CLEVELAND RUINS ESTRADA EFFORT
TORONTO’S BIG BATS SHUT DOWN IN 2- 0 VICTORY
Wait, which one of the teams in the American League Championship Series is the one with the fearsome power- hitting lineup?
On a night in which Cleveland played to type by opening with a bunt, they also provided the decisive blast, a two- run shot to centre field that pinned a 2- 0 loss on Toronto and ruined an otherwise sparkling effort from Marco Estrada.
Despite repeatedly getting runners on base in the early innings against Cleveland’s best starter, Cory Kluber, the Blue Jays couldn’t get the decisive hit themselves.
With 12 strikeouts on the night, the Toronto bats gave Estrada very little room for error. And then he erred, just a bit, and it was enough to hand the Blue Jays their first loss in October, and put them down 0-1 in the ALCS for the second-straight year. Francisco Lindor’s home run in the sixth gave Cleveland the game’s first two runs, and then their terrifying bullpen shut the Blue Jays down the rest of the way.
For Toronto fans, this playoff baseball thing should be getting familiar by now: lots of tense at-bats, and no shortage of moments in which it feels like the game hangs in the balance. For one game at least, none of those moments unfolded in the Blue Jays’ favour.
Before the game, the festivities for the ALCS kicked off in a non- subtle fashion. Cleveland rolled out a massive United States flag — Toronto does the same thing with a Canada flag — and for some reason also groups of five people holding a number of separate stars around the Progressive Field diamond. Instead of one honour guard holding the U.S. colours, there were five of them: an entire starting rotation of honour guards. Fireworks blasted during The Star- Spangled Banner, more or less at the part about the rockets’ red glare. Cleveland may have had one of the lowest attendance figures in baseball this season, even as the team charged to the AL Central title, but the city is into it now.
The Blue Jays almost hushed a charged- up crowd early, when Josh Donaldson hit a single up the middle and Edwin Encarnacion followed with a ringing double off the right-field wall, putting runners at second and third with one out. But Jose Bautista struck out on three pitches and Russell Martin followed with a ground ball to first base to end the threat. With Cleveland ace Cory Kluber on the mound, it felt very much like Toronto might have wasted what would be one of few opportunities to score. But more would come.
Cleveland followed with a very Cleveland play to open their half of the first: Carlos Santana dropping a bunt up the third- base line, exploiting a defensive shift with a small- ball move with their very first batter. Santana could have marched to the plate with a sign that said “We Like to Bunt and Steal and Stuff ” and it would have been no less a tone- setter. But Santana was promptly erased on a Jason Kipnis double- play ball, and the rally was over just as it had started.
The Jays, though, managed to get something going off Kluber in the next inning, a Michael Saunders single and Kevin Pillar walk giving Toronto two runners for the second straight frame. Devon Travis sharply hit into a double play to end things, but if nothing else the Jays had at least managed to make Kluber work early. He was at 37 pitches after two innings. In the third, it was an Encarnacion single and a Bautista walk that put two runners on, but Kluber struck out Martin to escape with his shutout still intact. In the fourth, the Jays got Saunders to second base after a single and a Pillar groundout — that would have been a hit but for an excellent snag by Cleveland second baseman Jason Kipnis — but a Travis flyout put an end to yet another promising inning for the Toronto offence. Through four, the Jays were 0- for- 5 with runners in scoring position, stranding six. It was playoff baseball: The Jays were close, so close, to making something happen, but they couldn’t get the breakthrough hits that they had with regularity in the ALDS against Texas. Finally, in the fifth, Kluber retired the side in order. Toronto had a chance or four, and now Cleveland’s guy was rolling.
Meanwhile, Estrada was doing the same thing for the visitors. Lonnie Chisenhall led off the fifth with a single, and was bunted over to second — small ball again — but the Toronto starter induced a groundout and then a strikeout to snuff the threat. Kluber, a Cy Young winner, was expected to do this kind of thing on this stage. Estrada lacks that resumé, and didn’t even assert himself as a major- league starter until he was 32, but in two post- seasons he has proven to be a huge big- game starter. Friday’s outing was only building on his growing reputation as the best playoff pitcher the Blue Jays have ever had — until that sixth-inning pitch to Lindor.
It always looked like this would be a close series.
It still looks that way.
CLEVELAND FOLLOWED WITH A VERY CLEVELAND PLAY TO OPEN THEIR HALF OF THE FIRST.