Blue Jays’ unpredictability their downfall as Mariners win to sweep wild-card series

TORONTO — In the lead-up to Game 1 of the wild-card series against the Seattle Mariners, George Springer pondered a question about what gave the Toronto Blue Jays an edge in October and called his team “unpredictable.” It wasn’t the first time he’d used the word as a descriptor in a complimentary context and it fits. Offensive outbursts in the blink of an eye. Damage from anywhere in the lineup. Gem from the starter. Defence stealing hits left and right. Some clever/breath-holding baserunning. With them, anything and everything is on the table.

That unpredictably cuts both ways, though, the way it most certainly did on a wild Saturday at Rogers Centre, when the Blue Jays' season came to an end after they blew a seven-run lead in a gutting 10-9 loss that gave the Seattle Mariners a two-game sweep of their wild-card series.

J.P. Crawford tied the game 9-9 with a bases-loaded blooper that fell in between a diving George Springer and Bo Bichette, who tangled in a frightening collision, while Adam Frazier completed the remarkable rally with an RBI double off Jordan Romano in the top of the ninth.

After Andres Munoz, the nearly untouchable triple-digit throwing mutant, stranded Bichette at third to end the eighth, George Kirby closed out the ninth completing a heartbreak complement to last year’s one-game short anguish for the Blue Jays.

Instead of a decisive Game 3 on Sunday, with Ross Stripling starting against Logan Gilbert, the Mariners jet off to face the Houston Astros, leaving an off-season of laments and second-guessing in their wake.

Unpredictable, indeed.

“Really, we only played to our level of baseball for the last two months,” said Kevin Gausman, who handed over an 8-1 lead with the bases loaded and two out in the sixth only to see the game unravel. “That's what's frustrating is that I feel like we're playing really good baseball right now, so it’s tough to lose these two games and then have to go home.

“Obviously, to lose the game the way that we did, just heartbreaking. But this game will beat you up. You try to learn from it. … A lot of those guys in here missed out on the post-season by one game last year and we won that one extra game, right? We made the post-season, so that's the goal. There's a stepping-stone. There's a bridge. We're just right there. We just have to keep getting a little bit better, a little bit more consistent. There’s a lot more from this club.”

Such perspective was necessary amid the challenge of processing what the hell just happened, with the devastation so visceral.

Interim manager John Schneider, whose steady hand running the team after Charlie Montoyo’s July 13 firing helped ensure the club didn’t fall into the abyss before the all-star break, landed himself in the cross-hairs after a rare game in which several key late-game machinations backfired.

He lifted Gausman for Tim Mayza in the sixth and the lefty spiked his first pitch to let one run score before Carlos Santana — a mid-season Mariners add who would have fit the Blue Jays and ended up tormenting them — launched a three-run homer that made a rally seem possible.

Up 9-5 through seven, Schneider stuck with Springer — playing hurt for months, banged up further by a hit by pitch on the left wrist Friday and a collision with the wall making a running catch Saturday — in centre to start the eighth rather than put in Jackie Bradley Jr. for defence. He also opened the inning with Anthony Bass, after having Jordan Romano warmed and ready for a six-out save, and he gave up three straight hits before the all-star closer had to come in, fire raging.

Romano gave up a slasher single to Frazier that loaded the bases, recovered to strike out Santana and Dylan Moore, before Crawford’s bloop to left ended with Springer being carted off the field after three runs had crossed. “It was just right in the perfect spot for them,” said Bichette. “I had no chance to slow down or look and he had no chance to do it either. It sucked.”

Springer was being evaluated post-game but was able to address his teammates in the clubhouse while Schneider faced the first wave of questions, both internal and external, about what happened.

“There are always going to be times where I could sit here for about six months and second-guess myself, but right now I don’t,” said Schneider, whose future with the club will be one of the first questions for the club to answer in the off-season. “You trust the guys that got you here. You trust your entire roster. Today we didn't get it done and they beat us. That sucks right now, but again, the guys that did the job they did to get here, I'll never have any fear about putting them in again.”

The manager is, of course, an easy target but beyond Romano and Yimi Garcia, he didn’t have enough reliable swing and miss in the bullpen and, frankly, an 8-1 lead should be enough but wasn’t. The Blue Jays have had wild post-season games go their way in the past — a 15-14 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 of the 1993 World Series and Jose Bautista’s bat-flip against the Texas Rangers in Game 5 of the 2015 American League Division Series immediately come to mind — and now they’re an unfortunate part of Mariners lore.

“I don't think anyone is sitting here saying we gave it away,” said Stripling. “They came and took it from us.”

Still, it’s an unfortunate book-end to Schneider’s work resuscitating a Blue Jays club that was also left reeling after the last meeting with the Mariners, a four-game sweep at Seattle July 7-10 that triggered two players-only meetings and was the final straw leading to Montoyo’s firing.

While much has been made of the club’s youth, worth remembering is that he’s a rookie, too, experiencing the post-season for the first time in his role, too, navigating through the ins and outs of managing up and down.

“Of course I would want him to come back — I love Schneids, I think he was great for this team,” said Matt Chapman. “He understands the pulse of this team, how the guys operate. It's never easy coming in as an interim manager, not sure what the future holds. But I think he did a great job. I think he got the best out of this team in the time that he was here. And I think it shows by the record that we had. If he had another opportunity to take us through a full season, it could be even better.”

The Blue Jays were certainly a work-in-progress all season long, even after last year’s 91-win campaign and pandemic-season playoff trip the year before, and their ups and downs were reflected in the Gong Show nature of the finale.

A day after getting stymied by an absurdly filthy Luis Castillo during a 3-0 Game 1 loss the Blue Jays, along with a crowd of 47,156 either booing or slow-chanting his name, were on Robbie Ray from the hop. Teoscar Hernandez followed Alejandro Kirk’s leadoff double with a two-run shot in the second and after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. plated a Santiago Espinal double with a single in the third, the right-fielder ambushed a fastball from the lefty to open the fourth.

Bellowing fans really got after the defending American League Cy Young Award winner at that point as Scott Servais came to get him after just three-plus innings and the dome hit fever-pitch levels in the fifth when a four-spot — that included two hit-by-pitches — opened an 8-1 lead.

By that point, Stripling was finishing off his scouting report for Sunday’s outing, getting ready for a start that would never come.

“I don't think these two (playoff) games you can say that it was because of our up-and-down nature or the streakiness of the team,” said Stripling, a pending free agent who will leave a significant role if he isn’t re-signed. “Just the playoffs being the playoffs and baseball being as crazy a sport as it is.”

And that was a crazy way to go out, perhaps an ending that fits a team that made unpredictability its calling card.

“Unpredictable is a byproduct of being young," said Chapman, whose leadership was essential to the club’s turnaround. “The talent is through the through roof. The desire and everything is there. Sometimes the execution isn't. I only have five-and-a-half years now but I feel like execution is still the hardest thing, no matter how old or young you are. You can have a plan, you can be prepared but executing is the hardest part. We got more consistent as the year went, they got more experience and I think experience is going to be the best thing for us and this was just another experience and way to grow.”

A painful one at that.