How Sweep It Isn't

Searching for answers to a confounding, frustrating, deflating ninth inning—and the reaction to it.

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Screengrab via Sportsnet/MLB

This post should be about a sweep. We should be talking about Daulton Varsho. About great defence. About Kevin Gausman looking like himself again. About the Jays almost getting burned by an umpire's awful getaway day zone. About why last year's huge August-September turnaround of this team's RISP fortunes means that we absolutely need to stop talking about it like it's some massive ongoing issue dating back to last season that has yet to be addressed—even if the Jays' 19th-ranked wRC+ of 96 with RISP will undoubtedly go down after an ugly 0-for-8.

I mean, we might get to some of that stuff in a later post, but here we simply can’t. The Blue Jays pulled off their most frustrating moment of the season so far in their finale against the Yankees at Rogers Centre on Wednesday—no small feat!—by failing to hold a 4-2 lead in the ninth inning and ultimately falling 6-4 in a game that was absolutely theirs to win.

It was frustrating to watch. Frustrating to know how close they were to a sweep. And frustrating to deal with the inevitable fallout, as it seemed that just about every finger in the fan base immediately went searching for a big, dumb, bearded bozo to point at for once again failing them and ruining their days out of the sheer force of his unmatched stupidity.

And, honestly, that’s completely understandable.

There certainly appeared to be some odd choices made at the end of the ballgame, and it’s hardly offside to point out when someone is costing the team because they’re bad at their job. That’s kind of the whole point of engaging with sports beyond just following the ball around and appreciating the athleticism on display or enjoying being part of an absolutely unhinged mob.

It just would be nice to me if people were a little fairer sometimes, or more open to stepping back from their initial rage if it becomes clear that the actions that provoked it were a whole lot more sensible than they initially seemed—which, of course, was the case here. I don’t like that the next time John Schneider does something actually stupid—which he inevitably will, because all managers do—there are going to be people who instinctively believe, “Well, he did this stupid thing, and he did that stupid thing before, and he did the stupid thing in the playoffs, and therefore my loud, slobbering insistence that he's dumb and bad and costing the team games and ruining the season—which, oddly, I think is doomed anyway because I also believe the GM is a feckless clown and the hitting coach hates run-scoring—is completely justified.”

I mean, it's anyone's right to be that way. But it's a whole lot nicer, less annoying, and less stressful to not. And my view is that anything that can be done to chip away at that snowball of confirmation bias while it’s still forming is actually useful in trying to make the conversation about the team even a little bit less stupidly poisonous—at least theoretically. It's also fun!

So let’s think this one through a bit…

• On the surface the Blue Jays didn’t appear to have a terrible bullpen situation heading into this game. In fact, the pitcher you may think was the least likely to see action—Trevor Richards, who threw 26 pitches on Tuesday—was the first one out of the ‘pen.

Screengrab via MLB Film Room

• The second reliever up was Génesis Cabrera, who surrendered a solo shot to Juan Soto in the seventh, but otherwise pitched well over two innings. That the second bullpen lefty was asked to go two was a pretty clear indication that they were going to be operating with a skeleton crew down there in this one, though evidently not clear to everyone.

• Richards and Cabrera did well in handling the sixth, seventh, and eighth, bridging the gap between Gausman's strong start and the ninth. The chart above would make you think that the Jays had plenty of options from there, but unfortunately it's somewhat deceiving.

• I know fans hate load management in every sport, but it isn't going anywhere—especially among pitchers—and we all would really do well to accept that reality. Here's how it factored:

—Yimi García had only thrown 31 pitches in the previous three days, but pitched back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday, and had thrown on Saturday as well. He's the team's most important reliever right now, but even if he wasn't it's highly unlikely they'd have asked him to pitch three straight days in April, and in four of five games. He was unavailable.

—Chad Green should have been available, but due to shoulder soreness he was not. He's considered day-to-day. Nobody apart from the team knew this until after the game, which made it a point of confusion. He surely would have pitched otherwise. And if he had been available and Schneider simply hadn't used him I would have had a very different reaction to those who ended up getting so outraged about the whole thing. (I’d have agreed with them.)

—Jordan Romano was, of course, activated from the inured list this week, putting in a shaky little bit of work in closing out Tuesday's win. Using him Wednesday, then, would have meant having him pitch on a back-to-back, and with the Jays being understandably cautious because he’s so fresh from the IL, he was also unavailable.

• What this meant was that, as the Jays entered the ninth, the pitchers they considered actually available were Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza, and Bowden Francis. That's maybe not ideal, especially given that Swanson is also fresh off the IL, but it's hardly an awful—and certainly not an unforgivably mismanaged—situation for a team with a two run lead needing just three outs from the Yankees' 5-6-7 hitters. (If you were lucky enough not to watch, let me assure you that it did not go well.)

• The availability of Francis came into play late on in the top of the ninth when, with the game still tied, Mayza was left in to face the right-handed-hitting Aaron Judge—which, uh, also didn’t go well.

Screengrab via Sportsnet/MLB

• In a vacuum, considering basic platoon splits, Francis might have been the better choice there, though I think anyone trying to tell you it was more than a coin flip is just looking to get mad.

• Thing is, I suspect an even bigger part of the calculation here was that, a) Francis was the last reliever available—at least if the Jays were going to stick to their guns in terms of giving Green, García, and Romano each the night off—and, b) Yariel Rodríguez is scheduled to start the Jays’ next game, against the Padres in San Diego on Friday.

• Francis pitched 2 1/3 innings behind Yariel against the Rockies last weekend, and a big part of why he's still on the roster seems to be to continue to piggyback until Rodríguez is more comfortably stretched out. The team was then likely—and understandably—reluctant to use him here, because that would have limited his potential usage on Friday. Plus, I doubt the difference between the likelihood of him or Mayza having success against Judge—even if Mayza did not appear to be at his best—was worth burning him.

• Why not rush Nate Pearson back once Green's status changed? Because a pitcher who has been optioned isn't eligible to return for 15 days (for position players it's 10) unless he's replacing someone placed on the injured list (or is serving as the 27th man for a doubleheader). They could have placed Green on the IL, but that would have ruled him out for 15 days—not smart when the belief is he's going to be fine very soon.

• (Also, while the excitement for Nate has been very nice to see lately, we're talking about six outings from a guy who had a rough spring, still is having trouble avoiding walks, and has been very inconsistent with his velocity. If you get the 98-99 Nate, that's different than the version at 96, and we still don’t ever know which one is going to show up. So I don’t think him being here would not have necessarily made a difference—if he’d even been asked to pitch, which I don’t think is certain at all with Swanson and Mayza also ther.)

• The rules about bringing optioned players back are, of course, also the reason Francis wasn't sent to the minors until he was needed to follow Rodríguez on Friday—which, had it been possible, would have allowed Pearson to stay up. (Yes, I'm just assuming that this is the plan, but since Yariel only got to 68 pitches in his first start, didn't pitch competitively last season after the WBC, and was a reliever in Japan in 2022, I think that's fairly obvious.)

• OK, so why bring Romano back when he's not ready to pitch in back-to-back games? Because he's one of the best relievers in baseball and having him with that limitation is still better than not having him.

• Why bring Romano and Swanson back after they didn't necessarily look dominant—Romano in particular—on their rehab assignments? Because they're healthy, there's no use wasting their innings in Triple-A, and I promise that you'd have been mad if they were unavailable when needed against the Yankees because they were still pitching in Buffalo.

• Why throw Swanson into a high leverage situation when he was fresh off a season-opening IL stint and had an abbreviated spring training? Well, first of all, the start of the ninth with a two-run lead isn't high leverage—the leverage index for that is 1.5, which is medium leverage. More to the point, the answer here is probably because Green was unavailable.

But it's also this:

Now, I’m not sure that finding a way to blame the GM over the manager instead of the guys who didn’t pitch well, or the fact that shit simply happens, is the right way to go here. But I will grant that it is at least a step in the right direction. Progress!

For me, though, activating Swanson—who was back throwing a bullpen session as long ago as March 30th, did a live BP on April 5th, and made three rehab appearances—was entirely fair and normal. Asking him to pitch a clean ninth in a save situation, especially with Green unavailable, was completely reasonable. Turning to Mayza when they did was the right move, and letting him face Judge was at least as reasonable as the alternative.

They just didn't pitch well. It doesn't have to be about anything more than that.

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