Texas prepared for Jays’ offense
Rangers had to hold off Trout, Pujols to make postseason.
TORONTO Pitching — against the powerful Toronto Blue Jays can sometimes feel like suffocating, because it is hard to come up for air.
“You can’t let up,” Texas Rangers closer Shawn Tolleson said of today’s AL Division Series opener. “There’s no getting past one guy and taking an exhale. Definitely, that poses its challenges. It’s not an easy lineup to just pitch around one guy and get to the next.”
Still, in their final series of the regular season, a four-game showdown against the Angels, the Rangers pitching staff got a warm-up for facing the bashing Blue Jays.
“We’ve tried to do a good job this season about keeping the mindset of never letting up,” Tolleson said. “We had those same talks when playing Anaheim the other day, pitching to (Mike) Trout and (Albert) Pujols and then you face (C.J.) Cron, who had really hurt us a lot all season long. We talked about how you get Trout and Pujols out and you kind of take an exhale and then, before you know it, Cron hits a double off the wall or a home run. I think that kind of preparation is going to prepare us for this.”
Good practice, for sure, but Toronto’s deep lineup will present even tougher challenges, with AL MVP candidate Josh Donaldson followed by sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. Then there’s shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and catcher Russell Martin not far behind.
”Our lineup is legit,” Donaldson said. “One through nine, I feel like we have probably the best lineup in baseball.”
Tolleson wasn’t about to argue: “It’s probably going to be more challenging than it would be going up against another team,” he said.
Toronto was the only big league team to top 800 runs and outscored the Yankees, baseball’s second-most prolific offense, by 127 runs. That’s the biggest gap between the No. 1 and 2 offense since 1953.
Texas was third in the majors with 751 runs.