“You don’t like to get in the habit of doing it, that’s for sure”, said Toronto manager John Gibbons. I should’ve been more aggressive.
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Each player has continued to impact on defense, as they showed with a double play of the highest order in game one. Then Hosmer singled on a down-and-away pitch, scoring Zobrist and putting runners on first and third. Reliever Aaron Sanchez allowed another RBI single before completing the frame.
After another 1-2-3 inning from Price and a 1-2-3 seventh courtesy of Danny Duffy, the wheels came off for the Jays and Price. 286 (6-for-21) with a homer and three RBIs in six postseason games going into Saturday’s action.
Edinson Volquez planned to pitch the Toronto Blue Jays inside in Game 1 of their American League Championship Series, just as he did during their contentious series earlier this season. KC leads the series 1-0 with a win last night.
The reigning AL champions have won nine consecutive ALCS games dating to a seven-game series against Toronto in 1985, the year they won their only World Series. All but three of the previous 25 advanced to the World Series.
The one hope the Jays have is that they are coming back to Toronto, where they are just as dominant as the Royals have been at home this year. They also will need their offense to rebound. “We stayed with him in that sixth inning because we felt like his stuff was still good, but he just started battling his command”.
Price, who was acquired from Detroit at the trade deadline, dropped to 0-7 in seven career postseason starts.
He seemingly righted himself during the second half of the season and his performance and Johnny Cueto’s struggles helped make it easy for Yost to start him in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Houston Astros. “You play or there’s friends you come across that have done the same job as you; you pick up a lot of things from a lot of guys”.
“The blame should go on me today”, Goins said. They were down four runs in the eighth inning in the 2014 wild-card game to Oakland, but rallied to win.
The Blue Jays scored two runs in the sixth, when designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion’s single drove in third baseman Josh Donaldson with the first run. One out later, Troy Tulowitzki broke out of a deep offensive sleep with a double to right field that plated Bautista for Toronto’s third run.
Goins, who has made a few excellent plays this postseason, said he lost track of how far he went into right field and should not have waived off Bautista. Ventura then recorded three straight outs to limit the damage.
In Game 5 of the Divisional Playoffs, Stroman pitched 6.0 innings, giving up two runs, striking out four and walking one in a 6-3 victory over the Rangers. Ryan Goins, with his first hit of the post-season, added a two-out single in the fifth but was also stranded and the Jays trailed 3-0. “My fastball was good, outside part of the plate”, Volquez said in an on-field interview.
Donaldson made that reprieve stand up when he beat out a slow bouncer to the shortstop for an infield single. 083 in the postseason before his single scored Eric Hosmer and tied the score.
Young kid. At least he didn’t say immature like many critics have about starting pitcher Yordano Ventura.
Tulowitzki came into the game in a 2-for-25 slump.
Ventura gave up three runs on eight hits over 5 1/3 innings with six strikeouts and two walks.
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“I would like to have back the Gordon pitch, that was a two-seamer I threw right there and it just kind of ran back over the middle”, said Price.
