9 things.
Nine things:
1. As I walked away from Rogers Centre on Friday, the Blue Jays’ gameday staff was on the sidewalks popping hundreds of arched balloons, blue and white, that had girded the stadium for three days.
I tried to resist the magnetic pull of the teed-up symbolism but, well, I’m too weak to do it. Sports, as usual, has me irreversibly sucked in.
Cole Hamels pitches. The Texas Rangers win.
That’s where the formula ends.
And if it holds true, Texas has at least one more series to play in 2015.
The truism didn’t exactly hold to form in one sense. Coming into this series, we were all prepped with “Playoffs David Price is the worst David Price, while Playoffs Cole Hamels is next-level Cole Hamels,” but Price’s line in Game One (7-5-5-5-2-5, two homers) wasn’t tremendously different from the Hamels line in Game Two (7-6-4-2-0-6, one homer).
Still, bottom line: Price didn’t do enough, and Hamels did.
It was a Quality Start under baseball’s definition and otherwise, but the fact is that the two times Texas put runs on the board while Hamels was in the game, Toronto immediately answered.
Meanwhile, after the Rangers jumped on Marcus Stroman early, he settled in and shoved from the third inning on. He exited after a Delino DeShields single started the eighth, having induced 13 ground ball outs and just one in the air. After needing 25 pitches to get through the first, he was extremely economical thereafter, routinely forcing Hamels back out of the dugout after relatively little rest.
It was one of those days when a tie game felt like a deficit, and a one-run deficit felt insurmountable. The lead never felt one swing away, at least for me.
But after Toronto pulled even and Stroman found his groove, Hamels did what number ones do. He battled, holding the league’s beastiest offense at bay for his final five innings of work, in an energetically hostile environment, and gave his team an opportunity to erase its own deficit and turn the game over to the bullpens. That’s a victory in itself.
Cole Hamels pitches. The Texas Rangers win.
2. Joe Sheehan wrote, after Jeff Banister had masterfully managed his bullpen in Game One, eschewing loyalty to the inning and instead prioritizing match-ups: “I . . . I think I love you.”
Banister’s bullpen management on Thursday not only helped win that game — it preserved everyone’s availability to go on Friday. Keone Kela threw 17 pitches in Game One, Jake Diekman 16, Sam Dyson 17, Shawn Tolleson 0.
And while Dyson closed Game One, he was the first reliever out of the pen in Game Two. Match-ups over “roles.”
Awesome.
Dyson’s eighth on Friday: Ben Revere led off with an infield single that bounced off Dyson’s glove, and after Josh Donaldson’s obliterated bat lobbed an out to short, Revere stole second. In what was a tie game, Chris Gimenez came up really big on the ensuing Jose Bautista at-bat, blocking two Dyson sinkers in the dirt (including strike three), keeping Revere from getting to third as the lead run with just one out and Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion needing only a sac fly to get him in.
Diekman’s ninth and 10th: After throwing 14 of 16 pitches for strikes in Game One, he threw 18 of 28 for strikes in Game Two, and was perfect over two frames for the second straight day. He’d last thrown on back-to-back days on September 22-23 (throwing only five pitches on the first of those two days). He’d last gone two innings on September 18, and that was the only time he’d exceeded one inning since August 15.
When Banister sent Diekman back out for the 10th, I assumed he’d face Ryan Goins and Revere (assuming no pinch-hitters), after which Shawn Tolleson would come in to get Donaldson.
Nope. Goins grounded out to the mound and Revere popped out to shortstop, and Diekman stayed in.
Diekman: Second straight day of work, 25 pitches in, the MVP up to bat, left on right.
Tolleson: Warmed and ready, five days of rest, right on right.
Banister stayed with Diekman. Donaldson grounded out to second base.
The Jays are 0 for 12 against Diekman in the series. That includes eight at-bats by right-handed hitters.
Jake Diekman, man.
Tolleson was outstanding in the 11th and 12th, retiring Bautista, Encarnacion, and Troy Tulowitzki in order and then buckling down after Chris Colabello singled to lead off his second frame. Russell Martin popped out to third and Tolleson froze Kevin Pillar for strike three, and after pinch-runner Dalton Pompey stole second and third, Goins bounded out to Rougned Odor to send the game to the 13th.
Kela in the 13th: I could write an entire report about that inning. Others have. I won’t.
Perhaps a little amped up, Kela started Revere off with two balls but then evened the count and got the speedster to ground out to first.
Then: Strike one to Donaldson, looking.
Strike two to Donaldson, fouled a thousand feet.
Then, um, a break in the action.
After which Kela threw one out of the strike zone that Donaldson let sail by.
And another one out of the strike zone that Donaldson’s bat missed by five feet. Gimenez smothered it and threw to first to complete the out (with Kela jogging in the same general direction as Donaldson).
A five-pitch walk to Bautista.
And then, on the first pitch to Encarnacion, admit it: You thought we were heading to Arlington with the series knotted at one.
F-8. On to the 14th.
Where Ross Ohlendorf, asked to preserve the Rangers’ two-spot in the top of the frame, struck Tulowitzki out looking, struck Justin Smoak out swinging, hit Martin with a 1-2 fastball, and struck Pillar out swinging to end the baseball game.
Ohlendorf, the reclamation project, had warmed up four times in the game, and brought 97 plus a hammer curve to the mound.
So Texas got seven innings from Hamels and seven from the pen. In the series, Texas relievers have posted a line of 11-4-1-1-2-12 (.108 batting average, 0.82 ERA). One of the two walks was intentional; the other was Kela’s of Bautista right after the benches had emptied. Against that offense, what the Rangers bullpen has done so far has just been incredible, and necessary.
John Gibbons made some questionable bullpen decisions from the other dugout, particularly in Game Two (not having Mark Lowe ready to pitch to likely pinch-hitter Mike Napoli in the eighth stands out, and Gibbons’s explanation that lefthander Brett Cecil had great career numbers against Napoli — 2 for 17 with seven strikeouts — failed to take into account, as Sheehan points out, that in 10 match-ups since Cecil has become a reliever, Napoli has a .400 OBP and .625 slug), but Banister has had a tremendous series managing his pen, and that’s something you don’t often hear managers praised for.
Gibbons said after the game regarding relief pitching: “That’s how you win.”
The Texas relief crew hammered that home Friday, and Thursday too, and Banister should get a big dose of credit there.
Wonder how Sheehan feels about him now. (I think he knows for sure.)
3. When Stroman had his presser the day before his start, he talked about how he likes to pitch with hate and anger, using those emotions to keep his edge. He reminded me of Kela that way.
A day later, Kela put it on display.
Donaldson had been pulled from Game One with a possible head injury and had to endure hearing about Pete Rose’s sorry take on that. He’d homered in the first inning of Game Two to take some momentum back after Texas had scored twice. He represented the winning run when he stepped in against Kela in the bottom of the 13th — by definition, every hitter in the home half of an extra inning represents the winning run, at worst, at least before the road team scores, and there were 14 of those Friday (not counting the three Jays hitters in the bottom of the ninth) — but this was the MVP at the plate, with an extra chip on his shoulder.
Against a rookie who’d been taken deep the day before by Bautista. The crowd noise was deafening. The moment was huge.
Kela admits he quick-pitched Donaldson at one point. The game is all about disrupting hitters’ timing, Kela would say, about being deceptive, and varying your times to the plate is part of that. Part of the game.
Donaldson didn’t agree. Whether that’s because Kela’s a rookie, or because that was Donaldson being Donaldson (and having some history with the Rangers), no telling.
But there was a very loud foul and then a very loud exchange, and no matter what the protocol might have been, Kela did the opposite of backing down or appearing shaken, as he marched toward the mouthing hitter, removing his glove in the process. Four dozen teammates and a handful of coaches headed from both sides toward the infield.
Fortunately, order was restored. Banister visited the mound (a rarity for him when not changing pitchers) and several of Kela’s teammates stepped up and, in Banister’s words, helped get Kela refocused.
The Bautista walk followed. Words from Bautista directed toward the mound as he jogged to first, words from Napoli directed at Bautista when he arrived. (A “fairly animated discussion,” evidently.)
But then Kela kept Encarnacion in the park — narrowly — and the game alive, literally and otherwise.
Stroman talked Thursday about how he’s able to keep his hate and anger “bottled up,” using it as a positive and not letting it get out of control.
It’s impossible not to wonder whether there’s another chapter in this series that will involve Kela, and that same thing.
4. The umpiring crew handled the Donaldson-Kela dust-up well, diffusing what was already a very tense situation that had intensified and boiled over as Kela showed that he wasn’t afraid to escalate, glove off. But there was plenty that they didn’t handle so well.
Vic Carapazza’s strike zone was inconsistent. That worked against both teams, but Toronto was affected more. It wasn’t a one-sided problem, but it did seem lopsided.
Then there was the play at second base in the 14th.
Elvis Andrus and Josh Hamilton had each lined out to Bautista in right field to start the frame when Odor reached on a single to third base. Gimenez then shot a single to right and Bautista came up firing — not toward a cutoff man positioned for a throw to third, but to Tulowitzki standing on the bag at second. Odor, who had rounded second base by just a couple steps, lunged with his foot to get back on the bag, and he beat Tulowitzki’s tag.
But then it appeared that Odor’s foot might have disengaged, with Tulowitzki holding the tag on his leg.
MLB’s replay officials in New York may not have seen anything conclusive enough to overturn the call, but the way 2015 had gone for Texas on replays, it felt shocking that Odor was allowed to stay and run the bases — which of course was decisive, as Hanser Alberto singled two pitches later, bringing Odor home when a different replay outcome would have ended the inning before Alberto could hit.
I figure Toronto has a beef with MLB for closing the roof on Thursday (and maybe even Friday), and we all have a grudge against the league for all these weekday day games, but I can imagine the Jays and their fans are having trouble forgetting about balls and strikes and the Odor play, and it’s hard to blame them.
Texas won, and it wasn’t because of umpiring. There’s so much officiating judgment in baseball, that to win you often have to overcome questionable calls along with 98-mph sinkers or 3.6 speed to first out of the right-handed batter’s box or a right fielder’s perfect seed to the bag at second.
But man, depending on how this series plays out, Bautista to Tulo to Odor’s leg might be discussed over a Molson 20 years from now, or as long as folks around here want to revisit “Dez caught it.”
5. Back to the first inning for a minute.
It was a weird start to the game, with both teams probably cursing and squirming and hoping it didn’t come back to haunt them.
In the top of the frame, Bautista had DeShields’s leadoff shot to the wall drip out of his glove. After Shin-Soo Choo singled to center to drive in a run, Prince Fielder’s bounding grounder clipped off Goins’s glove. Mitch Moreland then grounded into what looked like a sure 3-2 putout, but when Choo got himself hung up between third and home, Martin’s throw sailed wide of Donaldson, and Choo scored.
There’d been 22 pitches with no outs when Andrus grounded out, and Hamilton stepped up with men on second and third, and Toronto didn’t dare put him on with Odor on deck.
And then . . . .
Hamilton grounds into a 3U double play.
Moreland ran to third while Fielder didn’t break for the plate. Colabello froze Fielder with his eyes, tagged Hamilton, and then ran across the infield to tag Fielder, who basically had nowhere to go.
Twenty-two pitches and no outs turned into 25 pitches, inning over.
Toronto had to come out of the top of the first feeling like Texas shouldn’t have scored.
The Rangers had to come out of it thinking they left a couple extra runs on the table.
6. Choo, Fielder, Moreland, Andrus, and Hamilton — 2 through 6 in the Beltre-less lineup — are 3 for 39 in the series, with 11 strikeouts. And yet Texas is the only team in four Division Series with a 2-0 lead.
Hamilton (0 for 10 and now 0 for his last 30 playoff at-bats) gets a little break for the mess he’s in, I guess, given his role and the circumstances of his place on this team. But Fielder?
In 2012 and 2013 with Detroit, he went 18 for 92 in the post-season, with 18 strikeouts. In his 45 plate appearances in 2013, he drove in zero runs. He’s 1 for 8 in this series, with lots of rollover ground balls.
To be fair, Toronto’s core (Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion/Tulowitzki) went 2 for 22 with seven strikeouts yesterday even though (in varying sample sizes) the latter three came into the game with robust OPS’s against Hamels of .899, 1.009, and 1.220. (Donaldson, who took Hamels deep, had never faced him.) In the two games combined, that foursome is 5 for 35.
So credit the pitching, which often does dictate playoff success.
But Prince, man, it’s time. Time to bust out. Just a little. Team needs you.
7. I saved Odor for the seventh thing today, and not because that’s where he hit in Friday’s lineup. I saved him for the back half of this list because, seriously, the guy’s got only two hits in the series and almost got called out on a critical play in the 14th.
Kidding.
If they gave out MVP’s in the DS (they don’t), he’s the guy.
And he may just be my second favorite Texas Ranger to ever suit up.
Peter Gammons: “Rougned Odor has put on a Ph.D. exhibition of the art of baseball for two days.”
Yep.
Extra bases on balls to the outfield and balls that stay in the infield. The proper response to a pair of hit-by-pitches. Patience (occasionally) at the plate. Five runs scored, a couple on 80-grade slides (Tony Beasley, by the way, has had a fantastic series and a great season). Defensive plays, and defensive decisions.
That swagger.
It’s his team, isn’t it?
His and Adrian Beltre’s. Just as it was once Michael Young’s and Adrian Beltre’s.
8. Texas was able to sign Odor out of Venezuela in January 2011 for the relatively modest sum of $425,000, because he didn’t play shortstop and wasn’t a burner on the basepaths.
The Rangers signed Hanser Alberto in November 2009 for a criminally inexpensive $65,000 — and (according to Mark Parker of the Hickory Daily Record) achieved that only by swooping in with an extra $10,000 after it appeared he was set to sign with Kansas City.
And Texas stole DeShields from Houston, of course, for just $50,000.
Alberto’s not a burner, either, or a slugger, and none of the players whose defensive spots he plays ever sit, so a week ago the odds probably pointed to him as the most likely Ranger to make no appearance in this series.
But then Beltre got hurt.
And told Alberto: “Be you. Just go play the game.”
Alberto’s calling card is his defense. It’s the tool that has him in a big league uniform. But he cost Texas two runs on defense Friday.
While the bat, which is not the reason he’s a Major Leaguer, drove in two. A sacrifice fly in the second inning, and the decisive Odor-scoring single in the 14th.
In that 14th, which again started with two outs, Texas got four straight singles — Odor, Gimenez, Alberto (using DeShields’s bat), and DeShields himself — the last of which was that incredible jailbreak single to short that turned a one-run edge into a far more comfortable two.
Props to the manager for staying with DeShields as long as he did in a tie game, rather than going to Stubbs with run prevention in mind.
Odubel Herrera had a terrific season for the Phillies, but if the Rangers had decided to roster him in November, there’s a real chance they would have exposed Alberto instead to the Rule 5 Draft and not drafted DeShields, like Herrera a second baseman with center field possibilities.
I’m not going to think about that anymore.
9. O-for’s:
(1) Toronto in this series.
(2) Hamilton and Tulowitzki in this series.
(3) The number of those 23 ESPN analysts who picked Texas to advance.
The Jays now need a three-game win streak to extend their season and keep the Rangers from extending theirs.
Gibbons said before Game Two: “We need to win this one.”
That was figurative.
Now it’s literal.
For the Sports Illustrated cover boys, who have now lost six of their last seven, with the lone win courtesy of Mark Buehrle, who didn’t make the playoff roster (and wasn’t added in place of the injured Cecil).
Gibbons said after Game Two that coming to Arlington won’t be easy, as his team has been outplayed and outlasted in two games so far. It was the same oddly defeatist tint he’s fallen back on since the series was set to begin.
I can’t imagine that would be Jeff Banister’s tone — think back to Yu Darvish’s injury in camp — no matter how the first two games of this series went for Texas.
I’ve been proofreading the season’s reports for this year’s book lately, and it’s reminded me how energizing and fun 2015 has been. I mention that not to suggest that you need to buy lots of copies when that time comes (you do), but to reflect, just for a second, on how incredible this particular edition of Texas Rangers baseball has been, all things considered. They are playing with so much confidence, and I don’t remember having any more confidence in this team myself at this time in 2010 or 2011.
The players, the coaches, the front office.
Clicking.
This series is similar to the ALDS in 2010, as we’ve talked about (open on the road, indoor park, David Price in Game One), even more so now that Texas has taken two games in enemy territory when even a split would have felt victorious.
But don’t forget that the Rays then won the next two games in Texas, forcing the Rangers to complete a road-team sweep by going back to St. Petersburg to win Game Five behind Cliff Lee.
So know that while Arlington won’t be easy for the Jays, as Gibbons acknowledges, it won’t be easy for Texas, either. Playoff baseball never is.
Can Martin Perez neutralize Toronto’s right-handed brawn by commanding the change? The Jays have never faced him, but Donaldson (home run, three doubles, single, three walks in 16 plate appearances) has, and that’s a lineup which will be playing with emotion, and maybe a little bit of anger and hate, and Perez hasn’t always been able to stay composed when the temperature gets turned up.
But he’s also capable of dealing.
DeShields said after Game Two that the objective now is to “finish the job at home, in front of our fans. We live for this.”
Texas started the job on the road, in spectacular fashion. The moments of silence in Rogers Centre those two days, when the loudest baseball crowd I ve ever experienced had their plug pulled by the Rangers putting runs on the board, especially late, were unforgettable. I mean it was silent. Other than those roars coming out of the visitors’ dugout, which you could hear with hi-def clarity, no doubt helped acoustically by the roof that MLB ordered closed.
The venue now changes, but for Texas not much else does except for the effort to make sure there’s a home win in this series, before Game Five.
The Rangers punched a 53-28 home team in the mouth on Thursday and Friday, and now have two chances to close the deal against a 40-41 road team. It doesn’t have to happen today, but the opportunity is there to finish the series and get the bullpen some added rest and the rotation re-ordered if it makes sense tactically. That’s pretty inviting.
I don’t know yet if there are balloons lining the sidewalks and concourse at Globe Life Park today, but I do know there won’t be any being popped an hour after the game ends. Texas took care of business in a huge way in Toronto in Games One and Two, ensuring that today, one way or another, won’t be the final home game this baseball team plays in 2015.
I like the way that would give Texas four days off.
#WTDS.