2015 ALCS: Blue Jays vs. Royals

Royals

^^^ banned

Not even close to being as on edge for this as the first series. (Not yet, anyway.) Losing that last game to Texas would have been terrible. The inferior team would have won, losing the divisional series feels in a way like getting nowhere, and we would have lost after a great road comeback and in the most nightmarish way imaginable (the Martin play, I mean). At this point, though, anyone who might beat us is a very good team, anything can happen, and nothing can make the other night any less unforgettable.

Losing home-field advantage in the last week (and the way we approached that) was a big story here. We'll see if that's resurrected a week from now.

(rooting for) Jays

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

where was this shit last year edinson

What is the deal with this guy with the horse head?

Edinson laborning

do we have a resident royals fan here?

Tulo has been an offensive hole

swing the bat, son

that flip by Goins

i like rany j more before the royals were good

8K TOO MANY ALL-CAPS DUFFMAN TWEETS. OH YEAH!

DUFFMAN DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO THROW A SINGLE PITCH. OH YEAH!

Such a nothing game by us--I'll put it down to flatness after all the hysteria, and obviously Volquez was great. The one at-bat I couldn't understand was the one where Tulowitzki didn't take the bat off his shoulders, and at least two of the strikes weren't anything special.

Volquez looked reddik out there.

Potentially good news: Price is very tough on KC. Career: 6 starts, 1.93 ERA, 37.1 IP, 30 H, 17/3 KK/BB--the one start in Kauffman even better. Potentially bad news: we could be down 2-0 after today.

Heard someone say that the Texas series proved that home-field advantage doesn't matter in the playoofs. I don't know--the one game it did matter, it seemed to matter a lot.

"Playoofs" sound a lot more fun than playoffs.

one game, quite a sample size

timid Tulo

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/troy-tulowitzki-toronto-blue-jays-alcs-kansas-city-royals-strikeout-edinson-volquez-101715

Edwin's in the lineup today, so the finger must not be any worse than it's been for the past couple of months.

If you're watching in Canada: I thought for a second Zaun was going to take a swing at Tabler there.

running Jays radio over the video, H Reynolds-free

Harper commercials included (not Bryce)

How do I shot Jays radio?

ugh that double play.

well i'm a mlb.tv subscriber; radio is the only live stuff i get postseason w/out a cable login

i got something called Sling TV for TBS NL coverage

xp

If the ump continues to call that second strike to Martin, it will be very tough to score a run.

Revere's starting to annoy me.

I thought for sure Goins was going to bunt. I wanted Goins to bunt. Yay, sabermetrics!

Love Price's pitch count--29 though three innings.

Harper ads between every inning, on Toronto AM radio.

Greatly prefer the corny Bautista pizza ads.

pace of a '70s playoff game

another run and i think Price is good to go

about time, ned

They really need to bust it open here with KC's bullpen taking over.

like a ball
off a wire
like a drunk
in a midnight choir

Terrible.

Ventura looks like he's 14 years old.

That was amazing--a miked argument in Spanish!

@jazayerli
DUFFMAN WILL DO WHAT DUFFMAN DOES. TOO BAD DUFFMAN THRUSTS FROM THE MOUND WHEN THE PROBLEM IS AT THE PLATE. OH YEAH!

That pitch that Diaz continues to call a strike is ridiculous. I'll give him consistency--he's called it all game, and called it on both teams. But it's not a strike.

wow that was some terrible umpiring during that bautista at-bat. over the final 4 pitches, the two that were called balls were closer to the plate than the ones called strikes

Revere Perez hug was adorable
Goins Bautista miscue was sad

Diaz has lowered the zone a foot

That blown inning where we could have put it away will kill us.

On top of everything else, I'll now have to listen to/read another four or five days of David Price being psycho-analyzed. I hate that stuff.

Live by the meltdown, die by the meltdown.

wow what a time for diaz to call that pitch a ball

No idea why Davis wasn't brought in but fuckin eh who really cares.

Thrilled, terrified--who gets our outs now?

the rain?

Do they bring back Davis after a long rain delay? This could be a series saving delay for the jays.

gibbons is way too candid its unsettling

I hope he means deep, deep into the game before he'd bring in Stroman. I realize you have to win today, but if you do, there is a game tomorrow.

all this delay banter cru is missing is kevin millar

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSDUtk6UAAAmmEn.jpg

that's the ghost of the baserunning blunder of game 7 being vanquished

tense shit

wow what a inning so far

Revere drops his hands like he's playing Wiffle ball with the fence 100' away.

How dramatic, Donaldson at the plate.

has the team advancing to the ws ever had to get out the league mvp for the lst out to do it

well fuck

Eh, go Mets.

gooooo mets

love lorenzo cain tho!

yup, go Mets

Last half-inning sums up the only limitation our offense had. We can hit lots of home runs, and it took us far. Close games, moving runners, getting one run, not so good.

Sort of indifferent for the Series. I'd normally root for KC because they came so close last year, but not a fan of Cueto anymore, not crazy about Ventura either. And too disappointed to care much.

Jazayerli really looked up the franchises that haven't made back-to-back WS appearances.

love lorenzo cain tho!

Yeah, no doubt. I had to run out of the house and missed it so I'll have to wait for the video clip to pop up to see how he scored from first on a single.

unexpected, but fuck that guy xp

Sorry, Cueto -- no AL pennant hats in 13 7/8.

erin andrews is not good at whatever that was

Last half-inning sums up the only limitation our offense had. We can hit lots of home runs, and it took us far. Close games, moving runners, getting one run, not so good.

That pretty much says it all. 0-for-12 with RISP in the game -- that can't happen. There's a time for playing small ball and that time is with the season-saving run on third base with no outs in the ninth.

The blown interference/home run call still stings though, even if the Jays had 50 opportunities to take control of the game after that.

I need to stay away from Facebook. Not in the mood for "Great season, boys!"-type stuff. Doesn't anybody know about baseball being designed to break your heart and all that? That ending qualifies.

too bad, i was looking for Dickey-Syndergaard-d'Arnaud narrative. Anyway, they'll be back etc.

Mets need to stick one in Yordano's ear if he starts in NY (but I suspect Game 2 in KC).

(and no i cannot physically stay awake for an ALCS game that goes past 11 on a Friday)

well - as far as last games go, that was pretty good.

Promise I won't go on about this--the world moves on, the Jays don't.

I think the Jays this year challenged one of the fundamental (and smartest) sabermetric precepts: the idea of run differential and the randomness of one-run games. That was one of the things that really turned my head around when I first read Bill James in the early '80s: when he pointed out that no, the good teams don't win the close ones (or at least not in any predictable and meaningful way), they're much more likely to win the lopsided games, it made immediate and perfect sense. And with the great majority of good and great teams, I'm sure that still holds; their record in one-run games doesn't mean a great deal.

But watching us all year, you could see that our lousy record in close games wasn't just random bad luck. (In one-run games, we were 15-28 in the regular season, 0-1 in the playoffs; in two-run games, 13-14 in the regular season, 0-2 in the playoffs.) If you were to go back over those games one by one, I'm positive you'd see recurring evidence of what I posted about above--the inability to get a single run in when you needed a single run. Obviously, most of the time that weakness was rendered moot--we just rolled right over it. But last night was a microcosm of how it can kill you. Even before that last half-inning, there was Revere's lead-off double in the first, and also the other inning that started with two walks. You could even see it in the game against Texas where we finally went ahead when Tulowitzki hit the three-run homer--that was preceded by hitting into four double-plays.

So I don't believe that we were really a 100-win team that just happened to have a freakishly poor record in close games. You could see last night coming a mile away. (And obviously our bullpen woes the past few weeks figure in.)

Without looking at the game logs to check your claims, I disagree. Poor records in one run games can also be explained by having a bad bullpen, and ours was atrocious in the early part of the year. I think you'll find that most of those one run losses were of the 7-6 variety, rather than 2-1. IOW, games where the Jays led and the bullpen collapsed, rather than pitching dominated games where you need to be resourceful to win.

The bullpen was gassed. Osuna was never lights out, especially toward the end of the season. Sanchez was the eighth inning guy only by some figment of Gibbons' imagination, he wasn't up to the level of the Royals best relievers in the past two seasons. Cecil was hurt, Loop was absent or ineffective, so they couldn't play matchups like you need to for winning postseason games. It's tough to win the WS when the manager has maybe one and a half pitchers in the bullpen that he trusts. They needed Osuna to close out a 7-1 game!! That's brutal.

Also a big part of "fundamental baseball" is defense, and the defense saved plenty of runs in close games, especially in the playoffs. Saving a run on defense is as good as manufacturing a run on offense.

https://twitter.com/johnnycueto/status/657790578957021185

Verducci, excellent:

How three unheralded contributors helped Royals repeat as AL champs

http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/10/24/royals-blue-jays-alcs-clinch-pennant

Good point about the fielding, NoTime, and, as I wrote, I realize the bullpen was part of our problem.

I went through the game logs and broke down our season (including playoffs) into 1-run wins, 1-run losses, 2-run wins, 2-run losses.

1-run wins (15): 72 runs scores, 57 runs against; average winning score, 4.8-3.8
1-run losses (29): 99 scored, 128 against; average losing score 3.41-4.41
2-run wins (14--I previously missed one): 70 for, 42 against; average winning score, 5.0-3.0
2-run losses (16): 42 for, 74 against; average losing score, 2.63-4.63

I don't know what to make of all that, and doing the same thing for KC over the course of the season (a team that supposedly moves runners and manufactures runs like we don't) would probably be instructive. (Or not--their bullpen strength would complicate any conclusions.) In general, though: our 1-run wins are a little higher scoring than our 1-run losses, and our 2-run wins are also a little higher scoring than our 2-run losses.

I think you'll find that most of those one run losses were of the 7-6 variety, rather than 2-1.

Of the 43 1-run games, the winning team scored 7 or more five times. Of the 30 2-run games, the winning team scored 7 or more four times. Taken together, that's 9 out of 73 games. The winning team scored 4 or fewer runs 42 times out of 73, more than half. Most were traditionally low-scoring games if you use a four-run ceiling rather than a 2-run ceiling, which to me seems like a more reasonable definition.

Should read 44 1-run games, 74 total. Alert your neighbors.

I've got the Royals at 22-18 in one-run games. Only eleven of them were 6-5 or 7-6, nothing higher.

20-12 in two-run games.

the called strike on Revere on the 2-1 count was pretty far off and IMO had a lot more to do with the Jays not tying it up rather than them not being able to play small ball - he struck out on a similar pitch which he probably would've have swung at if the previous wasn't called a strike. and of course striking out is pretty much the only thing you can't do in that situation.

Funny, I was just sitting down to go through KC's game log when I read Tim's post. What I get for the Royals, including playoffs:

1-run wins (24): 97 runs scored, 73 runs against; average winning score, 4.04-3.04
1-run losses (16): 45 scored, 61 against; average losing score 2.81-3.81
2-run wins (18): 78 for, 42 against; average winning score, 4.33-2.33
2-run losses (13): 35 for, 61 against; average losing score, 2.69-4.69

Like the Jays, their 1-run wins were a little higher scoring than their 1-run losses; unlike the Jays, their 2-run wins were a little lower-scoring than their 2-run losses.

They played 71 1- or 2-run decisions overall, three fewer than the Jays. I count eight games where the winning team scored 7 or more runs; their 8/71 is pretty much the same as our 9/74. The winning team scored four or fewer runs in 44 of KC's 71 games: 44/71 (62%) is about 5% higher than Toronto's 42/74.

I'll go right to the point I was originally trying to make. If you accept my definition of a low-scoring game to be 4 or fewer runs by the winning team, here are their records in close, low-scoring games, i.e., the kind of game where it would be a decided advantage to push runners along and sometimes play for a run:

Toronto: 14-28
Kansas City: 27-17

I don't argue that their bullpen figures prominently in KC's success there. But I don't think it's right to attribute our poor record primarily to our bullpen, which post-break was one of our supposed strengths, no? Overall, depending upon what measure you use, our bullpen ranks around the upper middle across both leagues:

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

I think the more pertinent point is that we just weren't very good at winning games like the one we exited on. We did get better after the Tulowitzki trade--I've got us as 8-7 in such games from that point on. Which is still markedly below our overall record after the trade.

Cut me some slack here--I'm still working my way through the seven stages of grief. (I'm up to bargaining right now, but god seems unwilling to replay the game.)

A pretty good argument that undercuts everything I'm saying about the Jays not being able to scratch for runs when they need to: in that last half-inning, we almost pushed across the most manufactured run imaginable. Bloop hit by Martin, stolen base by Pompey (not a surprise, although going on the first pitch was), another stolen base by Pompey (huge surprise). If we push that run across with a ground ball of sacrifice fly, that's as manufactured as it gets.

But getting most of the way there doesn't get you into the World Series.

could just as easily point out that if our bullpen was able to shut them down we would have won that one.

Pete Rose kinda looks like Grandpa Al Lewis in Used Cars

Think of the diligence and intelligence of Tim Conroy, Paul Gibson and Mike Jirschele as small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: easy to miss, but the picture isn’t complete without them. With their help, the Royals knew when David Price was throwing his changeup and when he would not throw to first base on a pickoff and where Jose Bautista would throw the baseball if he fielded it far to his left.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/10/24/royals-blue-jays-alcs-clinch-pennant

(xxpost) We never had the lead--we still would have needed to score at some point.

Sanchez let a run in after he come into the game (baserunner was Price's). take that away and the Osuna run and it's 3-2 for the Jays.

Well...okay. You're doing some reconstructive surgery there. The dynamic of the game was that we were behind for seven innings, tied it in the eighth, handed over the lead again (yes), and then needed to get that one run in to save the season. We had two great chances and three all together and we didn't.

I'm not theorizing this one weakness of the Jays out of thin air: it's right there in their won-loss record in close, low-scoring games. You either believe that had a lot to do with their inability to get the necessary runs in such games--that they lived by the home run or died trying to hit them when they weren't what was needed (game 6 was a little bit of both)--or you pin their poor record in those games on the bullpen. That doesn't make sense to me taking a longer view than just the playoffs (when our bullpen was definitely a mess, compounded--I think--by some weird moves by Gibbons); all you heard about through August and most of September was how our bullpen was now one of the best in the league.

Really, the only way to definitively answer that would be to go into the play-by-play for those 42 games and see how many times the Jays left runners and second and/or third with one or fewer outs. And then see how that compares to league norms.

The evidence above to the contrary (which was actually pretty quick and easy to assemble), no, I'm not up to doing that.

Interesting data clem, thanks. Maybe I'll dig through the game by game data at some point during the offseason, in particular I'd like to know a) the quality of the starting pitchers for those low scoring one run and two run games, and b) how many leads were blown by the bullpen in the seventh inning or later. In how many games, for instance, did the Jays score 5+ only to have the bullpen lose the lead in the late innings.

A 13-game swing in one run games between KC and TO is huge, and seems much too large to attribute to small things like moving the runner over 25% more effectively.

and where Jose Bautista would throw the baseball if he fielded it far to his left

People are making way too big of a deal out of this. 99% of right fielders would have thrown to second in that situation, this perception that the Royals successfully microscouted Bautista smells like the usual yearly meme where veteran pundits retroactively declare that small ball won the day for the pennant winning team. KC won last year because they discovered how to hit home runs in the postseason, this year they're hitting homers at a much higher rate in the postseason than they did in the regular season (which was already a huge increase from their HR in 2014). The biggest reasons for their success are staring us right in the face, but some people will always look for a different angle where the third base coach is an underappreciated genius or what have you.