Kuzul

The pick-an-ace game of chance will not work in October.

The New York Yankees need a definitive answer. But for nearly six months, that all-important No. 1 spot in the rotation has been a revolving door of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately candidates, none of which have been able to keep the position in their grasps for what seems like more than a couple of weeks at a time because of ineffectiveness, injuries or both. 

Even through patches of injuries and inconsistency, Masahiro Tanaka has been considered the team’s best option to start any big October game, whether it be one in the final days of the regular season, a wild-card play-in or Game 1 of the American League Division Series. Of the starters who have been with the team all season, the Japanese right-hander leads the Yankees with a 3.38 ERA, 0.987 WHIP and 118 ERA+, showing he has been mostly good this season when healthy.

His health, however, is his biggest obstacle. His latest problem is a right hamstring strain suffered on Sept. 18. He was feeling discomfort in it as late as Friday, and the Yankees now do not know when, or if, he will take the ball before the end of the regular season. It was announced Sunday that if Tanaka cannot take the mound by Thursday, he won’t start again before the playoffs, when he would likely be called upon for a one-game wild-card sudden death likely to happen at Yankee Stadium.

If Tanaka does not pitch again until the postseason, that would be 18 days between starts, the second one coming on Oct. 6 in the franchise’s most important game since 2012. If he is not 100 percent healthy, or effective, his team’s playoff chances are put in real jeopardy.

No doubt #Yankees want to get Tanaka at least a tune-up start before Tues WC game, but have to balance how he feels too. Clock ticking.

— David Lennon (@DPLennon) September 26, 2015

“I know everyone wants an answer, but it’s really not that simple because of his value to us moving forward,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters, via Grace Raynor of MLB.com. “It’s something you have to weigh. Is it worth the risk maybe moving it up a day or two days if you need him, to what could possibly happen? It’s a careful situation that we’re trying to manage. I wish I knew, really.” 

Before Tanaka, who could pitch out of the bullpen if he does not make a start by Thursday, hurt his hamstring running to first base in a game against the New York Mets, he was pitching like the ace the Yankees figured him to be when they signed him for $155 million over seven years. In his last eight starts, he had a 2.60 ERA, including two dominant outings against the Toronto Blue Jays in which he combined to allow one run with 15 strikeouts across 16 innings.

That kind of production gives the Yankees an arm that can match up with any the other wild-card contenders might throw at them, including Houston’s Dallas Keuchel, Texas’ Cole Hamels or whoever the Los Angeles Angels or Minnesota Twins might decide to trot out there. The problem, of course, is Tanaka’s availability, or his sharpness in the safe assumption that he is ready to pitch in that game.

“I don’t think we’re there yet. I’m not ready to talk anything about that yet,” Tanaka told reporters through an interpreter, via Raynor. “As for now, for me, I’m just happy with the way I’m progressing.”

If the Yankees are not comfortable throwing Tanaka in his first postseason game on 18 days of rest, they have another option, though one that is less proven—21-year-old rookie Luis Severino, who has a 2.77 ERA in 10 major league starts after he pitched six shutout innings Sunday against the Chicago White Sox.

If Tanaka’s not ready for the wild card game — he likely will be — then Severino would be a good choice, eh? You know, if it goes that way

— Anthony McCarron (@AnthonyMcCarron) September 27, 2015

“I would be happy to, of course,” Severino told reporters Sunday, via Newsday‘s Neil Best.

The Yankees don’t want to be forced into that alternative, obviously. Not because Severino has not demonstrated his value, because he has. And part of the reason they made sure to limit him in his 19 minor league starts was so they could keep him fresh for September and October in the majors.

But that Wild Card Game is exactly the kind of start the Yankees envisioned Tanaka making when they signed him. For the better part of the last two seasons, he has shown, when healthy, he is the kind of pitcher who should get the ball in a do-or-die scenario.

The problem is getting him prepared for it. Hamstrings are temperamental; they act up without notice. And that is beside the fact that keeping Tanaka sharp after nearly three weeks of nonaction seems fairly improbable even for a front-line starter.

In order for the Yankees to advance, though, the hamstring and the stuff have to be ever-present. If not, the franchise’s return to the postseason might last just a few hours.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The Boston Red Sox announced Sunday that Sam Kennedy, the team’s chief operating officer, will be taking over as club president on Oct. 16. He’ll inherit the position from Larry Lucchino, who will remain with the franchise as the president/CEO emeritus and as part of the ownership group.

“Since 2012, we have known that it would be a natural transition for Sam to succeed Larry when he was ready to relinquish the reins,” the team’s principal owner, John W. Henry, said via press release. “[Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner] and I feel fortunate that there is an obvious and strong successor within our organization.”

The transition from Lucchino to Kennedy hasn’t been a secret, as Lucchino announced in early August that he would resign as president of the team after this season, tipping Kennedy as his successor, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. 

And Kennedy isn’t taking his new role lightly.

“I understand what a privilege it is to work for the Boston Red Sox having grown up just a mile from Fenway Park,” Kennedy said. “I fully embrace the responsibility that comes with this opportunity.”

He’ll also need to embrace the big shoes he’s attempting to fill. In Lucchino’s tenure as president, the Red Sox won three World Series titles and continued to be one of the most popular teams in baseball. 

Kennedy is inheriting a team that is currently in last place in the AL East, which would be Boston’s third such finish in the last four seasons. However, with a young core featuring Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley Jr., the club will be hoping that Kennedy can guide it to another period of prosperity, much like his predecessor.

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The best team in baseball this season may just play north of the border, and the Toronto Blue Jays will now have an entire postseason to prove their worth. 

Toronto technically clinched a playoff berth Friday night after its win over the Tampa Bay Rays, the team announced Saturday morning: 

MLB‘s official Twitter feed congratulated the team:

There was some confusion surrounding whether the Jays would clinch Friday or Saturday; the American League standings indicate the team needed a win or a Los Angeles Angels loss Saturday to clinch, but a little luck with the schedule got the Canadian team in early, as Chad Thornburg of MLB.com explained:

Based on the standings, the Blue Jays can clinch a playoff berth with a win over the Rays or an Angels loss to Seattle. But based on the remaining schedules for the Halos, Astros and Rangers, only two of the three AL West contenders can finish 88-74. (The Angels and Texas currently have 74 losses, the same as Toronto.) If that result were to happen, one AL West team would win the division, another would win an AL Wild Card spot, and the third would be eliminated with at least 75 losses. Toronto is thus guaranteed of at least an AL Wild Card berth.

Because of the confusion surrounding the bid, the Blue Jays didn’t celebrate breaking their playoff drought when it actually ended. Third baseman Josh Donaldson said the team wouldn’t be satisfied with a simple wild-card berth, according to Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star:

Obviously we want to be able to get into the post-season, right? But the wild-card, that hasn’t been our goal the entire year. Our goal is to win the division. When and if that day comes when we clinch the wild-card for us in the clubhouse I don’t think that’s going to be something we’re that excited over … We’ll celebrate if and when we win the division.

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons had an interesting reaction to the news, according to Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet Magazine: 

Jose Bautista took a more philosophical approach to the confusion, according to Zwelling: 

So the Blue Jays had to settle on celebrating after their 10-8 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday. MapleLeafs.com’s David Alter was in the locker room for the festivities, ones that troubled Munenori Kawasaki:

This is Toronto’s first playoff appearance since it won the 1993 World Series in dramatic fashion over the Philadelphia Phillies. The Blue Jays’ unstoppable second-half charge helped them overcome the six-game deficit they faced in the American League East on Aug. 1 and snap the longest postseason drought in Major League Baseball.

One reason Toronto will play deep into October is the presence of its second-half additions.

The front office traded for shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and starting pitcher David Price before the trade deadline, shifting the balance of power in the division. While Tulowitzki has dealt with injuries since he came to the Blue Jays, he provided another powerful bat and a two-time Gold Glove Award winner at shortstop to an already loaded lineup.

However, Price has made the biggest difference and solidified the pitching staff. In fact, he posted a 1.95 ERA and sparkling 0.98 WHIP in his first 10 starts with the Blue Jays and led his team to multiple head-to-head wins over the New York Yankees. 

Beating the Yankees was nothing new for this Toronto team, as MLB Stat of the Day pointed out:

That head-to-head dominance over New York was the main reason the Blue Jays overcame that six-game lead the Yankees held entering August. ESPN Stats & Info noted that when Toronto beat the Yankees for the final time this year in shutout fashion, it was the third time the team did so, which matched the rest of the league’s combined efforts against the Bronx Bombers.

While Price was critical in the showdowns with New York, the pitching staff also has veteran starters in R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle. Buehrle won a World Series with the Chicago White Sox and will not be intimidated by the significant moments yet to come in October. 

Don’t overlook youngster Marcus Stroman, either, especially since he pitched seven shutout innings over the Yankees in a critical 4-0 win in September. He has bounced back from the torn ACL he suffered in spring training and provided important depth to this staff. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports pointed out how important Stroman could be in the playoffs:

Some of the credit for the pitching staff belongs firmly in catcher Russell Martin’s corner. Toronto brought him aboard this offseason to provide more punch to the lineup and a veteran presence behind the plate capable of managing the pitchers throughout a long season, and he has done just that.

On offense, Toronto leads the league in runs scored by a wide margin and has a downright intimidating trio of bashers in Bautista, Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion. The group became the 14th trio of teammates to each hit 35 home runs in a season and the 12th to each hit 35 homers and drive in 100 runs.

The last trio to accomplish both feats was the combination of Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko and Jim Thome of the 2006 Chicago White Sox.

If the Blue Jays keep scoring runs in the playoffs at the same pace they have all year, a World Series title is well within their grasp.

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The Boston Red Sox continue to fill out their front office, with Frank Wren joining the team as senior vice president of baseball operations. 

Wren’s hiring was officially announced by the Red Sox on Twitter. He was considered the favorite to be named general manager after Dave Dombrowski was hired last month, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

This marks the third major addition to Boston’s front office since August. Dombrowski, who served as general manager of the Detroit Tigers since 2002 before resigning earlier this summer, was hired as president of baseball operations.

At the same time Dombrowski was brought in, former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington announced that he was stepping down. 

On Thursday, per Ian Browne of MLB.com, the Red Sox promoted Mike Hazen from assistant general manager to general manager. 

With all of the new voices leading Boston, ESPN Boston’s Gordon Edes noted the order of power that this new trio has in the organization:

Per Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe, the Red Sox are following the direction of the Los Angeles Dodgers by adding multiple executives and voices. This will give the franchise a way of parsing out decisions involving player personnel, including potential free-agent signings and trades. 

Wren served as general manager with the Atlanta Braves from 2007-14, making the playoffs three times but never making it past the division series. The 57-year-old will likely play a pivotal role in many decisions made by the Red Sox moving forward. 

The Red Sox are on their way to a second consecutive last-place finish after winning the 2013 World Series. They have brought up many of their best young prospects this season, including catcher Blake Swihart and pitchers Henry Owens and Eduardo Rodriguez, so things should turn around. 

With a new front office in place, led by strong voices like Dombrowski and Wren, along with the player-evaluation background of Hazen, it shouldn’t take long to make Boston a perennial championship contender again. 

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NEW YORK — Over in the National League, the Wild Card Game matchup seemed set weeks ago.

Here in the American League, no one wants to acknowledge that any part of it is set yet.

“I think it’s still too early,” New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Thursday, when someone asked who he might start in the AL Wild Card Game. “Because nothing’s decided yet.”

Technically, he’s right. Realistically, the Yankees are headed for baseball’s one-game, do-or-die round for the first time in their history, and the question that matters more than anything is whether they’re set up to win it.

And the answer is, that depends.

It depends on whether Masahiro Tanaka is healthy enough to pitch (the Yankees say they expect he will be). It depends on which team the Yankees face (too close to say).

The Yankees hold a comfortable lead for the first wild-card spot and the chance to host the October 6 game. The race for the second spot is so close that my friends Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times and Jayson Stark of ESPN.com both wrote stories Thursday explaining what will happen if there’s a two- or three-way tie.

That’s good for the Yankees (although a three-way tie would push the Wild Card Game to October 7, the day before the Division Series begins). Even better would be the Minnesota Twins emerging as the second wild-card team, however it happens.

The Twins have a long history of losing in New York. They also have the small problem that the guy who is pitching best for them—Ervin Santana, 4-0 with a 1.50 ERA over five starts since August 30—is ineligible for the postseason because of his April drug suspension.

The Twins would come to New York without a true No. 1 starter. The Houston Astros could show up with Dallas Keuchel, who might win the American League Cy Young (and who threw seven shutout innings at Yankee Stadium just last month). The Los Angeles Angels fall somewhere in between.

The Yankees believe they have a true No. 1, but only if Tanaka can pitch. He missed Wednesday’s scheduled start in Toronto with a hamstring strain, and the Yankees still haven’t said when he’ll pitch next.

“I’d be surprised if he’s not available in the near future,” Girardi said, adding after the game that Tanaka got a good update Thursday from the Yankees’ doctor.

Tanaka’s recent form has been good (a 1.29 ERA in his last three starts). He has shown the ability to control a game against a good lineup (seven shutout innings against the Toronto Blue Jays on September 13).

“He can be a dominant pitcher,” Yankees closer Andrew Miller said.

And the Yankees wouldn’t need him to pitch nine innings. Their bullpen depth has become a big concern, but in the postseason they should have Adam Warren in the bullpen along with Miller, Dellin Betances and Justin Wilson.

“They only need five innings from the starter,” said one rival scout who has been following the Yankees. “Betances would pitch the sixth and seventh, and Miller the eighth and ninth.”

All they need to do is get a lead. And that’s where it should help that they’ll be playing at home.

The Yankees are built for their ballpark. For the season, they’ve hit 108 home runs in 74 home games.

“If you don’t think our lineup is built to play here, you’re naive,” Miller said.

They’ll take their chances. If it comes down to one game to save their season—and it sure looks like it will—the Yankees believe they’ll be in good position to win it.

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure the team we’d be playing would feel the same way,” Miller said.

History won’t tell you much. The Wild Card Game is only in its fourth year, and no real patterns have developed yet.

Teams have won with true aces (Madison Bumgarner for the San Francisco Giants last year in Pittsburgh), and without them (Joe Saunders won for the Baltimore Orioles in 2012 in Texas). Two games were shutouts, and one finished 9-8 in 12 innings (Kansas City over Oakland, last year).

Road teams have won four of the six games, but any team involved would still tell you they’d rather play at home.

Actually, every team in it would tell you they’d rather have avoided it, that they wish they’d finished in first place and advanced straight to the division series.

The Yankees were in that spot earlier this week. Technically, they still are, although after two losses in three games in Toronto, it’s clear that being in the best shape for the Wild Card Game has also become a major concern.

“We need to win games,” Girardi said, before pausing and adding, “and we’ve got to keep guys healthy.”

If they keep the guys they have now healthy, they should have a real chance. If they get Tanaka healthy, they should have an even better chance.

If they get the right opponent, they should have the best chance of all.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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After battling a left forearm contusion, jammed thumb and right elbow contusion, Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval has been diagnosed with pneumonia, according to CSN New England’s Sean McAdam. 

Continue for updates. 

Sandoval to Be Re-Examined Saturday

Thursday, Sept. 24

McAdam added that Sandoval sounds “unlikely” to return to the field in 2015, although Saturday’s testing should provide more clarity on that front.      

“Right now he’s still very ill,” Boston interim manager Torey Lovullo said, per Tony Lee for ESPN.com. “He has a significant upper respiratory infection. We all know what that means. … We’re trying to keep him away from the healthy players.”

As a result of the illness, Sandoval hasn’t appeared in a game since a Sept. 20 showdown against the Toronto Blue Jays. 

Sandoval signed a five-year, $95 million deal with the Red Sox in the offseason, but he hasn’t produced like the star Boston thought it was getting. 

During his first season in Beantown, Sandoval is batting .245 with 10 home runs and 47 RBI. And while his season got off to a hot start thanks to a .312 average in April, his production has fluctuated between average and subpar ever since. 

A .298 batting average in June provided a glimmer of hope, but Sandoval fell back to earth by batting .241 with 13 strikeouts and a single home run in July. 

Sandoval’s opening act in Boston hasn’t gone as planned statistically, and a smattering of injuries has only hindered matters for a player and team who have both underwhelmed in the face of lofty expectations.

With his season potentially over, Kung Fu Panda can focus on getting healthy and improving at the plate during his second season in the American League spotlight.  

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The Boston Red Sox officially promoted Mike Hazen to general manager Thursday, the team confirmed. Hazen takes over for Ben Cherington, who resigned shortly after Dave Dombrowski was named president of baseball operations.    

Hazen has been with the organization for roughly a decade after becoming the director of player development in 2006. He was currently serving as assistant GM. Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan sees the hiring of Hazen having little impact on the Red Sox in terms of front-office turnover:

In addition to rewarding Hazen for his past work, the Red Sox likely wanted to ensure he remained with the team in the long term. The Los Angeles Times‘ Mike DiGiovanna reported earlier in the month Hazen was a candidate for the Los Angeles Angels‘ GM opening, and last year, he interviewed with the San Diego Padres when they were looking for a new GM.

ESPN.com’s Gordon Edes wrote on Sept. 10 that Hazen was the best person to assume the role as Boston’s new general manager, citing the continuity his hiring would provide:

Like Cherington, Hazen has championed the team’s young players, and the Red Sox are now clearly enjoying the fruits of their labors. Hazen can serve as a valuable bridge to the past while helping Dombrowski navigate the future. He has intelligence, expertise and drive, works well with Farrell and the baseball operations staff, and is an asset Dombrowski should not allow to get away.

Marc Normandin of SB Nation noted that Hazen’s hiring further cemented just what kind of role Dombrowski will have with the team:

One aspect of Hazen’s style that many baseball followers love is his blending of both scouting and statistical analysis, a point he discussed in 2007 with David Laurila for Baseball Prospectus:

(Statistical analysis) is a resource that goes into the evaluation. It’s not something that’s a hard and fast guideline for us in terms of player promotion or what we consider to be success or failure for a player. We have a lot of good people who evaluate our minor league teams, and not just player development staff. It’s Ben (Cherington), Craig Shipley, Allard Baird, and we have people coming through who have tremendous scouting experience like Jason McLeod. They evaluate the players from a scouting standpoint as well.

While the last few seasons of Cherington’s reign didn’t turn out well, the franchise did win a World Series under his stewardship. Like Hazen, Cherington was an in-house choice to succeed the previous general manager—Theo Epstein.

Continuing to rely on the minds who have helped shape the franchise’s success in the last decade and change proved a fruitful decision then, and there’s no reason Hazen can’t keep that trend going.

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Small stumbles can be unforgivable offenses when races are so close. 

The slightest advantage this late in the process can be too large to overcome. And if the competition is outpacing everyone else anyway, well then it becomes that man’s race to lose.

That is where David Price sits in the American League Cy Young Award competition this week after another dazzling down-the-stretch performance Monday against the New York Yankees. The Yankees are the team Price’s Toronto Blue Jays are trying to hold off in the AL East title hunt as they attempt to qualify for the postseason for the first time since 1993, when the franchise won its second consecutive World Series.

Against the Yankees, Price threw seven shutout innings, struck out seven and walked one. He allowed just two hits in a dominant performance that was cut short because of the 114 pitches it took him to weave it. He retired the final 14 batters who stepped into the box against him.

Is the AL Cy Young now David Price’s to lose? Leads the league in ERA, 4th in K’s & now 8-1 with #BlueJays – including 4-0 vs the #Yankees

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) September 22, 2015

In four starts against the Yankees as a Blue Jay, Price allowed five earned runs in 26.1 innings (1.71 ERA) and won the decision in three of the four starts—he is 3-1 versus the Yankees, despite the previous tweet. His overall ERA for the year is now an AL-best 2.34.

Toronto manager John Gibbons told reporters, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet:

He’s been unbelievable, really. He’s 8-1 since we acquired him, that’s eight big wins, four times he’s faced these guys, the team we’re competing with right now, that’s not easy to do. What can you say really? That was the whole idea behind getting him. Trades don’t always work out right; this one has worked out right. … He’s [at the] top of the game, really.

While Price, who stands to rake in more than $200 million in free agency this offseason, might be at the top of the league’s starting pitcher heap, there are guys at his level or slightly below trying to pull him down.

The main one is Houston Astros ace Dallas Keuchel, who has earned that ace title over his last two seasons and pitched to a 2.51 ERA, 2.90 FIP and 1.023 WHIP this year. He is also 18-8 with a chance to win 20 games, and even though wins as a stat have been mostly discredited in this era, we still celebrate that milestone as a high level of excellence.

It is also possible that Keuchel’s stumble last week will cost him the Cy Young Award. In a start against the Texas Rangers in the Astros’ most critical series of the season, he lasted just 4.2 innings and was torched for nine runs, six of them in the first inning to sink his team before the Rangers even made three outs.

David Price can become only 2nd pitcher to win Cy Young for season in which he was traded, joining Rick Sutcliffe in ’84. (h/t STATS LLC)

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) September 22, 2015

Keuchel bounced back nicely against the Los Angeles Angels Monday, throwing 7.2 innings and allowing one run, but Price has had no need for such a redeeming outing since the end of April. That is a long-lost memory by now. In a race this close, how these guys throw in their final handful of starts is going to go a long way in voters’ minds, because, as we know, recent memory matters, as does making the playoffs.

There are other candidates in this race, although most of them sit on the fringes. Oakland’s Sonny Gray, Houston’s Scott Kazmir, Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer and Chicago’s Chris Sale all have reasonable cases for being on the ballot, but none of them have the goods to be ahead of Price or Keuchel.

This is now a two-man fight, and the combination of Keuchel’s slip and Price’s latest on-the-money haymaker put Price at the head of the class, a position he’s coveted since he broke in as a reliever with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008.

“He wanted to be the best,” Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey told John Tomase of WEEI.com Tuesday. “He wanted to be the best in the game. He didn’t want to be real good. He didn’t want to be the best on the team. He wanted to be the best pitcher in the game.”

The number of starts could change depending on when teams clinch and how they want to set up the rotations for the postseason, but as things currently stand, Price and Keuchel will each have two more starts before the end of the regular season. Price throws against the Rays twice, and Keuchel gets the Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Based on those opponents’ offensive production in the second half, Price has the tougher task to finish his campaign strongly enough to secure the award. If he handles the Rays twice in the span of five games—he’s made just one start against the Rays this season and allowed five runs in six innings in his final start with the Detroit Tigers—it should be enough to lock up the second Cy Young Award of his stellar career.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Two weeks ago, Marcus Stroman still hadn’t thrown a major league pitch this season, yet Alex Anthopoulos already had him in the playoff rotation.

The Toronto Blue Jays general manager is a smart man.

“If he performs the way he did last year, it’s a no-brainer,” Anthopoulos said the night of September 9 on Toronto’s Sportsnet 590 The Fan. “It’s not even a debate.”

Well, guess what—Stroman is performing the way he did last year, or maybe even better than that. It was bad news for the New York Yankees in Wednesday night’s key game in the American League East, and it’s bad news for the rest of the AL playoff teams and perhaps whoever makes it to the World Series out of the National League.

We’ve spent the whole season thinking of the Blue Jays as simply an offensive powerhouse, and we’ve debated what that will mean in October. But with David Price atop their rotation and Stroman right behind him, the Jays have the kind of one-two rotation punch that plays in the playoffs.

It sure did play this week against the Yankees, when Price won Monday’s game with seven scoreless innings and Stroman matched him with seven scoreless in Wednesday’s 4-0 Toronto win.

“It was really the perfect game for him,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said in his postgame press conference. “It was a big game, and he came through.”

It was a big game, one that made the difference between the Blue Jays holding a 1.5- or 3.5-game lead with just 11 days remaining on the schedule. Stroman came through, and he did it with a flair that left you believing the big stage doesn’t bother him.

Why would it?

He fought hard to come back quickly, after the spring training knee injury that was supposed to cost him the entire season. He took time to go back to school at Duke, but he was determined to return if he could, just to pitch in games like this—and the even bigger games that lie ahead.

The Blue Jays went from thinking he wouldn’t pitch at all to thinking he might help out of the bullpen to starting him in both huge series they played against the Yankees this month. Stroman beat the Yankees on September 12 at Yankee Stadium, and he did it again Wednesday. In between, he allowed one run in seven innings in a win over the Boston Red Sox.

He’s 3-0. He has a 1.89 ERA. He’s a difference-maker.

Remember, Stroman was supposed to be the Blue Jays’ Opening Day starter this season, off his fine rookie season in 2014. He impressed the Blue Jays by the way he pitched down the stretch, with a 2.56 ERA over his final six appearances.

That was good, but what Stroman is doing this month is even better.

He went out Wednesday and took control right from the start, and didn’t flinch even as the game stayed scoreless through five innings.

The Blue Jays began the week with fewer wins in games when they score four runs or fewer than any team in baseball. Yes, that’s partly because they have fewer of those games than any other team, but until this week they were 13-51 in those games.

Then, in the biggest series of the season, the Blue Jays scored four runs in each game. They won two of the three and took the third game to extra innings.

The Blue Jays still have other concerns. They’re not sure how soon Troy Tulowitzki will be able to play. Their bullpen has three blown saves this month.

But their rotation now looks like it could be a strength going into October, rather than a big question mark. Marco Estrada, who has pitched well all year, looked good again Tuesday against the Yankees. R.A. Dickey has a 2.95 ERA over his last 14 starts. Mark Buehrle has pitched well three times in his last four starts.

Price is 8-1 with a 1.95 ERA since coming over from the Detroit Tigers. Three of those wins came head-to-head against the Yankees, and he would have had four wins over New York if not for Carlos Beltran’s August 14 home run off Aaron Sanchez. Between them, Price and Stroman have faced the Yankees six times, and the Blue Jays have gone 5-1.

Given that the Blue Jays lead the East by 3.5 games, you could say those six games decided the division. Barring a collapse, the Jays can plan on opening the Division Series on October 8.

They can plan on Price pitching that game. They can plan on Stroman pitching in that series, just as Alex Anthopoulos predicted he would.

And they can go in with the knowledge they have a top of the rotation built for October.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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If David Ortiz wasn’t playing under the lights at Fenway Park, he would be starring on a much different stage.

When the Players’ Tribune handed the Boston Red Sox designated hitter a list of 10 questions for the website’s “What the (Blank)?” series, he scribbled in one particularly interesting answer.

His dream job (if he weren’t an athlete)? Wait for it…porn star.

Yes, as in someone who appears in adult films.

He also named Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” as his current guilty pleasure song (which he actually cited as “I like big butt”) and the Notorious B.I.G.’s famous “I love it when you call me Big Poppa” line as the best song lyric of all time—so yeah, definitely a trend there.

He also wrote down Denzel Washington as the actor he’d like to play him in a movie about his life, though it would’ve been a very different role for the Academy Award-winning actor if Ortiz had pursued his other dream.

[The Players’ Tribune, h/t Yahoo Sports]

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