Raining on their parade
Manager Gibbons concerned about keeping Jays fresh
A day after clinching the AL East, the Blue Jays fall to the Orioles in soggy affair in Baltimore.
BALTIMORE— It has become clear that the most interesting game remaining in the Blue Jays season will be the simulated game at Tropicana Field on Friday afternoon featuring David Price and Troy Tulowitzki. The rest is background noise, including the Jays’ rain-delayed 6-4 loss to the Orioles in the series finale at Camden Yards on Thursday. The game started at noon in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the effects of hurricane Joaquin.
Manager John Gibbons announced Thursday morning, in a near-empty clubhouse with players straggling in just two hours before game-time, that Price, a candidate for the Cy Young Award who was originally scheduled to pitch in Baltimore, will not pitch again in the regular season.
He will start Game 1 of the Division Series on Thursday at the Rogers Centre, with 11 days rest.
“We decided if we clinched (Wednesday), I wasn’t going to pitch today,” Price said.
“They wanted me to throw just because of personal awards. I could care less about those. It’s that point in the season, if you can give me an extra couple of days, we’ll take it.”
Price finishes the season with an 18-5 record and a 2.45 ERA in 32 starts that will surely give him a shot at the Cy Young.
He chose to change up on the preparation that he has had in previous trips to the playoffs, when he always seemed to pitch in the final few games. “We have a plan and we know what we’re going to do,” the Jays ace said. “I plan on throwing a lot of (batting practice) to Tulo, to get as close to game action as you can without really playing in a game. So, we have a plan and I like it. I’m throwing live B.P. It’s still pitching.”
There were once three goals for the Jays as they continued to win games and began to realize that other teams were offering little resistance to their relentless advances.
The first goal was to secure a playoff berth by clinching at least the second wild-card berth. The Jays did that on Sept. 26. There was wrapping up the AL East over the Yankees. They did that in Game 1 of the Wednesday’s doubleheader at Camden Yards.
Finally, there was finishing first overall in the AL and securing home field advantage throughout the playoffs and, because the AL won the All-Star Game, the World Series.
Having accomplished the first two goals, which, make no mistake, is a magnificent feat for a team that was 50-51 near the end of July, Gibbons seems to be content to let the firstoverall chips fall where they may.
In addition to shutting down Price for the season, he plans on letting Mark Buehrle use every bullet in his arsenal on Friday to try and reach 200 innings for the 15th straight season and then, if he falls just short, will likely offer him the chance to start on one day’s rest on Sunday.
But the one that has Jays fans perplexed is the lineup that Gibbons offered up for the final two games of the Orioles series, featuring seven position players that had at some point in 2015 performed for the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, plus reserve infielders Cliff Pennington and Darwin Barney, who I’m sure was unable to offer a theory of evolution on Gibbons’ thought processes. But the manager did.
“The guys are tired,” Gibbons said of the quick turnaround from a 10:30 p.m. Wednesday finish to a noon start, bookending a night of partying heartily in the clubhouse and into the night.
“I think when you clinch, you sort of owe it to your players to regroup, refresh. My job is to take care of these guys, make sure they’re ready to go. Yeah, we’d love to win it, but I’ll do what’s best for these guys.”
A large part of Gibbons’ decisionmaking is based on emotion and what he feels is the right thing for his players. If the Thursday game had not been re-scheduled for noon, instead of the original 7:10 p.m. starting time, many of his regulars would likely have played. But he didn’t even ask them if they would. He just wrote in the Bisons-plus lineup, again.
He was emotional Wednesday night when talking about his veterans heading to the playoffs for the first time.
“We’ve got some guys who have been great players in this league that never experienced post-season,” Gibbons said, leaning on a cooler full of beer in the clubhouse, watching the hijinks of his players from a safe distance that did not require the wearing of goggles. “Really, that’s what everybody’s goal is. Everybody wants to have big years, make a lot of money, but ultimately they want to win a championship. Most of them haven’t done it.”
One of those players, the eldest of the veterans that had never been to a post-season, is R.A. Dickey. As the party flowed, he awkwardly shook a bottle and gushed champagne that seemed to float with little or no rotation towards an unsuspecting teammate. Forever the knuckler. “It’s far beyond what I thought it would be,” Dickey said, eyes sparkling. “I don’t know if you could even dream a scenario like this up. You see people do it as you come up for 19 years. You really don’t know what it’s all about. It’s awesome.
“Oh yeah, I could perpetually do this.”
He didn’t ask his veterans if they would play. He just wrote in the Bisons-plus lineup again