Blue Jays (Cease) vs Rangers (Rocker): 9/18/26, 8:05pm

[ComeTogether]

11-8 Tigers 

[Governator]

Sorry I accidentally hid the thread, when moderating a post.  I might have had a few drinks..... thanks Cease.

[Jays24]

Mods trying to erase the Jays season lol

[ComeTogether]

Jose is good 

[Steeljays17]

lol. Guys striking out on 90 Fastball.. 

[hanton]

9 minutes ago, Governator said:

Sorry I accidentally hid the thread, when moderating a post.  I might have had a few drinks..... thanks Cease.

I mean it's no big loss if it was permanent lol

[SpencerBateman]

Win tomorrow and Sunday and Oakland does their job both games and we are good 

[Jays24]

Summing up our season lol

[Steeljays17]

Trevor Williams just carved them for 4 innings. They're done. There is no life in this lineup. As I've stated since June Vlad should have been batting 6th. Way too many double play grounders by Vlad and Springer that killed innings 

[JaysFan99]

10 walks, 3 errors, and the offense no shows as usual in a must win series.

[Spanky__99]

Imagine bringing up Springer, lol.

[jaysblue]

For last night’s game (Dylan Cease vs. Kumar Rocker), DraftKings’ betting splits reportedly showed roughly 79–81% of moneyline tickets on Toronto, but an enormous 97–99% of the actual money wagered was on the Jays at around -136/-137. Texas had only about 1–3% of the handle at +113/+114. Add in all the parlays that likely included Toronto, and sportsbooks had to love that result.

Then Cease goes out, walks six batters, records only eight outs, and finishes with just three strikeouts. Considering how much action there was likely on Cease strikeout overs as well, it ended up being almost a perfect result for the books.

I'm not saying the game was fixed or directly influenced. There’s obviously no evidence of that. But with MLB now so closely intertwined with sportsbooks and betting apps, nights like this are exactly why I find myself questioning the authenticity of North American professional sports more than I used to. 

When such an overwhelming percentage of the money is on one side, that team completely implodes, and virtually every popular Cease prop gets wiped out at the same time, it’s hard not to at least raise an eyebrow. Especially if it's already planned that the Jays won't make the Postseason. 

Call it conspiracy thinking if you want, but last night was certainly one of those games that makes you wonder.

 

[jaysblue]

12 hours ago, JaysFan99 said:

10 walks, 3 errors, and the offense no shows as usual in a must win series.

The game was fixed. 

[Omar]

56 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

 

I'm not saying the game was fixed or directly influenced. There’s obviously no evidence of that. 

55 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

The game was fixed. 

So tell us, how much did you lose last night?

[max silver]

18 hours ago, Jays24 said:

You must mean "we're not good enough to make this run."  Injuries played a role but it did for so many other teams as well. 

This pathetic season was due to underperformance and/or regressing to the mean from our lineup.  Pitching is what kept us afloat even after all that. 

You must have missed how the team has essentially an entire rotation on the injured list. This isn't the only reason that the team has struggled but it's dumb as hell to pretend like having 2.5 healthy starters for much of the season is a giant nothingburger. 

[hanton]

5% catch probability on Seagers double to the base of the wall

[Olerud363.354]

8 hours ago, jaysblue said:

Then Cease goes out, walks six batters, records only eight outs, and finishes with just three strikeouts. Considering how much action there was likely on Cease strikeout overs as well, it ended up being almost a perfect result for the books.

You'd have a point if Cease wasn't throwing 92.

I think injury a la Berrios style is the more likely explanation. 

Did anyone bet Vlad guerrero to have above 140 games but below 10 homers? 

[jaysblue]

3 hours ago, Olerud363.354 said:

You'd have a point if Cease wasn't throwing 92.

I think injury a la Berrios style is the more likely explanation. 

Did anyone bet Vlad guerrero to have above 140 games but below 10 homers? 

I’d imagine there was also a fair amount of money bet on Vladdy going over his season home run total, especially coming off the postseason he had and then his performance in the WBC.

And with the Blue Jays making it all the way to the World Series last season, I’m also curious how much money was wagered before this season on Toronto to win the AL East, win the American League, make the playoffs, or get back to the World Series.

None of that means anything improper is happening, of course. But with sportsbooks, betting apps, player props, futures and parlays now so closely woven into the way fans experience professional sports, I do think it’s reasonable to pay closer attention to how much money is riding on certain outcomes.

At the very least, it makes some of these results feel more noticeable than they might have in the past.

[jaysblue]

10 hours ago, Omar said:

So tell us, how much did you lose last night?

I only bet the ponies haha

[Spanky__99]

1 hour ago, jaysblue said:

I only bet the ponies haha

1-800-GAMBLER

[Olerud363.354]

9 hours ago, jaysblue said:

I do think it’s reasonable to pay closer attention to how much money is riding on certain outcomes.

I think there is some truth to what you are saying.  I don't think Cease, or Vlad, or the Jays are doing anything improper.  However I also think the problem is WAY bigger the people acknowledge and MLB is kind of doing what they did with the steroid era.  They are aware of bigger problems but only acknowledge the small.

Emanual Clase blowing the ALCS on purpose.  So much smoke there and no one hardly talks about it.  Check out his regular season and playoff stats.  So it's like there are levels to this.

1. Emanual Clase just thew balls on first pitch - bad but not game changing.

2. Clase purposely blew the ALCS

3. It's everywhere.  Everyone is blowing everything on purpose for the gamblers.

I think we are at 2 for sure, but probably not 3, but also somehow barely acknowledging 1.  an obvious case. 

[jaysblue]

10 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

1-800-GAMBLER

Looks like I win our Ernie Clement bet. Unless he goes out and mashes all of next week haha. 

[jaysblue]

2 hours ago, Olerud363.354 said:

However I also think the problem is WAY bigger the people acknowledge and MLB is kind of doing what they did with the steroid era.  They are aware of bigger problems but only acknowledge the small.

That’s kind of where I’m at with it. I wonder if 10–20 years from now we look back at this era of professional sports the same way we look back at baseball’s steroid era - where the problems were much broader than what was publicly acknowledged at the time, and the league was slow to seriously confront them.

I’m not saying MLB is outright fixing games. There’s no evidence to make that claim. But I do wonder whether there are integrity issues connected to the enormous growth of sports betting that we simply don’t know the full extent of yet, and whether leagues have enough incentive to aggressively investigate something that has also become a major part of their business.

MLB already has extensive relationships with the sports-betting industry, and this year it went even further by naming Polymarket its official Prediction Market Exchange partner. MLB says that partnership includes integrity safeguards and cooperation with regulators, which is obviously important. But at the same time, it shows just how intertwined professional baseball and wagering have become.

That’s why I think the steroid-era comparison is interesting. Back then, people could see things that didn’t look right long before the full scope of the problem became publicly understood. My concern is that we could eventually look back at the 2020s and say the same thing about gambling and sports integrity - that warning signs were there, but the leagues tended to address individual incidents rather than seriously questioning the larger environment they had helped create.

[Spanky__99]

4 hours ago, jaysblue said:

Looks like I win our Ernie Clement bet. Unless he goes out and mashes all of next week haha. 

Should've took the Varsho bet too... 😜🖕