Season on the line in Gausman-Ray duel
For the first time this year, all the old clichés apply to the Blue Jays. It’s a must-win game. Their backs are against the wall. There’s no tomorrow. Dropping the opener of their firstround series against the Seattle Mariners, 4-0 on Friday at the Rogers Centre, means the Jays have to win Saturday or their playoff run will be over in a flash.
“I think it’s going to be exciting to see them come out, for sure,” said manager John Schneider following Game 1 of the best-of-three set. “I think the way that they’ve grown as a unit, over the last month especially, will be key to how they come out and play together (Saturday) … This group is ready for it. They’re up for the challenge. I’m looking forward to it.”
The challenge will include another tough starting pitcher, which is par for the course in the post-season. After all, teams have to be awfully good just to get to this point. Last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner will get the ball for the Mariners as they try to close out the series and move on to Houston.
You might remember him. Robbie Ray won that Cy Young with the Jays last season. The left-hander finally reached his potential after years of inconsistency and wildness.
“Honestly, (the Jays) allowed me to kind of be myself and learn some things on the fly, and learn a little bit about myself that I hadn’t known,” Ray said before Friday’s game left the Jays on the brink of elimination. “I think for me, that was kind of something that was missing. It was always, it seemed like, ‘You need to do this, you need to do this.’ With the Blue Jays it was, ‘We are just going to let you be yourself as far as your workout routine, your pitches that you choose, game-planning, stuff like that.’
“It was kind of on me. They just allowed me to be what I needed to be, and let me learn what it really means to be here and to take ownership of what I do. That’s exactly what I needed at the time.”
That approach helped Ray earn a five-year, $115-million (U.S.) contract from Seattle in free agency over the winter. The day after Ray signed, the Jays gave Kevin Gausman $110 million over five years.
Those two starters will face off in the Jays’ biggest game of the season on Saturday.
Playing in the American League West, a division that’s far more friendly to pitchers, Ray couldn’t tight-pants his way to the same success but still had a solid regular season, posting a1.19 WHIP and finishing fourth in the AL with 212 strikeouts.
He continued to keep the walks down, too, though they were slightly higher than last year.
He also continued to have trouble with the long ball. Ray allowed 32 home runs, the second-highest total in the major leagues behind the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, who served up 33.
After getting blanked by Luis Castillo’s filthy display of 100-m.p.h. four-seamers and sinkers in Friday’s series opener, the Jays know it’s not going to get much easier against their former teammate.
“(We’ll) just continue to compete,” shortstop Bo Bichette said in a quiet Jays clubhouse following the loss. “We have no other choice.” “We play in a division where we’re battle-tested every single day,” said third baseman Matt Chapman, who had the Jays’ only extra-base hit of the opener — a double with two out in the ninth. “So for us, I think it’s just show up and prepare to win.
“I think everybody felt what it was like to play in a playoff game, and what it was like to lose a playoff game … I think we’ll be ready to answer.”
Gausman has never started a game with stakes this high, but he did get the call on the final day of the regular season with Baltimore in 2016. A win coupled with a Jays loss in Boston would have given the Orioles home field in the wild-card game, which was single elimination back then.
The righty pitched into the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium and left with a 5-1 lead. He got the win, but the Jays’ victory at Fenway Park meant the wild-card game would be in Toronto, and both Gausman and Zack Britton were spectators that night.
The Jays got punched in the mouth Friday. On Saturday, we’ll see if they can avoid the knockout blow.