guerrero Jr. get picked off at second with two on and Bo Bichette in a full count in the fifth and then squandered the bases loaded and one out in the sixth, when Matt Chapman ripped a liner down the left-field line that was an inch or two foul before hitting into an inning-ending double play.

They scored once in 18 innings, managed only one extra-base hit and went 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position during the wild-card series with the Twins.

Chapman also drove a ball to the wall in right-centre in Game 1 that might have tied the game and near-misses are a part of the sport’s inherent cruelty. As the pending free agent said before the game, “In baseball you just don’t know what’s going to happen. You just put a good swing on a ball and some of those things are out of your control.”

“When our team tries to do too much, like most teams, that’s not when we play our best and we don’t control the zone as well when we do things like that and one guy might be up there trying to hit a homer or win the game for us,” he added. “I think sometimes you don’t really hit homers — pitchers throw them.”

Whether the Blue Jays didn’t hit them or pitchers didn’t throw them, there weren’t enough all season long. And rather than earning a tomorrow, they instead now must face all the questions the off-season will bring.