[ALCS GM 7] Mariners (Kirby) vs Blue Jays (Bieber): 10/20/25, 8:10pm

[jaysblue]

15 hours ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

This got me thinking, the Jays have had a huge home run at home in every playoff round now that either eventually won them the clinching game, or immediately ended the game.

 

Joe for the World series (1993) Walk off

Springer for the ALCS (2025) 7th inning to take the lead

Joey Bats for the ALDS (2015) 7th inning to take the lead

EE for the Wild Card round (2016) Walk off

 

What a treat for the home fans to watch that. I wonder if anyone was in attendance for all 4?

I was in attendance for 3 of the 4 haha. 

[Olerud363.354]

5 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

The significance of the Alomar homer is the Jays had failed in several prior postseason attempts to get to the WS.  It launched them to a 3-1 series lead and lifted the proverbial monkey off their (and Canada's) backs.

They had already been up 3-1 on the Royals in 85.  And ahead 3.5 games against the tigers.  I watched the 85 games but wasn't really old enough to remember every detail so had to look it up.  Jays had 10th and 9th inning comebacks in games 2 and 4.  So already in franchise history they had been up 3-1 in a series due to dramatic late inning comeback wins.  So Alomar homerun was great, but it didn't bring the franchise to a place it hadn't been before. 

In 92 the monkey wasn't off their back until the lead built in game 6.  I remember Canady Maldonado and Carter hitting big homeruns.  Monkey wasn't off the back until last out though. 

Springer's homerun was game 7 and did bring this generation of the franchise to a point it hadn't been before.  

[Brownie19]

4 hours ago, ComeTogether said:

 

 

What a wholesome interview.  Rootin' for this guy is easy.

[Laika]

What Dan Wilson’s decision to use Bazardo vs. Springer says about optimal reliever usage

George Springer hit the game-winning home run off Eduard Bazardo in his third plate appearance against Bazardo this series. Cole Burston / Getty Images

By Eno Sarris

Oct. 21, 2025Updated 6:58 pm EDT

In the aftermath of a come-from-ahead loss in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson is taking heat for the decision call on Eduard Bazardo to face George Springer in the seventh inning with the season on the line. It was Bazardo’s third time seeing Springer in the series. All-Star Mariners closer Andrés Muñoz never faced him, and never would, because Springer hit the dinger that put the Blue Jays through to the World Series.

Was that third bite of the apple the magic recipe for Springer’s big blast?

Since 2016, when a batter has seen a reliever a third time in a postseason series, his OPS has jumped over 140 points, according to STATS Perform. This fits into more ample research that suggests that the more experience a batter has with a pitcher and his offerings, the batter’s advantage grows.

So does that mean Wilson’s decision was just wrong? Maybe, but it gets a more complicated than the top-line findings suggest. And when we spin idea this forward to the upcoming World Series, we’re almost assured of seeing different approaches to this familiarity problem. Because in the end, every choice is about the quality of the alternatives as much as any other factor.

Getting back to Game 7, we’ll start with the decision to bring in Bazardo, who had been dominant against righties this year (.492 OPS) and was one of Wilson’s biggest weapons out of the bullpen. His sinker/slider combo works against most righties. Though it is true that Springer had his best year ever against sinkers in 2025, it is also true that one of the other main choices at Wilson’s disposal was Matt Brash, who also relies on a sinker and was more of a threat to walk the bases loaded.

But if the choice was between Muñoz facing Springer for a first time or Bazardo seeing him a third time (and with a 100-plus point penalty in OPS), the move is probably to go with the closer early and hope Brash could finish the ninth when given a clean inning. Though had Brash been the call in the ninth, he would have most likely seen Springer a third time himself. Sigh.

This sort of decision came back to bite Wilson’s opposing manager in the very same series. In Game 5 in Seattle, Blue Jays manager John Schneider used left-hander Brendon Little against Cal Raleigh in the eighth inning instead of using closer Jeff Hoffman or setup man Seranthony Domínguez.

Both Hoffman and Domínguez are righties, and the switch-hitting Raleigh has had better power numbers over his career against lefties. When asked about the decision to use Little after the game, Schneider said he wanted to make the sure the middle of the Mariners lineup would “see different guys” in the series. Raleigh hit a big homer, and Toronto was second-guessing their manager at that time.

 

The two teams clearly had different approaches to this problem. Seattle currently leads teams in this postseason with 25 different pitcher-hitter matchups that have gone to three or more plate appearances, while Toronto has only allowed that to happen 10 times, mostly with Louis Varland.

Why Varland?

Let’s get at the source of the familiarity effect. It’s not fatigue, or a drop in command, as PitchingBot once showed us before he was hired by the Guardians:

 

We can’t be sure that spike in success comes from the fact that batters have seen those pitchers’ pitch shapes and learned their tendencies, but if it’s not command or fatigue, that’s a natural way to think about it. Bazardo had mostly thrown inside sinkers to Springer in the previous at-bats, he went there again, and Springer had seen enough of Bazardo’s inside sinkers to take advantage.

Conversely, in the Blue Jays’ bullpen Varland is the reliever with the most pitch offerings — he uses five different pitches more than 5 percent of the time — so he can theoretically give hitters different looks every time he sees them.

This is something we’ve seen from starting pitchers, as well. The Athletic’s Stephen Nesbitt found that starters have added a whole pitch type, on average, over the last four years in an effort to keep batters guessing. In fact, this fits in with a very long-term trend across baseball, which is the concerted effort from teams to confuse opposing hitters by not letting them see any pitcher as often as they would like to.

 

The end result of having both starters and relievers adding pitch types while teams are reducing hitters’ looks at those pitchers, and also changing their game plans radically late in the season, might be why the familiarity effect with relievers is losing steam, if it is. Here’s how batters have fared against relievers in a single series, broken down by year, thanks to STATS Perform.

Is the third time reliever penalty real?

2016	0.583	0.697	0.665
2017	0.682	0.727	0.743
2018	0.656	0.621	0.793
2019	0.690	0.650	1.463
2020	0.704	0.727	0.856
2021	0.671	0.696	0.945
2022	0.596	0.560	0.397
2023	0.658	0.681	0.841
2024	0.695	0.610	0.728
2025	0.716	0.669	0.654

The overall trend is still clear, but now you can see that in three of the last four years, the familiarity effect hasn’t been quite as prevalent. Is this because there are more teams like Toronto this year and the Dodgers last year that are incorporating this effect into their decision-making process? Is it because everyone’s throwing more pitches? Or is it just noise, and next year relievers will have a hard time again the third time they see a hitter in a series?

The World Series might tell us more about where this effect is headed.

In Toronto, we have one team that’s clearly limiting looks and trying to use their high-leverage relievers against different parts of the lineup, so they’re likely to continue that strategy. With Little, Mason Fluharty and Eric Lauer, they even have enough lefties to throw different ones at Shohei Ohtani if they want to keep things fresh.

Despite not having a top bullpen by any metric, the Blue Jays have had success this postseason while using eight different relievers and three starters pitching out of the bullpen. They’ll continue that varied approach in the World Series, most likely.

On the other side, the Dodgers might have thought about this effect during their run to the title, even as they had to rely heavily on a patchwork bullpen. In the 2024 World Series, they had 10 matchups that did go to three plate appearances, but Juan Soto surprisingly didn’t see the Dodgers’ lefties more than once — perhaps because he’s a high ball hitter, and they preferred to use their sinker ballers, Brusdar Graterol and Blake Treinen, against him, but it’s still instructive to see that they didn’t just press the ‘lefty’ button over and over again.

So far in this postseason, only one Dodgers reliever has seen the same hitter three times. One! That’s at least partially a function of their short series so far and their starters going deep into games.

We thought we had this year’s biggest test of the familiarity effect when Bazardo faced Springer, but the Dodgers may yet find themselves in a predicament. They’ve only gotten 29 percent of their innings out of the bullpen so far, way less than the rest of the postseason teams, because they haven’t always had the best alternatives. Their bullpen problem has been well covered, and they’ve persevered this October mostly by avoiding using relievers at all. But in a seven game series against a surging Blue Jays team, could that change? What will happen when they are forced to use their relievers more often?

Roki Sasaki hasn’t been a reliever long, but he’s held righties to a .271 OPS so far in that role. Treinen allowed a .709 OPS against them this season. As much as reliever familiarity might be a thing, expect the Dodgers to keep choosing Sasaki with the game on the line. Any choice is only as good as your options.

[Spanky__99]

Can't read it, dum-dum.

[Jimcanuck]

49 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

They had already been up 3-1 on the Royals in 85.  And ahead 3.5 games against the tigers.  I watched the 85 games but wasn't really old enough to remember every detail so had to look it up.  Jays had 10th and 9th inning comebacks in games 2 and 4.  So already in franchise history they had been up 3-1 in a series due to dramatic late inning comeback wins.  So Alomar homerun was great, but it didn't bring the franchise to a place it hadn't been before. 

In 92 the monkey wasn't off their back until the lead built in game 6.  I remember Canady Maldonado and Carter hitting big homeruns.  Monkey wasn't off the back until last out though. 

Springer's homerun was game 7 and did bring this generation of the franchise to a point it hadn't been before.  

Springer > Alomar easy, no question there

[glory]

6 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

No the Jays were up 2 games to 1 at the time of the Alomar homer.

The significance of the Alomar homer is the Jays had failed in several prior postseason attempts to get to the WS.  It launched them to a 3-1 series lead and lifted the proverbial monkey off their (and Canada's) backs.

You’re right about being up 2-1. Don’t know why I thought they were down, but I was young at the time so memory playing tricks on me. 

Regardless, Springer’s HR is firmly #2 all time now. 

[Laika]

And you know Alomar celebrated his big homer by going out and spitting on a hooker, or something like that 

[Omar]

1 hour ago, Spanky__99 said:

Can't read it, dum-dum.

I can't see anything in Laika post either. I think it has something to do with dark mode and the color of text he is pasting.

[Laika]

1 hour ago, Spanky__99 said:

Can't read it, dum-dum.

try without dark mode on 

[Spanky__99]

25 minutes ago, Omar said:

I can't see anything in Laika post either. I think it has something to do with dark mode and the color of text he is pasting.

 

21 minutes ago, Laika said:

try without dark mode on 

Ah yes, that was it.

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

try without dark mode on 

It's a really interesting read.  Thanks for posting it.

There really is a lot that goes into these strategies that fans don't see or understand well.  That's probably one of the reasons I get defensive against the hindsight armchair managers.

[Olerud363.354]

3 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

Springer > Alomar easy, no question there

Not sure how many still remember the 1980s and late 90s.   Again I was alive but not old enough to really absorb things.  But really there were a lot of amazing games in division races and 1985 ALCS that had the Jays on the verge of the World Series.  

First big game I really remember was Friday night vs Baltimore, game 160 - 1989.  I remember scoring a wild pitch and Moseby winning it in extras.

Who remembers this game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR198709260.shtml.  Unbelievable game and the Jays won 3 crazy 1 run games against Tigers in 87 before losing last 7.  People need to remember that there was no wild card or ALDS, so games against division rival in last week of season were at that level.  And incredibly in 1985 (Yankees), 1987 (Tigers), 1989 (Orioles) and 1990 (Red Sox) Jays had last weekend games for the division (in 1990 because of Strike they had to play an extra series after last weekend).  

Just putting this in context for the 'best homerun' discussion.  As a fan in that generation pretty to used to dramatic late season stuff (at ALDS level) but not being able to get over the hump.  

Springer is arguably number 1 in terms of what it means to the franchise.   Game 7.  Got this generation to the World Series.  Carter won a World Series, but that is after the franchise had already won one, so didn't really break new ground.  Historic moment of course.

To me as a fan since 1988 two biggest games are game 6 of 1992 ALCS, and game 7 2025 ALCS.  Carter's homerun and Maldonado's in that game are under-rated.    Maldonado's equivalent of Vlad's Grand Slam in terms of in game feeling (blew it open), but above in terms of round (got them to World Series). 

[SeranthonySantander]

Springer home run was also biggest win percentage added in a championship series game ever

[jaysblue]

Yeah I was saying to myself in that situation when Springer came up, shocked the Mariners didn't go with Munoz there with the game on the line. He likely could have pitched in the 8th inning as well afterwards against the middle-of-the-order. Mariners could have worried about the 9th afterwards and the bottom of the ninth would have been against the bottom of the Jays order anyways. 

They used Munoz in the 8th inning anyways, but that was a waste being down 4-3. I'm sure he was good for 5 outs that night. Instead of saving him for the 9th, Mariners should have used him in the bottom of the 7th there against Springer. 

[Laika]

I think Dan Wilson had the whole game mapped out and that was the problem. 

They probably thought:

• Kirby for 4 in an ideal world. Even if he is dealing, Toronto hammered him last time so you take your 4 good innings and say thank you before a possible bloop and blast ruin his start. 
• Woo for 3 in an ideal world. 
• Munoz for the last 2 innings.
• And then he had some pecking order and matchup preferences for Brash, Bazardo, Speier if they had to finish any of the Kirby or Woo innings. 

The issue is just the inability to pivot from the plan based on the context! He needed to see the matchups coming up and go straight to Munoz. Bazardo vs. Springer for the second night in a row is just common sense not smart, even if you like that matchup and Bazardo has been great against righties all year. Failure to recognize that "this is the game" moment.  

[John_Havok]

1 hour ago, jaysblue said:

Yeah I was saying to myself in that situation when Springer came up, shocked the Mariners didn't go with Munoz there with the game on the line. He likely could have pitched in the 8th inning as well afterwards against the middle-of-the-order. Mariners could have worried about the 9th afterwards and the bottom of the ninth would have been against the bottom of the Jays order anyways. 

They used Munoz in the 8th inning anyways, but that was a waste being down 4-3. I'm sure he was good for 5 outs that night. Instead of saving him for the 9th, Mariners should have used him in the bottom of the 7th there against Springer. 

There is no right answer. If the right answer is always "use your best arm when you're up 2 in the 7th with 1 out and 2 runners on" you really do give up the ghost if a rally starts after that. We already know there's no relievers out there for high leverage that go get 8-9 outs. That hasn't been a thing for years. 6 outs max, 4 is far more common. 

This is where the 3 batter rule came in clutch tbh. It forced the manager to make a decision that considered the 9th facing the exact same part of the lineup with lesser arms where he wouldn't be able to match up 1 pitcher for 1 hitter multiple times. It wasn't solely about using the best arm in the 7th. 

[Omar]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Failure to recognize that "this is the game" moment.  

Great post.  

Dan Wilson used the same strategy that got him to the ALCS and I think he believes it was the right call.  Failure to recognize "this the game" moment and call an audible to deviate from the plan led to the Mariners demise.  This is why playoff baseball is different.  You can utilize strategy all season long to get across the finish line at the end of the season but it is the tactics employed in a short series that ends in success.  If a team/manager fails to adapt and employ those tactics well then you have the Blue Jays playoff failures of the 2020's before this season.  Perhaps John Schneider and the Blue Jays have figured that part out.

[SeranthonySantander]

 

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[Stangstag]

13 hours ago, jaysblue said:

I was in attendance for 3 of the 4 haha. 

Damn, you chose well. 

[hanton]

10 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

Springer > Alomar easy, no question there

I get people are dinging him for his off field stuff but there is no denying the talent so not sure how you can say "no question"

[max silver]

3 hours ago, Laika said:

I think Dan Wilson had the whole game mapped out and that was the problem. 

They probably thought:

• Kirby for 4 in an ideal world. Even if he is dealing, Toronto hammered him last time so you take your 4 good innings and say thank you before a possible bloop and blast ruin his start. 
• Woo for 3 in an ideal world. 
• Munoz for the last 2 innings.
• And then he had some pecking order and matchup preferences for Brash, Bazardo, Speier if they had to finish any of the Kirby or Woo innings. 

The issue is just the inability to pivot from the plan based on the context! He needed to see the matchups coming up and go straight to Munoz. Bazardo vs. Springer for the second night in a row is just common sense not smart, even if you like that matchup and Bazardo has been great against righties all year. Failure to recognize that "this is the game" moment.  

Has anyone really been willing to break the mold completely yet and use their defacto closer in the 7th inning in the post season? I haven't been tuning into a ton of non Blue Jays post season baseball most years and I'm curious if there have been any managers willing to bring their closer in this early vs a potential 8th inning deployment. 

[Jimcanuck]

27 minutes ago, hanton said:

I get people are dinging him for his off field stuff but there is no denying the talent so not sure how you can say "no question"

Huh?

[SeranthonySantander]

2 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

Huh?

Someone here said Alomar got caught spitting on his hookers.  Context matters but I don't think we will ever have all the details like we did with Trevor Bauer for example, did he pay extra/consent etc.   So some people won't even consider his HR if they were making a list.  

[ComeTogether]

 

Good cut. 

 

 

[SeranthonySantander]

32 minutes ago, max silver said:

Has anyone really been willing to break the mold completely yet and use their defacto closer in the 7th inning in the post season? I haven't been tuning into a ton of non Blue Jays post season baseball most years and I'm curious if there have been any managers willing to bring their closer in this early vs a potential 8th inning deployment. 

 

Duran went in the 7th down 1 in their elimination game 4

brewers were using megill and uribe- their top 2 saves guys, in the 1st through 6, just Willy nilly basically.  I think their pitching was messed up though so they didn’t really have real starters a lot of games 

[Spanky__99]

4 hours ago, Laika said:

I think Dan Wilson had the whole game mapped out and that was the problem. 

They probably thought:

• Kirby for 4 in an ideal world. Even if he is dealing, Toronto hammered him last time so you take your 4 good innings and say thank you before a possible bloop and blast ruin his start. 
• Woo for 3 in an ideal world. 
• Munoz for the last 2 innings.
• And then he had some pecking order and matchup preferences for Brash, Bazardo, Speier if they had to finish any of the Kirby or Woo innings. 

The issue is just the inability to pivot from the plan based on the context! He needed to see the matchups coming up and go straight to Munoz. Bazardo vs. Springer for the second night in a row is just common sense not smart, even if you like that matchup and Bazardo has been great against righties all year. Failure to recognize that "this is the game" moment.  

This is why most know that these guys, Managers, need a little more gut punch, a game can be defining, whether right or wrong, fellas need to execute.

 

[Spanky__99]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

Damn, you chose well. 

No s***, hahaha... I saw them win B2B, that Springer HR, 2nd in BJ's lore easy.

2nd of the B2B, I was there, phenomenal.

[Eat My Shatkins]

15 hours ago, jaysblue said:

I was in attendance for 3 of the 4 haha. 

Wow, awesome. Which one did you miss? Joe Carters WS winner?

[Omar]

52 minutes ago, ComeTogether said:

 

Good cut. 

 

 

This is gold.  Just put it on repeat.