Texas triggers memories of playoff drama
There was kinder, gentler feel for Game 1 of this current Blue Jays-Rangers series
Certainly, there were huge differences.
The Rogers Centre in the Blue Jays’ 2-1 loss to the Rangers on Monday night was far from sold out as it had been in October. Tempers on both sides were decidedly less edgy and frayed than ALDS Game 5. Fans in the upper deck no longer have beer served in cans.
It seemed a kinder, gentler feel for Game 1 of this Blue Jays-Rangers series opener.
There was no re-creating the drama of Game 5 of the Division Series. That task was nigh on impossible.
There weren’t many, but this game had an ALDS flashback moment when Rangers right-hander Sam Dyson, the victim of the Jose Bautista bat-flip, entered in the eighth facing the top of the order.
“I was hoping for (a flashback to last year),” Jays manager John Gibbons admitted of his thoughts upon seeing Dyson enter. “It set up just right too. It really did. But he’s good. He did his job.”
The anticipated stare-down between Dyson and Bautista with two on and nobody out was anti-climactic. Nothing thrown inside, and the result was a linedrive out to right field. The Jays still had their chance to tie it, but Michael Saunders was thrown out at the plate by right fielder Nomar Mazara.
“Obviously we know the right fielder’s got a good arm,” Saunders said. “Basically I felt as long as it’s not an infield pop-up we’ve got to challenge it. I felt like we had a better chance pushing that play than we did trying to eke out another hit or a passed ball or an error or something along those lines. In that situation we felt like we needed to press the issue.”
But what could not be denied on Mon-
Monday night was the first time the two teams had met since the unbelievable events of last year’s Game 5 playoff finale
day was it was the first time the two teams had met since the unbelievable events of that Game 5 finale, that included that wacky seventh-inning with the Rangers taking a lead on the Russell Martin throw back to the pitcher that deflected off Shin-Soo Choo’s bat, capped by the Bautista three-run blast and bat flip, with the Rangers’ angry bench-clearing reaction — twice.
Neither team was willing in Monday’s pre-game to contribute to the hype.
Even though most of the playoff hype of that series has inevitably zeroed in on the emotion of the bat flip and on where the Bautista bomb ranks among the most important homers in franchise history, then spins off into the hysteria of whether he showed disrespect for the game and for the Rangers, the fact is if not for the backs-to-the-wall wins in Games 3-4, then Game 5 would never have taken place.
That trip to Texas is worth reviewing as much as was the decisive Game 5.
The heroes of Game 4 were surprising starting pitcher Marco Estrada and newly-activated from the DL shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Leading 2-0 with Estrada still pitching in the seventh, Tulowitzki lined a Chi-Chi Gonzalez full-count pitch into the first rows of the left field seats and the Jays’ bullpen recorded the last eight outs after Estrada ran out of gas in the bottom of the seventh. Coincidentally the next day, Game 4 in the Rangers series against the Jays last October was started by R.A. Dickey and in Monday’s series opener against Texas it was Dickey again, facing Texas for the first time since then.
Last October, Dickey’s Game 4 no-decision, despite Toronto’s victory, was a huge disappointment of the veteran knuckleballer’s season. He had been looking forward with heightened anticipation to his first career playoff start, a dream come true. But Gibbons lifted Dickey from the game with a 7-1 lead, just one out shy of his first post-season win, at the age of 40. He was replaced by ace lefty David Price, now pitching in long relief. Dickey was disappointed.
On Monday, Dickey attempted to make up for it.
From the start, he seemed more in command of his knuckleball than in recent starts, allowing only a solo homer to catcher Brett Nicholas and being tied 1-1 through six innings. Dickey for the season has had six innings in which he has walked a man before recording an out. In those six innings, he had allowed 13 runs, including four separate innings of three runs each.
In the seventh inning, following an infield single to Mitch Moreland, Dickey went to three balls and no strikes on Elvis Andrus. In danger of adding another walk before an out and opening the door to a big Rangers inning, Dickey pumped strikes and induced a flyball to Bautista.
“I’m just trying to get more in attack mode,” Dickey said of his ever-evolving pitching philosophy.
Even though the Rangers loaded the bases after that, Gavin Floyd escaped with a flyball double play at second base wherein Delino DeShields, Jr. made a huge mistake tagging up and thrown out before Moreland could score.
He should not have been running. But the eventual winning run scored off Floyd one batter later on a leadoff homer by Mazara in the top of the eighth.