Sports

What Atkins does next will be critical for Blue Jays after stunning setback

Published

2 years ago

October 12, 2022

TORONTO – There’s no making what happened to the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 any better, nothing anyone can say to ease the anger, erase the hurt, or change the bitter outcome. Much like the 1985 American League Championship Series, the seven straight losses to close out 1987 and the playoff drubbings in 1989 and 1991, the wild-card series against the Seattle Mariners will be part of the franchise narrative until a new round of October success ensures it’s not.

This is the show-us-don’t-tell-us space in which the Blue Jays are now firmly planted.

Still, how general manager Ross Atkins and the baseball operations department process this is vital, because the next steps really matter.

Absent long-term extensions for cornerstones Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and, time to include him in this category, Alek Manoah, the clock is ticking on this core. The bullpen can’t be a soft-spot again in 2023 after costing the club a trip to the playoffs in 2021 and undermining their chances against the Mariners this year. They can’t spend another summer working through the issues with consistency, focus and attention to detail that, particularly early in 2022, nearly submarined their season.

Having whiffed in the hiring of Charlie Montoyo, with whom it’s reasonable to wonder if he ever really meshed, Atkins must get the hiring of the next Blue Jays manager right, which is why he left himself some very notable wiggle room even after saying that, “I think it will be very difficult for us to find better than John Schneider.”

“Out of respect for the organization, out of respect for John Schneider, I do want time to work through the process with him,” Atkins added during his season-wrap meeting with media Tuesday.

Translated from executive-speak, every single thing the Blue Jays do must run through their beloved processes and they need to go through one before removing Schneider’s interim tag. That will involve, at a minimum, talking internally about a few other names but the bigger piece will be Atkins and Schneider both hammering out what a long-term relationship looks like.

It worked over 74 games this summer because it had to after Montoyo’s firing but, over the long-term, are they ready to work together? Do they see eye-to-eye on enough things, including a balance of control? Can they build a trust that never developed between Atkins and Montoyo? Can they avoid the same pitfalls?

No one should doubt Schneider’s commitment to the Blue Jays after two decades with the organization, but with four other vacancies around the majors, he’d be well within his rights to explore his options, too.

Still, given the way he worked to establish consistent requirements for his players, emphasized attention to detail, both publicly (think of him calling out Guerrero Jr. for poor baserunning) and privately quashed moments of carelessness, and tried to mould the clubhouse into a more cohesive group, he established himself as the right person for the job.

“If you think about his history with this organization and his history with the players, you’re seeing how he handled the pressure, seeing how he handled decision-making, how he handled communication, we feel that he’s a very strong candidate,” said Atkins. “And if you put all of those pieces together and then knowing what we know about external candidates, I feel like it would be very difficult to do better than him.”

Resolution on that front should come in the next two or three weeks, with decisions on the coaching staff to follow, and while there’s plenty more on the docket, in some ways it’s the platform for everything that’s to follow.

After all, no matter what the Blue Jays do from a roster standpoint, and we’ll delve into that in a bit, the players must be deployed effectively. To do so requires alignment from the moment of acquisition, ensuring that the coaching staff knows how the player fits and how to help him deliver optimal performance. There needs to be more trust all around.

The Blue Jays need only to look at how they didn’t perform to their talent level on a consistent basis until after Montoyo’s dismissal, going 46-42 under him before a 46-28 finish under Schneider. Further closing the gap between how ability and preparation translated into consistent execution on the field is essential.

“I just feel like you continue to work to make it better,” said Atkins. “John Schneider was a big step in that process and that’s why he’s put himself in a good position.”

Personnel is part of that equation and despite the post-season outcome, worth remembering is that the Blue Jays won 92 games and have consecutive 90-win seasons for just the second time franchise history, so the roster starts in a good position.

With Ross Stripling ($3.79 million) and David Phelps ($1.75 million) the club’s only pending free agents, very little money is coming off the books and with 13 players eligible for arbitration, simply retaining their current roster will be significantly more expensive. Based on MLB Trade Rumors’ projections, the cost of Guerrero Jr. ($14.8 million), Teoscar Hernandez ($14.1 million) and Bichette ($6.1 million) and Jordan Romano ($4.4 million) will rise roughly $20 million alone.

As a result, the likelihood is that the Blue Jays, having shopped in the upper-end aisles (signing Hyun Jin Ryu, George Springer, Kevin Gausman and extending Jose Berrios) the past three winters, will likely need to make trades to get back there this winter. The financial flexibility of years past won’t return until after 2023, when several significant contracts, including that of Ryu, comes of the books.

Hernandez is one name to watch either way, as Springer – who suffered a concussion and a shoulder sprain in his collision with Bichette on Saturday and will soon be cleared for travel to determine if he needs surgery to remove a bone spur on his troublesome right elbow – may be better off in right field instead of centre.

A left-handed or switch-hitting centre-fielder would be ideal and one could perhaps be acquired with their surplus of catchers. The St. Louis Cardinals, set to lose the retiring Yadier Molina, have Dylan Carlson and right-fielder Lars Nootbar and make for an interesting potential match.

Regardless, balancing out a right-handed heavy lineup has long been a desire but one that’s easier said than done when the acquisition cost is factored in for a potentially marginal gain. There’s little point in change for the sake of change.

Yet, worth noting is Atkins pointing out that “there is something to having similar types of hitters and game-planning for them that we need to dig deeper into and how we can account for that and offset that.” He is essentially acknowledging his lineup may need to be more diverse.

Stripling’s potential departure leaves a rotation fronted by Manoah, Gausman and Berrios, with Yusei Kikuchi and Mitch White as potential options for the mix. At least one, if not two arms is needed there while the bullpen needs more swing and miss, something Atkins acknowledged contributed to Saturday’s stunning setback.

Nate Pearson and Julian Merryweather are among internal options there, but like Kikuchi, they can’t be counted on to be major contributors. Building out a better layer of minor-league depth will be needed and there’s also a private acknowledgement that the Blue Jays should have done more on the minor-league free agent front coming out of the lockout, rather than counting on Bowden Francis, Thomas Hatch, Anthony Kay and Pearson to provide a layer of protection.

All of it will be done with the aim of avoiding a repeat of the weekend, when the Blue Jays went into a series with the Mariners expecting to be in Houston facing the Astros this week instead of home, pondering what went wrong and how to get better.

There will be a deep dive into that, too, trying to decide how much to read into a two-game sample, although one that came amid the highly charged pressures of the post-season.

“Some, for sure. We definitely want to think about why that occurred,” said Atkins. “Why were we out in two games and what needs to change to decrease the likelihood of that? But I still feel that the hardest thing to do is to win a division to get into the playoffs and you put yourself in those positions to then be successful. But yes, we definitely need to be thinking about that and determine how to weigh that we’ve just started that process.”

After adding to the wrong end of franchise lore, it’s the only path forward for the Blue Jays.

Source link

Sports

NHL roundup: Hurricanes beat Flyers 6-4 for seventh straight win

Published

11 hours ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Martin Necas scored a go-ahead goal with 29 seconds left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-4 on Tuesday night.

It was the seventh straight win for the Hurricanes, who also got goals from Jack Roslovic, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson and Jackson Blake. Seth Jarvis added an empty-net goal in the final seconds.

Necas typically saves his game-winners for overtime, with nine in his career, but he was able to take care of business in regulation with his team-best seventh goal of the season.

Travis Konecny scored two goals and had two assists for the Flyers. Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett also scored for Philadelphia.

Aleksei Kolosov made 28 saves for the Flyers, who trailed 2-1, 3-1 and 4-3 but kept coming back. Carolina’s Pyotr Kochetkov struggled in net allowing four goals on just 16 shots.

Elsewhere in the NHL on Tuesday:

—

SABRES 5 SENATORS 1

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Bowen Byram and Tage Thompson scored 16 seconds apart to open the third period, and Buffalo snapped a three-game skid with a win over Ottawa.

Byram scored twice, JJ Peterka had two goals and an assist and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 37 saves.

Ridly Greig converted his own rebound in cutting Buffalo’s lead to 2-1 with 7:31 left in the second period. Linus Ullmark made 29 saves in dropping to 1-4 in his past five starts.

Buffalo went up 3-1 on Byram’s second goal 21 seconds into the third period. The defenceman’s shot from inside the blue line sneaked through Ullmark, with the puck rolling down the goalie’s pad, dropping into the crease and trickling across the line. Thompson scored when he crashed the net, was knocked over by defender Jake Sanderson and was lying in the crease when Alex Tuch’s shot went in off his shoulder.

—

MAPLE LEAFS 4 BRUINS 0

TORONTO (AP) — Anthony Stolarz made 29 saves for his first shutout of the season in Toronto’s 4-0 victory over Boston.

Morgan Rielly had a goal and two assists as Toronto connected three times on the power play. William Nylander and Matthew Knies added a goal and an assist each. Mitch Marner had two assists of his own. Steven Lorentz rounded out the scoring into the empty net.

The Leafs played without captain Auston Matthews, who is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Jeremy Swayman made 23 stops for Boston, which was coming off consecutive weekend shutouts of the Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken.

Toronto’s porous 31st-ranked power play scored for the second time in as many games at 8:44 of the second period when Rielly fired through a screen. Nylander banked in his team-leading 10th goal of the season on another man advantage 1:14 later for a 2-0 lead.

The Bruins entered the game 8-0-0 in the regular season against their Atlantic Division rival dating back to Jan. 14, 2023.

—

FLAMES 3 CANADIENS 2 (OT)

MONTREAL (AP) — Matt Coronato scored twice as Calgary came back to defeat Montreal in overtime.

Coronato tied the game with 2:46 remaining in regulation when he cruised into the slot and went off the post and in. He then buried the winning goal seven seconds into the extra period.

Connor Zary also scored for Calgary, which won its second game in seven outings. Dustin Wolf stopped 21 shots.

Joel Armia — with a short-handed goal — and Brendan Gallagher scored for Montreal (4-7-2). Armia also provided an assist, while Sam Montembeault made 32 saves as the Canadiens’ losing streak extended to four games.

Zary opened the scoring with his third 4:20 into the second period when he pounced on a loose puck in the slot and fired a shot past Montembeault.

Gallagher then slipped the puck between Wolf’s pads at 16:23 to level the score with his fifth of the season.

—

BLUES 3 LIGHTNING 2

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jordan Kyrou, Alexey Toropchenko and Oskar Sundqvist scored to help St. Louis beat Tampa Bay 3-2.

Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for his 149th career win moving him past Jake Allen for second place in franchise history, just two wins behind Mike Liut’s 151.

Nick Perbix and Victor Hedman scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning who have lost three straight games.

Kyrou scored his fourth goal of the season 8:51 into the third period to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead.

Toropchenko scored his first goal of the season with 1:35 remaining in the second period to put St. Louis ahead 2-1 after Sundqvist tied the game with his first of the season 7:47 into the period.

—

ISLANDERS 4 PENGUINS 3 (SO)

NEW YORK (AP) — Bo Horvat scored the only goal in a shootout and New York rallied past Pittsburgh 4-3.

New York goalie Ilya Sorokin denied Rickard Rakell, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang in the shootout and finished with 32 saves. Kyle Palmieri had a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who trailed 3-1 midway through the third period.

Simon Holmstrom and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored in the third for New York. Horvat had two assists.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist to lead Pittsburgh. Crosby got his 598th career goal, and Michael Bunting also scored. Rakell added two assists.

Alex Nedeljkovich stopped 23 shots for the Penguins, who have lost seven of nine. They won their previous two following a six-game skid.

—

KINGS 5 WILD 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Trevor Lewis scored twice, Kevin Fiala added another on the power play and Los Angeles beat Minnesota 5-1.

Warren Foegele and Quinton Byfield also scored for Los Angeles, which was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a 3-0 win in Nashville a night earlier. David Rittich made 23 saves for the Kings.

Fiala, who was traded to Los Angeles in 2022 by Minnesota for a first-round pick draft pick and defenceman Brock Faber, scored his seventh goal of the season. He now has three goals and six assists in his last seven games against the Wild.

Minnesota, which had won three in a row, opened the scoring in the second period on Zach Bogosian’s first goal of the season. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped 23 shots for the Wild.

—

JETS 3 UTAH 0

WINNIPEG, Man. (AP) — Nino Niederreiter scored twice in his 900th NHL career game and Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves to help Winnipeg defeat Utah 3-0.

It was Hellebuyck’s second shutout of the season and 39th of this career.

Gabriel Vilardi also scored for the Jets. Adam Lowry assisted on both goals by Niederreiter.

Utah ended a run of picking up points in three consecutive games (1-0-2).

Karel Vejmelka stopped 25 shots for Utah in its second stop on a four-game road trip.

Jets winger Kyle Connor had his franchise-record, season-opening points streak end at 12 games.

—

AVALANCHE 6 KRAKEN 3

DENVER (AP) — Arturri Lehkonen scored the go-ahead goal on a power play in his season debut and Nathan MacKinnon had five assists as Colorado beat Seattle 6-3.

Mikko Rantanen added two goals for the Avalanche, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Ivan Ivan, Nikolai Kovalenko and Chris Wagner also scored for Colorado.

Cale Makar had two assists but the star defenceman barely played in the second half of the game and appeared to be slowed by an apparent injury during a brief shift.

MacKinnon and Makar extended their season-opening point streaks to 13 games.

Lehkonen played for the first time since off-season shoulder surgery.

Jared McCann, Jaden Schwartz and Brandon Montour scored for the Kraken.

—

CANUCKS 5 DUCKS 1

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Brock Boeser, Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood had a goal and an assist apiece, and Quinn Hughes recorded his 300th career assist in Vancouver’s victory over Anaheim.

Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson also scored and Hughes had three assists for the Canucks, who have won six of eight. Kevin Lankinen made 21 saves in Vancouver’s sixth consecutive win over the Ducks.

Olen Zellweger scored a power-play goal early in the first period for Anaheim, which has lost seven of nine. Lukas Dostal stopped 31 shots.

Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko took shots from teammates again after the morning skate, and he could return to practice this week. The Southern California native and 2023-24 Vezina Trophy finalist hasn’t played this season due to a knee injury incurred late last season.

—

SHARKS 2 BLUE JACKETS 1 (OT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Alex Wennberg scored 3:11 into overtime and San Jose celebrated the return of No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini with a win over Columbus.

Defenceman Jack Thompson scored his first career goal for the Sharks (4-8-2), who entered the night with the worst record in the NHL. San Jose has won four of five.

Celebrini, the top pick in the 2024 NHL draft, missed 12 games with a hip injury he sustained in the season opener Oct. 10 — an injury first incurred during the pre-season. Celebrini didn’t score and missed a shot early in overtime.

San Jose goalie Vitek Vanacek was fantastic in net, making 49 saves.

Blue Jackets right wing Kirill Marchenko scored for the second consecutive game. Columbus (5-6-1) has lost three straight.

Source link

Sports

Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

1 day ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

Source link

Sports

Allen nets shutout as Devils burn Oilers 3-0

Published

2 days ago

November 4, 2024

Anne Joseph

EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.

The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.

Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.

TAKEAWAYS

Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.

Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.

KEY MOMENT

New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.

KEY RETURN?

Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.

OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN

The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.

The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.

UP NEXT

Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

Source link