[ALCS GM 5] Blue Jays (Gausman) vs Mariners (Miller): 10/17/25, 6:08pm

[Funky]

I hate seeing us s*** on one of our own players. Little came out and did not make the pitches he wanted to or should have but using his past dozen plus outings he should not have been put in that position to begin with.

Anyone with any bit of eyesight that had tuned in to the games down the stretch, should have seen that we had a young rookie reliever that was really starting to struggle. Instead of trying to send him down or back to the pitching lab to fix them and have them regain confidence as he does have nasty stuff that could be used for years once harnessed they kept throwing them out in the same situation. It was like watching the movie Groundhog Day
 

I know people are hot and have every right to be as I was losing my s*** a few hours ago as well, but the guy does have youth on his side and a plus arm. I really hope that guys like him and Darren can put some work in over the winter and come back more confident, more accurate and help push this team forward in the future.

Our offense had numerous chances to pull this game away and they also failed. We took two out of three in the enemy city no less take both games at home.

For the first time in years, I’m actually really excited about this young core, the financial war chest will have this off-season, and I’m hoping that a long playoff run will draw more talent to Toronto in the off-season.
 

I would like to say I wish the front office and management would learn from their mistakes, but that just doesn’t seem to be happening. Lucky for them as we have a lot of fight in some of our players who at times make management look better than they are. I’m just hoping for the right acquisitions the off-season to keep this train rolling and I’m hoping for two more ones at home.

I’m not writing any of the youngsters off yet, I just hope they’re allowed to reset in the right environment, whether that be on the big league roster, the training complex, or in the minors.

[thatoneguy]

The job of the manager is to put his players in the best positions to succeed on any given night. John Schneider did not do that tonight.

[BigRed]

Well the only good news from this is hopefully Fatboy John Schneider won't be back next year after the Jays lose game 6

[max silver]

1 hour ago, BigRed said:

Well the only good news from this is hopefully Fatboy John Schneider won't be back next year after the Jays lose game 6

Yay fat shaming. That's exactly what we should care about right now after a botched pitching change in the post season.

[max silver]

6 hours ago, Stangstag said:

Right? People acting like they wouldn’t have been just as angry at Schneider for using Hoffman in the 8th there if he blew it.

Reality is, we lost this game because the bounces didn’t go our way and we didn’t capitalize on the gazillion chances we had to score runs tonight. s*** happens.

Even if Little goes 1-2-3, Hoffman easily could have blown it in the 9th.

There's no justifying the decision to use Little in the 8th inning. Chris Black shared a statistic that Little had allowed a .500 average to right handed hitters over the last 7 weeks. To bring in a struggling reliever in a matchup situation where he didn't have the platoon advantage was setting him up to fail. Hoffman has been the team's best reliever in the post season, and a 1 run game in the 8th inning was the highest leverage situation of the entire season, and it's possible this won't be topped if the Jays fall behind a large amount in game 6. Saving Hoffman for a potential 9th inning save was inexcusable enough, and choosing the reliever who is arguably the least likely to succeed in that spot is managerial malpractice. 

[Nexii]

26 minutes ago, max silver said:

There's no justifying the decision to use Little in the 8th inning. Chris Black shared a statistic that Little had allowed a .500 average to right handed hitters over the last 7 weeks. To bring in a struggling reliever in a matchup situation where he didn't have the platoon advantage was setting him up to fail. Hoffman has been the team's best reliever in the post season, and a 1 run game in the 8th inning was the highest leverage situation of the entire season, and it's possible this won't be topped if the Jays fall behind a large amount in game 6. Saving Hoffman for a potential 9th inning save was inexcusable enough, and choosing the reliever who is arguably the least likely to succeed in that spot is managerial malpractice. 

Yea we don't use analytics like we claim to.

That said it feels like Little is cooked until redoing mechanics. Out of 15 pitches, only 3 were in the shadow or chase zones. The rest were either heart or waste pitches.

[Olerud363.354]

48 minutes ago, max silver said:

There's no justifying the decision to use Little in the 8th inning. Chris Black shared a statistic that Little had allowed a .500 average to right handed hitters over the last 7 weeks. To bring in a struggling reliever in a matchup situation where he didn't have the platoon advantage was setting him up to fail. Hoffman has been the team's best reliever in the post season, and a 1 run game in the 8th inning was the highest leverage situation of the entire season

Just did a quick check of his stats on baseball-reference and looks like he was his usual self in September.  Lots of walks no homers.  He hadn't given up a homer since July -- https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=littlbr02&year=2025&t=p.

I am wondering where all these stats that he had a 6.00 ERA or something last 20 games are coming from?  Is it starting at the 3 run game in LA.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=littlbr02&t=p&year=2025

Guy gave up 2 homeruns all year in 78 appearances.  Walked way too many.  Unfortunately he gave up the third homerun last night.  Thinking probably was just that he has lowest homer rate, so put him in to avoid a solo shot.  3rd pitch solo shot ofcourse.    

Hoffman gave up 15 homeruns all year so wouldn't have been thrilled with him their either.  I guess Dominquez would have been the right decision. 

I put some of this on the front office and the high (a.k.a. low) performance team.  Difference in the series may end up being that the Mariners have a great shut-down bullpen right now.  Mariners have kept Munoz healthy since 2022 and developed a couple of other guys.  Jays have not kept their guy (Romano) healthy and failed to develop other options.    Hoffman may not be exactly healthy either based on his numbers and whispers of shoulder issues.  

 

[Nexii]

Hitting wise the Jays made huge strides. I do think it's not a fluke, that their high performance team had something to do with it. 

But yea the pitching boggles me. Every single reliever seems to be chasing velocity at the expense of a lot of walks. Seems to be a team wide philosophy but I don't think it's been very effective. Without the walks and HBP that's a 2 run inning instead of 5.

Of course these aren't things you can magically change in the middle of the ALCS. We're stuck with what we have. 

[Olerud363.354]

8 hours ago, Terminator said:

I don't like the move to Little but I am curious as to who you think was the slam dunk choice there?

Slam dunk choice was Jordan Romero to get redemption for 2022.  Unfortunately Jays couldn't keep him healthy and Mariners have kept Munoz healthy to anchor their bullpen. 

That might just be luck.   From 1985 to 1992 Jays kept Henke healthy and performing, Duane Ward from 1988 to 1993 despite pitching up to 120 innings as a reliever.  Ward's arm fell off after that.  

In 2015 20 year old Osuna and 22 year old Sanchez were the top guys.  Osuna from A-ball.  Sanchez had a low homer rate as a reliever in 2014-2016.

Shut-down back end of bullpen is missing compared to 92/93 and 2015 teams.   

[jaysblue]

9 hours ago, Terminator said:

Yeah and SerAnthony came in and gave up a homer too.

I guess we should have gone with Hoffman? Surely he wouldn't have given up a homer (he actually lead the league).

So according to you, this proves that the Jays don't have many viable late inning options to close out a close 2-1 or 3-1 game in the Postseason, especially from the 6th inning on. 

Jays victories in the Postseason:

10-1

13-7

5-2

13-4

8-2

Other than Game 4 against the Yankees which was close and a BP game, the Jays bats have been pretty much the difference maker throughout the Postseason. When their bats are swinging and putting up big numbers, Jays win.

The Jays need to be up by at least 4-5 runs to win games. 

[Olerud363.354]

10 hours ago, Grant77 said:

The Diamondbacks stats are quite the anomaly. Look at his Mariners stats, he's embarrassingly bad and has been for a long time. Players like Suarez are what drives fans away from the game.

According to fangraphs he's had 7 seasons of 3.5 WAR or more and 33.1 lifetime WAR.  3 good seasons with Cincinnati,  2 with Seattle.  1 with Arizona.  And one split.  

He's been a good player everywhere he's played.   He will end being in terms of fWAR at a level with Jose Bautista and Jesse Barfield.   He's had 49 homers twice and was probably a decent 3rd basemen in his prime, but maybe lost a bit now.  

This Seattle is bad thing is lunacy.  Seattle is a good organization.  Toronto and Seattle are both good organizations this decade.  They win about 90 and this year are on good playoff runs.  Seattle has kept Munoz healthy, Toronto broke Jordan Romano so Seattle probably gets to go to the World Series and will likely give the Dodgers some trouble. 

[jaysblue]

8 hours ago, Stangstag said:

Right? People acting like they wouldn’t have been just as angry at Schneider for using Hoffman in the 8th there if he blew it.

Reality is, we lost this game because the bounces didn’t go our way and we didn’t capitalize on the gazillion chances we had to score runs tonight. s*** happens.

Even if Little goes 1-2-3, Hoffman easily could have blown it in the 9th.

Doesn't change the fact that based on Little's recent performances, there were better choices to use in that 8th inning. Whether Dominguez or Hoffman came through or not, they were the better choices. I don't think the SN commentators or fans would be as upset at Schneider directly if he used Dominguez or Hoffman. They likely would be more upset with Dominguez or Hoffman for blowing it, more than the managerial decision. 

The Jays need to be up by 4-5 runs to close out games pretty much. Like you said a lot of missed opportunities throughout the game where the Jays could have padded onto the score, but they failed to capitalize. 

In that case, and I'll agree with Jays24 here, if you're in a close game with your starter pitching well and you know you have questionable options in your pen, you need to ride your starters for as long as you could so you limit the # of outs your pen needs to get. Sucks Gausman walked Polanco right there with 2 outs in the 6th inning, otherwise maybe he still comes out for the 7th. Varland did a great job behind him, but maybe if Gausman could have been stretched into the 7th inning, Varland is available in that 8th inning. 

Regardless tough loss knowing the Jays were 6 outs away from being ONE win away from the World Series. Still in a good position to win two at home for Game 6 and 7. 

[Olerud363.354]

10 hours ago, Grant77 said:

The Diamondbacks stats are quite the anomaly. Look at his Mariners stats, he's embarrassingly bad and has been for a long time. Players like Suarez are what drives fans away from the game.

Little Johnny watching game with Dad on Rogers Sportsnet Channel.  

Little Johnny loves the Blue Jays.  He is only 11.  He loves life.  He thinks the world is a happy place.  His Dad tells him about Kelly Gruber.  Little Johnny is like "f*** off" dad about Kelly Gruber this is my time (he learned the bad word from John Schneider because Sportsnet censors not doing their job.

Little Johnny watches Suarez hit grand slam.  Little Johnny cries for 2 hours.  Little Johnny sad the next day.  Little Johnny tells his Dad "Suarez has driven me from the game.  Is it weak of me to give up?".   Dad "No son.  Suarez has driven me from the game too."  Neither watches Sunday night game 6 or any other game ever again.  Eugenio Suarez drives those two and many more away from the game. 

[Nexii]

3 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Little Johnny watching game with Dad on Rogers Sportsnet Channel.  

Little Johnny loves the Blue Jays.  He is only 11.  He loves life.  He thinks the world is a happy place.  His Dad tells him about Kelly Gruber.  Little Johnny is like "f*** off" dad about Kelly Gruber this is my time (he learned the bad word from John Schneider because Sportsnet censors not doing their job.

Little Johnny watches Suarez hit grand slam.  Little Johnny cries for 2 hours.  Little Johnny sad the next day.  Little Johnny tells his Dad "Suarez has driven me from the game.  Is it weak of me to give up?".   Dad "No son.  Suarez has driven me from the game too."  Neither watches Sunday night game 6 or any other game ever again.  Eugenio Suarez drives those two and many more away from the game. 

Lol my family is the same. They get too emotional to watch the games. It's like... you might not get to watch this again for another 10 years. Suck it up!

[jaysblue]

11 hours ago, Grant77 said:

The Diamondbacks stats are quite the anomaly. Look at his Mariners stats, he's embarrassingly bad and has been for a long time. Players like Suarez are what drives fans away from the game.

I don't even know what I'm reading from you when you make posts like these which are so freakin' ridiculous. 

Suarez isn't a bad player by any stretch of the imagination: 4.3, 3.5, 3.8 and 3.8 WAR seasons over his last 4 years. 

Is he a flawed player? Yes for sure. There are some things he does very well and some things he struggles in, as with majority of the players in MLB. Not everyone is an Ohtani, Betts, Judge, Trout, Harper, Soto etc. 

Mariners brought him back for his power mainly. They obviously know what else comes with his game (low BA, low BB%, strikeouts, meh defense). Does that make him embarrassingly bad? No! If Suarez isn't hitting for power, then sure he doesn't offer much else. But someone coming off an almost 50-HR season, just stop with spewing the BS man! 

[Nexii]

4 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

I don't even know what I'm reading from you when you make posts like these which are so freakin' ridiculous. 

Suarez isn't a bad player by any stretch of the imagination: 4.3, 3.5, 3.8 and 3.8 WAR seasons over his last 4 years. 

Is he a flawed player? Yes for sure. There are some things he does very well and some things he struggles in, as with majority of the players in MLB. Not everyone is an Ohtani, Betts, Judge, Trout, Harper, Soto etc. 

Mariners brought him back for his power mainly. They obviously know what else comes with his game (low BA, low BB%, strikeouts, meh defense). Does that make him embarrassingly bad? No! If Suarez isn't hitting for power, then sure he doesn't offer much else. But someone coming off an almost 50-HR season, just stop with spewing the BS man! 

Isn't he basically what we hoped Santander would be

[jaysblue]

8 minutes ago, Nexii said:

Lol my family is the same. They get too emotional to watch the games. It's like... you might not get to watch this again for another 10 years. Suck it up!

You should never get that emotional over a game. At the end of the day, the world continues to move on. We're not the ones who are playing on that baseball field. The Blue Jays players don't care about what happens in your life or get emotional for you when you're dealing with certain issues or in certain circumstances. At the end of the day, sports is entertainment. 

[Olerud363.354]

21 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

But someone coming off an almost 50-HR season, just stop with spewing the BS man! 

It's just a repeated pattern of Cherry Picking with Grant that has gone back ... 15 years?  20 years?  At this point I can't even remember when I started posting with this group.   I guess this group goes back at least to 2007 because I remember some strange lady constantly posting about Aaron Hill and his stubby legs, and she hated him just like Grant hates the Mariners and Suarez. 

Edit:  What I mean is the same group of posters have been posting on different iterations of message boards, going back to the team board in the 2000s,

 

[Stangstag]

4 hours ago, BigRed said:

Well the only good news from this is hopefully Fatboy John Schneider won't be back next year after the Jays lose game 6

I don’t think this game has any affect on the front office’s decision to keep John or not

[Hipfan]

5 hours ago, thatoneguy said:

The job of the manager is to put his players in the best positions to succeed on any given night. John Schneider did not do that tonight.

This...I'm so mad that he put Little in there, it was so obviously a mistake. In those moments, with the game (and maybe series) on the line, you go best on best and don't mess around with matchups. A terrible decision by management.

[Stangstag]

1 hour ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Just did a quick check of his stats on baseball-reference and looks like he was his usual self in September.  Lots of walks no homers.  He hadn't given up a homer since July -- https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=littlbr02&year=2025&t=p.

I am wondering where all these stats that he had a 6.00 ERA or something last 20 games are coming from?  Is it starting at the 3 run game in LA.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=littlbr02&t=p&year=2025

Guy gave up 2 homeruns all year in 78 appearances.  Walked way too many.  Unfortunately he gave up the third homerun last night.  Thinking probably was just that he has lowest homer rate, so put him in to avoid a solo shot.  3rd pitch solo shot ofcourse.    

Hoffman gave up 15 homeruns all year so wouldn't have been thrilled with him their either.  I guess Dominquez would have been the right decision. 

I put some of this on the front office and the high (a.k.a. low) performance team.  Difference in the series may end up being that the Mariners have a great shut-down bullpen right now.  Mariners have kept Munoz healthy since 2022 and developed a couple of other guys.  Jays have not kept their guy (Romano) healthy and failed to develop other options.    Hoffman may not be exactly healthy either based on his numbers and whispers of shoulder issues.  

 

Right you can semi-justify it if you squint a bit. Not the right move IMO, wouldn’t have done it myself. And it backfired spectacularly. But its not out of nowhere.

[BlueJays]

8 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

I don’t think this game has any affect on the front office’s decision to keep John or not

After Berrios fiasco in the wild card, I think this is pretty on brand for this management. They definitely loved what he did last night. 

[Olerud363.354]

7 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

Right you can semi-justify it if you squint a bit. Not the right move IMO, wouldn’t have done it myself. And it backfired spectacularly. But its not out of nowhere.

Right move I guess was Gausman for 7... maybe.  Sigh.  Just all the options could have gone wrong and have gone wrong.  Hoffman can and has given up 2 homers an inning.  Gaussman can and has been shaky after 5.  Varland can and has given up game changing 3 run homeruns twice in the playoffs.

Real problem is that there are no shutdown relievers in the bullpen.  Something like this was bound to happen and no one like Munoz or even Brash available to the Jays. 

[Doubleplay21]

Good teams can win without a good manager. Jays have to ignore Schneider and win on their own.

 

 

[Eat My Shatkins]

Not even I can defend JS decision to go with Little in that spot.

Crazy ass call dude.

Now the Jays are finally and truly faced with a "must win game". 

Two of them in fact.

 

[glory]

"I wanted to give them a different look" while Louis Varland has pitched in every game for the past 2 weeks against every part of NY/SEA's lineups was a remarkably tone deaf quote by JS. Not only for the hypocrisy, but the fact (as others have mentioned) that a "different look" could have been Jeff Hoffman in the 8th inning if he wasn't used the night before in a gd blowout.

I really hope the Jays win the next 2. Losing this series and then having to watch this dude's contract extension press conference a few weeks from now will be torture. 

[Eat My Shatkins]

f*** me i still can't believe it. The Mariners were completely scuffling at the plate for 3 straight games and for some reason our manager decided to give them a free rally in a 1 run game and give all the momentum back at a crucial tipping point of the series.

 

My mind is blown. I bet even Little couldn't believe he was getting the ball.

 

This team is resilient, but holy moly they must be struggling to keep their heads up right now.

[saskjayfan]

4 hours ago, max silver said:

There's no justifying the decision to use Little in the 8th inning. Chris Black shared a statistic that Little had allowed a .500 average to right handed hitters over the last 7 weeks. To bring in a struggling reliever in a matchup situation where he didn't have the platoon advantage was setting him up to fail. Hoffman has been the team's best reliever in the post season, and a 1 run game in the 8th inning was the highest leverage situation of the entire season, and it's possible this won't be topped if the Jays fall behind a large amount in game 6. Saving Hoffman for a potential 9th inning save was inexcusable enough, and choosing the reliever who is arguably the least likely to succeed in that spot is managerial malpractice. 

I said two days ago I didn't like Hoffman coming in 8th in a 7 to 2 game.  Someone pointed out that he needed work and I agreed, but I said use him in the 9th.  You don't want that middle of the order to get multiple looks.  If we had used Dominguez in the 7 to 2 game we bring in Hoffman in the 9th. That would allowed Hoffman to face the top of the order yesterday having not just seen them previous day.  

Even with Hoffman having just faced those guys the previous day he was the guy to bring in, in that situation.  He looked dominant the day before.  The bullpen is our Achilles heel.  Hoffman is our guy.  We need to use him when the game is on the line. 

[Big_Walleye]

I'm not usually one to dig into the stats pages as I normally have better things to do and prefer to watch the games with my eyes but I couldn't resist today.

Here are some 2025 numbers.

Hoffman - .805 OPS vs lefties

Dominguez - .816 OPS vs lefties

Little - .592 OPS vs righties .601 OPS vs lefties

Raleigh, Polanco and Naylor to begin the 8th last night.  3 dangerous lefties in a row.  Would you want Dominguez or Hoffman to face them with those numbers or flip the first 2 to the right side and have Little face them?

It's the easiest thing to say "I told you so" after the fact when something doesn't work out (Joe Siddall are you listening?) anyone can do that.   Not so easy to make tough decisions in the heat of a baseball game.

The home run Raleigh hit was a glorified pop-up.  It could just as easily been caught by Straw and things might have turned out differently.  It's luck, it's baseball, that's the way it goes sometimes.

The Jays aren't even in this position if it weren't for Little taking the ball (and being extremely nasty) more than any other reliever in the league this year.  

As for John Schneider, put yourself in those shoes for a day and have all your decisions scrutinized the the nth degree, and have an entire country want to rip off your head when it doesn't work out.

Have some empathy for these people.  They're trying to bring us a championship and taking years off their life in the process.  Schneider has his players backs and they have his.  It's what got them this far and it's what will allow them to win the next 2 games.

[saskjayfan]

11 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

f*** me i still can't believe it. The Mariners were completely scuffling at the plate for 3 straight games and for some reason our manager decided to give them a free rally in a 1 run game and give all the momentum back at a crucial tipping point of the series.

 

My mind is blown. I bet even Little couldn't believe he was getting the ball.

 

This team is resilient, but holy moly they must be struggling to keep their heads up right now.

We had s*** babip luck.  Giminez smoked a ball in the 3rd that is a double far more times than not the way he hit it.  If Clement's bat path is 1/16th of an inch higher it's a swing and miss and he's in an 0 and 1 count and more than likely puts the ball in play and scores a run. Raleigh hit a 348 foot home run.  Clement hit a 363 foot out.  The baseball gods just weren't on our side last night.  I feel like we're going to win the next 2.  

Raleigh is the danger guy.  So is Naylor.  Polanco and Suarez are both guys who hit bombs, but they have swing and miss.  You just have to execute.  I just feel really good about Yesavage and Bieber.  I hope the offense shows up early and often in game 6 and set us up for an epic game 7.