Odor beats Jays in field, on base, at bat
It’s not desperate times yet, but the Blue Jays can see it from here. The only must-win start in any postseason series is, obviously, the elimination game. But following Thursday’s 5-3 Game 1 loss to the Texas Rangers, it’s easy to suggest that Friday’s decision is very, very important. What’s more disturbing than the loss of the game was the possible loss of Josh Donaldson, with a blow to the head in the fourth inning — although the expectation is that, after clearing some form of Major League Baseball’s concussion protocol, the Jays’ MVP candidate will be ready to play on Friday. The Ranger who knocked Donaldson out of the game, second baseman Rougned Odor, is the man that sparked the Rangers’ offence and was the key to the Texas victory. It was coincidence that both all-star third basemen, Donaldson and Texas’s Adrian Beltre, went down and out early on. In fact, if Beltre’s replacement, Hanser Alberto, had not bobbled a potential double-play grounder by Jose Bautista, his feed would have been there earlier and Odor would have had time to clear, instead of having his knee collide with Donaldson’s forehead, where Kevin Pillar said he saw a welt.
“That’s (Josh) being a good teammate, understanding the situation of the game,” Pillar said of the slide that prevented an inning-ending play, leaving runners at first and third. “Them getting two outs kills whatever rally we have going on there. The type of player Josh is he’s going to play hard. He’s going to play with his body on the line for the good of the team and it’s unfortunate.”
But the Rangers, led by Odor, took a page out of the Jays’ handbook of what makes them an outstanding lineup and the highest scoring team in baseball. For the Jays, it’s been Ryan Goins and Pillar at the bottom of the order, hitting eighth and ninth, with Ben Revere batting leadoff, all regarded as table-setters for the big boys, all second-half keys to the Jays success.
But this was the Rangers’ day. Odor, was followed by catcher Robinson Chirinos in the order, then it was leadoff man Delino DeShields, Jr. The three combined to go 4for-10, with a double, two homers, two hit-by-pitch, all five runs scored and four RBIs. That’s what the Jays usually do.
“They’re a good team, it’s a good lineup, one through nine, the same way as us,” Goins said. “They have good hitters. They have guys that can hit it out of the ballpark in the middle and guys who get on base at the end, so it’s going to be a good series. I mean it’s one game in a five-game series. It’s not a play-in game, it’s a five-game series, so we come back tomorrow and get after them.”
Those Rangers did not come in with a lot of major-league experience, but the Cubs and Astros already showed in the wild-cards, that, these days, experience is not a prerequisite to success.
“They have experience . . . playing the game of baseball and they’re doing things that they’ve done all year long,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. “Those runs that you’re able to get from the bottom part of your order, they’re really special and they can be game winners for you obviously. But to have those guys step up in those situations, it’s huge.”
For Jays fans, the end result of Game 1 stunk and Odor takes much of the blame for Price’s woes. Leading off the third, he was hit by a pitch and moved up to second base on a Chirinos grounder. With a 2-1 count, the Jays put on a pickoff play, in which Goins broke to cover second base behind Odor as the pitch was delivered, waiting for a throw from catcher Russell Martin. Instead, DeShields laid his bat on the ball and grounded it through the vacated hole at second base to drive in the game’s first run. There was no mistake on the play, as Goins explained.
“We’ve been running the play all year,” Goins said.
“Two-one we throw a change-up and we weren’t expecting him to hit it to second and it’s just what happened. We usually throw a pitch that’s going to be pulled and (that’s what the pitch) was and he did a good job of hitting it to second. It’s an unfortunate play in the game. It’s a play we’ve done all season. Credit to (DeShields).”
In the fifth, Price hit Odor again, followed immediately by a Chirinos homer.
In the seventh, he didn’t wait to be plunked, instead driving the first pitch from Price on a line into the Rangers bullpen.
“Every game’s vital, really,” Jays manager John Gibbons said. “I think we’ve been resilient all year. We’ve lost some tough games and we don’t lose many in a row, normally.”