BALTIMORE — It’s that time of year. Fewer than 30 games to play; only a few separating the Toronto Blue Jays and their rivals in either direction; MLB’s postseason scheduled to begin a month from Wednesday.
Stretch drive, crunch time, call it what you want. Just don’t be surprised if the Blue Jays lineup is a little more fluid than usual.
Heating up at the plate like Bo Bichette, who entered Monday batting .360/.439/.540 over the last two weeks? Up into the three-hole you go.
Searching for something like Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who hit .167/.216/.271 over the same span? Dropped down to eighth.
Deep in the weeds like Whit Merrifield, who’s mired in a .163/.250/.233 funk that began four weeks ago? Starting on the bench for the seventh time in Toronto’s last 12 games.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider no longer has the luxury of giving slumping players a runway to snap out of it. He has to embrace recency bias rather than working to suppress it, weighing what a player’s done lately more heavily than what an objective projection suggests he ought to do with time. He can’t worry about hurt feelings and egos. If you’re performing, you’re going to get opportunities. If you’re not, you’re not.
“You’ve got all the numbers, and you have all the projections, and you have all the plans. But performance plays a big part in what we’re doing right now,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Monday morning before his team took both ends of a Labour Day doubleheader with the Baltimore Orioles, 7-3 and 8-4. “We’re trying to just put ourselves in position to win each night.”
And, wouldn’t you know it, there was Bichette right in the middle of everything Monday. He went 3-for-5 in the opener, helping extend Blue Jays’ leads in both the fifth and ninth innings as his club earned some breathing room ahead of the Orioles in an intense, tightly-contested matinee. Then he came to the plate with two on and two out in the third inning of the nightcap, and took a pretty big cut at the first pitch he saw.
You’re going to have to push that fence a bit further back to contain that one, which travelled a mere 412 feet at 109.4 m.p.h. off Bichette’s bat.
Three innings later, Bichette came back up and liked the first pitch he saw again. Only this time he took it in the opposite direction.
And what do you think Bichette did in his next trip to the plate? Took a pitch, naturally. Then he let it rip again.
So, make that three homers in the span of four pitches seen, part of a 6-for-10 day. Give Bichette 12 hits and a walk over his first 23 plate appearances of September, and a .328/.371/.595 line since Aug. 4.
“That’s just a really good hitter getting hot. We’ve said this all along — that Bo is a huge part of our team and offence. And right now, he’s locked in,” Schneider said. “Unbelievable performance by him. Impressive to go left field, right field, and left-centre. I’ve been saying it all along — he’s a special hitter. And when he’s locked in, there’s not many better than him. So, getting hot at the right time, He’s really dangerous right now.”
That right there is why Bichette’s going to be hitting near the top of Toronto’s order for the foreseeable future, after being dropped to its bottom third only three weeks ago. At the time of that batting order demotion, Bichette was hitting .259/.300/.427, following up last year’s 122 wRC+ and 121 OPS+ season with mere league-average numbers in each category.
And with only 28 games remaining, there likely isn’t enough time for Bichette to bring his season-long line back up to the standard he set for himself in the past. But there is enough time for him to stay hot and help propel a Blue Jays lineup built to overcome the team’s shaky run-prevention with a high volume of run production.
We all know Bichette heating up and playing closer to his potential is one of the highest leverage outcomes the Blue Jays could get over the season’s final month. But Bichette wouldn’t even call this hot.
“You talk to Bo and he feels the same way. He’s like, ‘I haven’t even got it going. I haven’t even come close to getting it going,’” said Kevin Gausman, who put on a stirring performance in Monday’s opener.
“Bo is a guy that can change the game with any swing. And as a pitcher, watching Bo hit, there are not many places you can go, right? There’s not many holes. He handles the breaking stuff exceptionally well. He can get to high heaters. And if you throw him a fastball away, he has no problem slapping it into right field. From a pitching aspect, he’s got to be a tough guy to face.”
The Blue Jays will be a tough team to face if they can continue playing the way they have over the first five games of this road trip. After sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend by a combined score of 12-4, Toronto secured both ends of Monday’s doubleheader against the Orioles, 15-7. They put up 25 hits over 18 innings, extended both starters into the seventh, and got 5.1 innings of two-run relief from their bullpen, as six relievers — none of them named Romano, Bass, or Garcia — combined to allow only three hits and no walks while striking out four.
And, most importantly, they dealt a severe blow to a division rival that had recently crept a little too close for comfort behind the Blue Jays in the American League wild-card race. Toronto now holds a 4.5-game lead over the Orioles for the third and final wild card spot, with an opportunity to bury them 6.5 games behind with wins on Tuesday and Wednesday. Even with a pair of losses, the Blue Jays will have ceded no ground to the Orioles in this series.
“I think as a group we understand the magnitude of what’s going on right now. We did a great job today. Tomorrow, we’ve got to show up and do the same,” Bichette said. “The goal was to win two games today. So, we accomplished that. And now the goal is to win tomorrow.”
After Gausman manoeuvred his way out of multiple jams in Monday’s first game, Jose Berrios tried to play the same high-stakes game in the second. He stranded a runner in the first and erased a lead-off single with a double play in the second. But Rougned Odor got him for a long solo shot to left, the AL-leading 28th homer Berrios has allowed this season.
Berrios went back to working around traffic from there, stranding runners in the third, fourth, and sixth. He opened the seventh with a walk, single, single to load the bases. And after a run crossed on catcher’s interference by Danny Jansen, his night was done.
“I’m feeling good. I’ve been throwing the ball pretty well,” Berrios said. “The first three innings, they were making some hard contact against me. But we figured it out and we made adjustments and started throwing better pitches, more quality pitches.”
It wasn’t Berrios’ crispest outing by any stretch. He earned only four swinging strikes and allowed eight balls in play at 100 m.p.h. or harder. His fastball didn’t generate a single whiff. He threw his curveball only 18 per cent of the time, his lowest rate of the season. Berrios’ performance has been perplexing since literally the season’s opening inning, which he couldn’t complete. And that trend continues.
But thanks to Trevor Richards bailing him out of that difficult seventh in the pouring rain, Berrios’ final line — three earned runs over six innings — was one the Blue Jays will take every time out from a guy who’s starting either the third or fourth contest of a seven-game playoff series.
And, zooming out, it was Berrios’ fourth straight outing completing 5.2 innings or more. He’s pitched to a 3.70 ERA over that 24.1-inning span, striking out 21 while walking five. He hasn’t looked his best; he hasn’t been elite. But he’s been good enough. And that’s what the Blue Jays need at this time of year, when small-sample success and what-have-you-done-for-me-lately’s take on more importance than objective projections and taking-the-longview’s.
Berrios won’t be happy with his overall stats at the end of the year, but he does have an opportunity to help his team get where it’s trying to go by pitching closer to his potential down the stretch. Just as Bichette won’t be thrilled with his 2022 results when all is said and done, that hasn’t stopped him from seizing the wheel this month and forcing his way back up to the top of Toronto’s lineup.
“I’m just trying to compete every day and give my best,” Bichette said. “I think today was probably the most competitive we’ve been all year. That’s a good thing at this time of year, especially in this series. So, we’ve got two more and then obviously the rest of the month. And we’ll just continue to come here and put our best foot forward and see what we can accomplish.”
The French league’s legal commission has ordered Paris Saint-Germain to pay Kylian Mbappé the 55 million euros ($61 million) in unpaid wages that he claims he’s entitled to, the league said Thursday.
The league confirmed the decision to The Associated Press without more details, a day after the France superstar rejected a mediation offer by the commission in his dispute with his former club.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former football star Reggie Bush was at his Encino home Tuesday night when three male suspects attempted to break in, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
“Everyone is safe,” Bush said in a text message to the newspaper.
The Los Angeles Police Dept. told the Times that a resident of the house reported hearing a window break and broken glass was found outside. Police said nothing was stolen and that three male suspects dressed in black were seen leaving the scene.
Bush starred at Southern California and in the NFL. The former running back was reinstated as the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner this year. He forfeited it in 2010 after USC was hit with sanctions partly related to Bush’s dealings with two aspiring sports marketers.
VANCOUVER – A fresh face has been gracing the B.C. Lions‘ highlight reels in recent weeks.
Midway through his second CFL campaign, wide receiver Ayden Eberhardt has contributed touchdowns in two consecutive games.
The 26-year-old wide receiver from Loveland, Colo., was the lone B.C. player to reel in a passing major in his team’s 37-23 victory over the league-leading Montreal Alouettes last Friday. The week before, he notched his first CFL touchdown in the Lions’ win over the Ottawa Redblacks.
“It’s been awesome. It’s been really good,” Eberhardt said of his recent play. “At the end of the day, the biggest stat to me is if we win. But who doesn’t love scoring?”
He’ll look to add to the tally Friday when the Leos (7-6) host the Toronto Argonauts.
Eberhardt signed with B.C. as a free agent in January 2023 and spent much of last season on the practice squad before cementing a role on the roster this year.
The six-foot-two, 195-pound University of Wyoming product has earned more opportunities in his second season, said Lions’ head coach and co-general manager Rick Campbell.
“He’s a super hard worker and very smart. He understands, has high football IQ, as we call it,” Campbell said.
The fact that Eberhardt can play virtually every receiving position helps.
“He could literally go into a game and we could throw him into a spot and he’d know exactly what he’s doing,” the coach said. “That allows him to play fast and earn the quarterback’s trust. And you see him making plays.”
Eberhardt credited his teammates, coaches and the rest of the Lions’ staff with helping him prepare for any situation he might face. They’ve all spent time teaching him the ins and outs of the Canadian game, or go over the playbook and run routes after practice, he said.
“I’ve played every single position on our offence in a game in the last two years, which is kind of crazy. But I love playing football,” he said. “I want to play any position that the team needs me to play.”
While B.C.’s lineup is studded with stars like running back William Stanback — who has a CFL-high 938 rushing yards — and wide receiver Justin McInnis — who leads the league in both receiving yards (1,074) and receiving TDs (seven) — versatility has been a critical part of the team’s back-to-back wins.
“I think we’ve got a lot of talented guys who deserve to get the ball and make big plays when they have the ball in their hands. So it’s really my job to get them the ball as much as possible,” said quarterback Nathan Rourke.
“I think that makes it easy when you can lean on those guys and, really, we’re in a situation where anyone can have a big game. And I think that’s a good place to be.”
Even with a talented lineup, the Lions face a tough test against an eager Argos side.
Toronto lost its second straight game Saturday when it dropped a 41-27 decision to Ottawa.
“We’ll have our hands full,” Rourke said. “We’ll have to adjust on the fly to whatever their game plan is. And no doubt, they’ll be ready to go so we’ll have to be as well.”
The two sides have already met once this season when the Argos handed the Lions a 35-27 loss in Toronto back on June 9.
A win on Friday would vault B.C. to the top of the West Division standings, over the 7-6 Winnipeg Blue Bombers who are on a bye week.
Collecting that victory isn’t assured, though, even with Toronto coming in on a two-game skid, Campbell said.
“They’ve hit a little bit of a rut, but they’re a really good team,” he said. “They’re very athletic. And you can really see (quarterback Chad Kelly’s) got zip on the ball. When you see him in there, he can make all the throws. So we’re expecting their best shot.”
TORONTO ARGONAUTS (6-6) AT B.C. LIONS (7-6)
Friday, B.C. Place
HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE: The Lions boast a 4-1 home record this season, including a 38-12 victory over the Redblacks at Royal Athletic Park in Victoria, B.C., on Aug. 31. The Argos have struggled outside of BMO Field and hold a 1-5 away record. Trips to the West Coast haven’t been easy for Toronto in recent years — since 2003, the club is 4-14 in road games against B.C.
CENTURION: B.C. defensive back Garry Peters is set to appear in his 100th consecutive game. The 32-year-old from Conyers, Ga., is a two-time CFL all-star who has amassed 381 defensive tackles, 19 special teams tackles and 16 interceptions over seven seasons. “Just being on the field with the guys every day, running around, talking trash back and forth, it keeps me young,” Peters said. “It makes me feel good, and my body doesn’t really feel it. I’ve been blessed to be able to play 100 straight.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
