The Blue Jays picked the absolute wrong time to get shut out for the first time in postseason play. Ever. And thanks to a kid who'd only thrown eleven major league innings ever until Wednesday afternoon, aided and abetted by that skin-tight bullpen, the Indians are going to the World Series after hammering down the Jays, 3-0.
"With our lineup and our experience," said Jose Bautista about Ryan Merritt before the game, "I'm sure he's shaking in his boots." If the Jays manage to re-sign the free agent-to-be, I'm betting there'll be a clause in his contract ordering him to keep his big trap shut come postseason time. And maybe longer.
"Merritt's answering the bell for those guys," said Jays manager John Gibbons on live television during the top of the fourth, looking impressed by the kid and depressed ... by his team's non-performance against him. "He looks great out there."
The only visible shaking seen in Rogers Centre, other than the Jays' home crowd rocking the house any time the Jays looked even close to making a threat, was Carlos Santana, playing first for the Indians this set, shaking on his knees on the ground in foul territory after catching Troy Tulowitzki's towering, American League Championship Series-ending foul pop.
"I'll just relax and treat it like any other game," Merritt said the day before Game Five. I know I can get outs, so I'm just going to pitch to my strengths." Which is exactly what he said when it was all over and the party was on, sounding exactly the way he was described prior to the game, like a friendly kid who looked at pressure baseball and a shopping trip as one and the same.
He sure didn't pitch like it. He kept the Jays out of their balance and out of his hair, slicing through the order without a blemish in the first three innings, throwing the kind of slop that deceives hitters into thinking they're going to hit it across three territories.
"I know they were counting on me," Merritt said after the game, letting a little grin betray his customary quiet style. "Before the game, they came and told me they had my back, everybody had my back, good or bad. So that takes some pressure off, and I just went out there and pitched and trusted my team."
The closest any Jay got to hitting that slop across any territories was Ezequiel Carrera driving Indians left fielder Coco Crisp to the back of the track with a long high fly that Crisp snapped into his glove without breaking a sweat.
No more of a sweat than Crisp broke against Jays starter Marco Estrada and his vaunted enough changeups, turning on a hanging changeup he was just waiting to drive over the right field fence, with two outs in the top of the fourth and the third Indians run aboard the flight.
Crisp was only joining in the fun after Santana drove another Estrada mistake into the lower deck in right with one out in the top of the third. And, after Mike Napoli sent Estrada's first mistake to the back of left field, with Francisco Lindor aboard on a single, and Carrera mishandling the ball just enough to let Lindor score the first run.
When Donaldson punctured Merritt with a one-out single in the bottom of the fourth — after Bautista flew out to deep enough center field — Merritt merely lured Edwin Encarnacion into dialing Area Code 6-4-3 for the side.
When Tulowitzki drove Crisp to the back of the track on a fifth-inning leadoff fly, Merritt merely fooled Russell Martin into a blooper to short right. Jason Kipness out from second base and Lonnie Chisenhall in from deeper right nearly slid into each other as the ball hit the grass, Kipness recovering in time to hold Martin to a single with a bullet throw to Lindor over from shortstop.
And that's when Indians manager Terry Francona decided it was time to secure it all and go to that impossible bullpen. Bryan Shaw lost pinch-hitter Michael Saunders to a line single up the pipe, but he struck out Carrera on a poisonous back-door slider and Kevin Pillar on a slider not too dissimilar for the side.
And after Shaw got Darwin Barney to spank one to shortstop for a simple out, but lost Bautista to a line single to left center, Francona declared Miller time and Andrew Miller — the ALCS Most Valuable Player — threw one pitch with which Donaldson dialed Area Code 6-4-3 post haste, a double play upheld on review when the Jays questioned whether Santana stretching for the throw kept his heel on the pad.
Miller shook off Encarnacion leading off the Blue Jays seventh with a drive that sent substitution Rajai Davis to the left field fence against which to catch it. Then, he got two sharp ground outs, breezed through the eighth, and handed off to Cody Allen to close it out. Which Allen did, notwithstanding Bautista's leadoff line double down the left field line.
Then it was strikeout (Donaldson), strikeout (Encarnacion), and series-ending foul pop out, and the Blue Jays' season went down with Santana hitting his knees clutching Tulowitski's foul pop for dear life while waving his arms wide to start celebrating.
"Top to bottom," Miller said after it was over, and he was handed the MVP award by honorary American League president Frank Robinson, "everybody did something to help us win. It's a special experience and it only gets better." Few more than Miller, who pitched 7.2 total shutout innings, allowing only three hits and no walks, and striking out twice as many hitters as he pitched innings.
He even snuck in a save, somehow. Making him only the third relief pitcher to win a postseason series MVP award while recording only one save, joining Rob Dibble (1990 Reds, National League Championship Series) and Larry Sherry. (1959 Dodgers, World Series — okay, that's cheating a little, since saves weren't an official statistic at the time and Sherry was credited with two wins amidst the four he finished.)
"I told him I didn't want to face him with that stuff," quipped Robinson, once an Indians player-manager near the end of his Hall of Fame career.
Some think the Indians snuck their way to dominating this ALCS considering how decimated their starting rotation was coming in. They were missing Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco to the disabled list. Then Trevor Bauer couldn't get out of the first inning thanks to his injured and stitched right pinkie bleeding profusely enough to lift him.
The Jays thought they had a shot at continuing what they started winning Game 4. Except that only one team (the 2004 Red Sox, also in an ALCS) had ever come back from a 3-0 postseason series deficit to win the set ... and that team's manager now manages the Indians to a realistic shot at returning to a Promised Land they haven't seen since around the Berlin Airlift.
"I guess if we're in this position, we might as well make history, said reliever Jason Grilli, who had a fine Game 5 outing. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose. That's the position we're in. You can judge who the pressure is on, really. Call it as you see it."
He was wrong about the Jays having nothing to lose. And about these Indians under pressure. Very wrong. Be forewarned, Cubs and Dodgers. Whichever one of you makes it, you won't be dealing with pushovers. Or with just a bunch of bull out of the bullpen.
Leave a Comment