Why the Blue Jays believe they can still make the World Series

TORONTO – Nobody inside the Toronto Blue Jays’ clubhouse wanted to look much past the next game, the next day, the next chance to save their season. The human mind, though. It’s a tricky little machine. Win a game like the Blue Jays did early Tuesday evening to prolong the American League Championship Series, and then consider that a kid with all of 11 major league innings will be making the second start of his career Wednesday for the Cleveland Indians in Game 5, and then the Blue Jays throw their 20-game winner in Game 6, and by Game 7 all the pressure is on Cleveland and its starter going on three days’ rest for the second consecutive time, and, well, when the mind starts racing like that, when possibilities start to percolate, suddenly that pitch-black tunnel is bathing in more than a crack of light.

“With us having no margin of error, I can’t necessarily say we have the advantage,” Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista said. “But maybe we’re not in such a bad place after all.”

Even if momentum is unquantifiable, life is very much a tangible thing, and the Blue Jays’ 5-1 romp over Cleveland in Game 4 of the ALCS at Rogers Centre gave them another day, which this deep into the postseason is all they desire. Toronto lost the first three games of the series by five runs collectively, stunted by an Indians pitching staff that carved a lineup prone to Phoenix-in-summer, Minnesota-in-winter spells. The Blue Jays’ temperature regulated in Game 4 as they chased Indians ace Corey Kluber from his short-rest start after five innings, then piled on with three more late-inning runs for good measure.

And much as they desired the myopia rescuing oneself from a 3-0 deficit necessitates, their minds were already past Game 4, one not worth celebrating because they’d done what they needed to do, and onto Game 5, where someone named Ryan Merritt awaits.

Merritt, of the 11 major league innings, is something of an unknown quantity. When asked what he knows of Merritt, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said: “He’s left-handed. That’s all I know.” To fill things in a bit: He’s a lefty who stands about 6-foot, with an 87-mph fastball, an out-pitch changeup and a cutter and curveball he uses less frequently. In plate appearances against sub-88-mph fastballs from left-handers this season, the Blue Jays are slugging .684

“It’s something that could go either way,” Bautista said, “but with our experience in our lineup, I’m pretty sure he’s gonna be shaking in his boots more than we are.”

Beyond the matter of rattling footwear is the presence of Marco Estrada, the Blue Jays’ best postseason starter over the last two seasons. He dueled Kluber to a near-draw in Game 1, his home run ball to Francisco Lindor the difference in the 2-0 game. Estrada’s postseason ERA over the past two seasons is 2.02.

“We’re here because of our starting pitching,” Blue Jays outfielder Michael Saunders said. “They’ve kind of been our rock all season.”

This is the entire crux of the argument in favor of the Blue Jays’ continued survival, and considering the landscape of the 2016 postseason, it’s not nearly as compelling as it might have been in years past. Yes, Toronto’s J.A. Happ vs. Josh Tomlin in Game 6 would theoretically lean in the Blue Jays’ favor, Tomlin’s Game 2 gem notwithstanding. And come a potential Game 7, Marcus Stroman isn’t Kluber’s equal, by any means, but Kluber not on full rest isn’t capable of pitching the shutout of a four-days-off Kluber.

Still, if the Indians’ romp through their first six games of the playoffs taught anything, it’s that a starting-pitching deficit doesn’t faze them. Throughout October they’ve been on-paper underdogs in every non-Kluber starting-pitching matchup. Cleveland’s bullpen guided it to this juncture, and Game 3 allowed manager Terry Francona to rest his two relief saviors, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen.

The greater truth, actually, is that the advantage will go to whichever team’s bats awaken first – or at all. The Indians won three games scoring eight runs combined and mustered two hits in 28 at-bats in Game 4. On the series, they’re hitting .164/.211/.302. The Blue Jays aren’t much better: .203/.266/.297. When the teams say every run matters, it’s more than cliché.

And it’s what made Francona’s decision in the seventh inning that much more surprising. In a one-run game, with none out and runners on first and third after pitcher Bryan Shaw’s throwing error, Francona intentionally walked the Blue Jays’ best hitter, Josh Donaldson, to load the bases for the AL RBI leader, Edwin Encarnacion.

“To say the least, I was a little surprised,” Donaldson said.

“I was as surprised as anybody,” Saunders said.

“With the double play in order right there,” Bautista said, “it just didn’t make much sense to me, even if they were conceding a run.”

Encarnacion laced a 110-mph shot past a drawn-in infield to score two runs and stretch Toronto’s cushion to 4-1. Francona’s run of button-pushing mastery fell prey to what he saw as little more than a Catch-22.

“Either way,” Francona said, “it’s not the most desirable situation.”

It may come up again, in some form or fashion, something eminently capable with a lineup like the Blue Jays’. After Game 2, the Indians’ Jason Kipnis said he was elated to have a two-game advantage considering how few of their players had hit, and then, along with Mike Napoli and Jose Ramirez, he came through in Game 3. The Blue Jays felt the same sense after Game 4, like it was a thunderclap serving as a forewarning.

“I’m not ready to go home,” Donaldson said. “And I feel like our team is capable of winning this entire thing.”

Some of Donaldson’s talk was the juice of staving off elimination, the thrill of falling off the precipice and dangling by one finger. The Blue Jays mustered another finger Tuesday, and they’ll shoot for one more on Wednesday, and if they can get that and force the series back to Cleveland, yanking themselves off the edge suddenly seems far more realistic. It can be done, recover from a 3-0 deficit. The 2004 Boston Red Sox did and then won that entire thing. That’s another crack of light, another sign of life, another reason to believe that even though they’re not in a good place, the Blue Jays might not be in such a bad one, either.