Matthew Creally

Baseball happens fast. One day, the Toronto Blue Jays were celebrating sweet victory over the game's Evil Empire in the ALDS, and not even a week later, they're embarking on a road trip to Seattle with no guarantee of returning to save their season. The odds and recent history of teams coming back after losing the first two games of a best-of-seven series at home have been an exhaustive part of the discourse surrounding this club lately, so let's look ahead to Game 3 – a contest that would change the dynamic of the ALCS with a Blue Jays win. The man leading this mission is Shane Bieber, who enjoyed a solid initial return from Tommy John surgery and made seven starts for Toronto down the stretch. His lone start in the ALDS, however, was not good; he allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits, recording two strikeouts and a walk in 2.2 innings, taking 54 pitches to get there. Unfortunately, the box score doesn't quite do it justice because nine of the 12 balls in play Bieber surrendered went down as hard-hit. That's 75%! Only four of those 12 batted balls stayed on the ground, and three of them came off the bat at 104 mph or harder. The Yankees timed him up and knocked him around, getting to the bullpen early and winning 9-6 as a result. Bieber's teammates picked him up, as he did for them a couple times late this past summer, and won the series, giving him his biggest chance yet to earn some goodwill among a fanbase that has crashed back down to earth. During his media availability before Game 2 against the Mariners, Bieber said he felt good about his outing in New York from an execution standpoint, essentially saying the ball went where he wanted it to out of his hand. His stuff was fine, with the velocity of all his pitches clocking in slightly above normal and the carry of his fastball remaining sufficient, all good signs for someone coming off a long-term injury. Still, whether he was properly executing is up for debate. Bieber knows himself better than any of us do, and when an accomplished big league pitcher prides himself on his execution in a start that didn't go his way less than 48 hours before the biggest outing of his life, I'm inclined to take his word for it. Regardless, the signs weren't all encouraging. One of Bieber's post-surgery adjustments was the introduction of a kick changeup. It registered six more inches of drop than his previous version of the pitch while maintaining high-80s velocity, and it scored as his best offering according to Stuff+ (103, per FanGraphs). He threw 11 such changeups in Game 3 of the ALDS, and none of them resulted in a called strike or swing and miss. Just three of them were in the strike zone at all; he kept missing up and away to lefties, and two of the ones he zoned left the bat at 104 mph. His fastball fared better, living in the zone far more consistently and leading to some called strikes, but it, too, was hit hard (93 mph AVG EV on 7 BIP). Against lefties, Bieber usually lives on the upper corners of the zone with his heater, while painting the whole outer half against righties. It missed over the plate, both up and down, quite a bit to New York's lefty hitters and sometimes ran in on their righties. The righties and lefties alike jumped on the changes in location. The most important thing Bieber needs to do at T-Mobile Park in Game 3 of this series is get his changeup back in order. It misses bats and generates groundballs more than any other pitch in his arsenal. The Mariners have three home runs from the left side so far in the ALCS, and when Bieber's changeup is on, it can neutralize any lefty. Look for him to throw this pitch down in the zone more often than he did in his last start, out of harm's way but close enough for Seattle to chase. The head-to-head matchup with the switch-hitting Jorge Polanco is particularly intriguing here. He has been hitting out of his mind for the past few days, and his swing from the left side is flatter than average and quicker than his righty swing, which gives him an ideal profile to square up fastballs in the zone but not pitches diving away from him. He also had a swing-and-miss rate just under 40% against changeups and splitters in 2025. This pitch will be key to taking the wind out of the sails of Polanco, as well as Cal Raleigh (who will hit left-handed vs Bieber) and Josh Naylor. Another strategy to watch out for is Bieber's deployment of his cutter. It was only a secondary pitch for him in the regular season, and not one of his main ones either, but he still used it between 10 and 15% of the time to both sides of the plate, especially early in counts. He located it on the outside half of the plate in both platoon matchups, and while opponents frequently sprayed it for line drives, it had the lowest average exit velocity of any pitch in his repertoire. However, it got lost in the shuffle during his last regular season start. He only threw four cutters in that game, and in his ALDS outing, he did away with it entirely, not using it at all at Yankee Stadium. Whether he has simply lost feel for it in recent weeks or this is part of a more deliberate plan of attack is tough to say, but if he's able, it might serve him to use it now. For all the excellence that Raleigh displayed at the plate this year, he hit just .190 when facing cutters, the only pitch type he had a negative run value against. Raleigh's heatmaps show a pronounced power outage on pitches up and in, which would be the natural path of Bieber's cutter if he elevates it on him. Relatively speaking, cutters gave Julio Rodríguez even more fits; he posted a light .115 batting average and .308 slugging percentage against them, striking out nearly 30% of the time on a pitch that isn't designed for swing-and-miss. Rodríguez can do damage and swings very hard, but he chases a lot and doesn't make much contact, making the cutter a logical option to disrupt his timing. There might not be a better time for the cutter to make a return to Bieber's game plan. It should not have taken this long for Seattle to start receiving recognition for how balanced their lineup is. They struck out at a virtually identical clip to the Yankees while hitting for fewer home runs during the regular season, but their 113 wRC+ placed third in MLB. They were top-five in bat speed this year as well, and looking at their lineup hitter by hitter clearly shows why they're dangerous. Their biggest contributors this series (Raleigh, Polanco, Naylor, and Rodríguez) are all guys who can make pitchers pay for a mistake fastball. Raleigh and Rodríguez often go big-game hunting, while Polanco and Naylor are more balanced with fewer holes in their approach. Meanwhile, the guys who have taken more of a backseat this series (Randy Arozarena, Eugenio Suárez, Dominic Canzone) crush secondaries in the zone. If Bieber hangs a slider to any of those hitters, it's likely ending up in the seats. In sum, this is a group that will require Bieber to stay on his toes and change his strategy with every hitter. Their combination of power guys, contact guys, steep swings, flat swings, fastball mashers, and off-speed/breaking-ball hunters is a tall task for any opponent. If Shane Bieber can rediscover his changeup, refine his fastball location compared to his last outing, and even mix in a few cutters to throw off the middle of the order, he should give the Jays a decent shot at getting themselves back in this series. View full article

With Sunday's victory in Kansas City, the Blue Jays snapped a four-game losing streak and officially clinched a postseason spot. It has been an impressive year that fans shouldn't take for granted; just a season after winning 74 games and finishing last in the AL East, their 90-66 record is the best in the Junior Circuit. They'll have the division title and a first-round bye by the end of the week if they can simply tread water. While these are all huge developments for the franchise and should be celebrated, even the short-term future is difficult to size up. The Blue Jays have been greater than the sum of their parts, which is a necessary trait for a winning team, but there isn't a ton of proven, elite-level talent here. They may have 90 wins, but their run differential suggests that total should be lower. For most of the year, they've been a joy to watch, but they've done so despite showing many indicators of being a fortunate ball club. Of course, it's now 2025, a time when run differential is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our ability to quantify the impact of luck and determine how sustainable team performance is. Let's see what else we can find. Pythagorean win-loss record is, at this point, a fairly mainstream smell test that's used to determine the legitimacy of a team's actual win-loss record. It uses runs scored and runs allowed to determine what we'd expect a team's record to be. At the time of writing, the Blue Jays' record of 90-66 outpaces their Pythagorean record of 84-72 by six wins. The only team with a greater difference between the two is the Cleveland Guardians, who sit seven wins above their Pythagorean total. This is the kind of thing that can even out in no time flat. Remember 2016, when the Wild Card-winning Blue Jays swept the top-seed Rangers out of the ALDS? That wasn't as much of an upset as the bracket would show. Texas went 95-67 that year, but their Pyth. record was 82-80, the biggest difference (+13) in MLB history at the time (the 2021 Mariners finished 14 wins above). On the other hand, this could also be some sort of extremely long balancing act by the baseball gods. Remember 2021, when the Blue Jays went on a second-half heater to win 91 games but missed the playoffs because of how good their division was? Their Pyth. record was 99-63, suggesting they should've been playoff-bound. We can go deeper with this, though. FanGraphs has a modernized version of Pythagorean record called PythagenPat, which is more accurately sensitive to changes in run-scoring environment. That method expects the Blue Jays to be an 85-71 club at this point – one win better than the original formula says, but still short of the Yankees' and Red Sox's expected totals. Also available at FanGraphs is BaseRuns, a formula that uses expected runs for/against instead of actual by approximating those numbers using figures such as hits, walks, home runs, and sacrifices, and determining expected win totals from there. You could argue that actual run totals are noisy enough that BaseRuns is the most advanced theory in this realm of discussion, but it's also the tool that's least convinced by what the Blue Jays have done this season. Their BaseRuns record is 83-73, seven wins below reality. Of course, none of this is to discourage belief in this team. At worst, they're deserving of a win total between 83 and 85 at the moment. That's still worthy of far more respect than they got going into the season, and it's a marked improvement over last year regardless. What it does illuminate is how thin the margins are, especially going into this final week. If any of these three record estimators were perfectly reflected in reality, the Blue Jays would be either the fifth or sixth seed in the AL instead of being in pole position. Personally, what worries me the most about this team's chances in October is the lack of star power atop the rotation. Acquiring Shane Bieber at the deadline solved that to an extent, and Kevin Gausman has had a monster second half, but the fact that they're doing this without a clear ace feels fishy. A number one starter isn't necessarily an essential ingredient for winning a championship, but go back and look at all the World Series winners so far this decade. The only one with a below-average regular season rotation was last year's Dodgers, but they had a lockdown bullpen and more than enough offense to get the job done. Toronto's starters rank 20th in ERA and 24th in fWAR this year, and in a short series against tough competition, that could get exposed. If everything you've read to this point is an argument that the Blue Jays will struggle in the playoffs and that they aren't truly qualified to receive a Wild Card bye, then consider the rest an argument to the opposite. Toronto is once again leading MLB in Statcast's fielding run value, and despite some midseason lapses, they're a contender to win another Gold Glove Team Award this year. When there aren't All-Stars up and down the lineup or rotation, the standard for the defense is higher, and the Jays continue to show up in the field. That's part of why their position player fWAR total is second in the big leagues, behind only the Yankees. Conventional baseball wisdom suggests a team worth 0.0 WAR would finish with around 48 wins, and the Blue Jays' total fWAR, including the pitching staff, is 42.0. According to WAR, their 90 wins are no fluke at all. Another reason as to why their position players have accrued so much WAR is their offense, which isn't flashy, but has proven both effective and deep. Their 112 wRC+ is fifth in MLB. They hit the ball hard, and while they don't hit it in the air that much, aren't especially disciplined, and aren't actionable on the basepaths, they make a ton of contact. Not only have they struck out less than any other team in baseball this year, they're on track for the third-lowest era-and-park-adjusted K% of any team in the past 25 years. This is the approach that those 2014 and 2015 pennant-winning Royals teams swore by: Put the ball in play, hit line drives, and keep the pitcher on his toes at all times. We shouldn't disregard, however, the fact that the offense is also top-five by xwOBA. Further, their xwOBA is 10 points higher than their wOBA – it's not like they've been riding batted ball luck to victory the whole way. On top of all that...they beat good teams! Toronto's record of 47-40 against teams with a .500 record or better is tied with the Mariners for best in the AL. Their division is a gauntlet every year and has given them fits recently, but they've turned that around in 2025 as well. Only the Red Sox have a better head-to-head record against AL East competition. In order to maintain good standing in the division and the playoff picture, it's imperative to defeat both top rivals and good teams in general as much as possible, and this year's Blue Jays have done that and then some. They're a confounding team in so many ways. My expectations going into the year were shattered, which I'm sure is the case for many others. On paper, they aren't as menacing as the recent playoff teams in franchise history, but they win close games, they beat good teams, they frequently come back in the late innings, and they show the kind of fight that makes the fanbase proud. Can that all be taken at face value? Ultimately, I wholeheartedly believe the Toronto Blue Jays deserve the playoff spot they just clinched, but some form of luck is responsible for them being a first-place team hoping to secure a bye instead of a Wild Card team hoping to win the sprint to reach the playoffs. While the thought of a bye is certainly tempting, it will hardly matter when the ALDS gets underway in a week and a half. This is why they play the games. They got in, and they earned this opportunity. This year's team hasn't let many of those go to waste. All figures entering play on September 22, 2025. View full article