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Despite being swept out of the 2016 American League Division Series by the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox reaffirmed their commitment to manager John Farrell on Tuesday. 

Dave Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations, announced Farrell will stay with the team in 2017, according to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe.

In February 2015, the Red Sox extended Farrell’s deal to keep him on board through the 2017 season, with an option for 2018. Dombrowski declined to say whether Boston will exercise that option.

“Something of that magnitude I need to sit down with ownership and discuss that,” he said, according to Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald.

While the Red Sox finished the regular season with a 93-69 record, their postseason exit led to some criticism of Farrell’s handling of his team.

In particular, many questioned his decision to pinch-hit Chris Young for Andrew Benintendi in the bottom of the seventh inning in Game 3 of the ALDS. While Young walked during the at-bat, Boston was without Benintendi to lead off the bottom of the ninth as it looked to come back from a 4-3 deficit.

Boston.com’s Chad Finn was among those who thought Farrell made a big mistake:

Eric Wilbur of Boston.com thought the ALDS as a whole helped to illustrate the gulf between Farrell and a tactically astute manger such as the Indians’ Terry Francona:

Yet, this series perhaps exposed Farrell’s shortcomings as a big league manager all the same. You could give him and [Francona] two seats to deal with, and Farrell would probably still lose playing musical chairs to his old friend.

Farrell doesn’t have to stay because of the success that the Red Sox found this year, winning the American league East after back-to-back last-place finishes. He needs to go because of the continued promise of watching his in-game decisions backfire, and particularly after watching Francona manage circles around him, almost as if he were in his pickup willingly doing donuts on Farrell’s own manicured lawn.

In August, Abraham also took issue with how Farrell handled Red Sox pitchers:

Farrell also has had less of an effect on the pitching staff than you would have expected from an accomplished former pitching coach. Certainly, he needs to respect boundaries and let coaches do their jobs. But Farrell should be having more direct impact on somebody like David Price.

As a pitching coach, Farrell was an authority figure with the pitchers to a point that some feared him. He was their boss. As the manager, he seems too much like their protector.

Expectations will be high for the Red Sox in 2017, yet it’s doubtful a slow start to next year would result in Farrell’s firing in the first few months. The team hasn’t fired a manager in the middle of a season since Jimy Williams in 2001. Even Bobby Valentine finished out a disastrous 2012 campaign before losing his job.

With only one more guaranteed year left on his deal, Farrell will be under heavy pressure to deliver. Anything short of a trip to the American League Championship Series could put his job in serious jeopardy.

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New York Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia is expected to recover in time for spring training after undergoing surgery on his right knee Tuesday.

Continue for updates.

Yankees Call Procedure ‘a Routine Cleanup’

Tuesday, Oct. 11

The Associated Press reported Yankees head team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad handled the surgery after Sabathia pitched the entire 2016 season with a knee brace on the bothersome joint.

Sabathia is no longer the ace he was during his prime seasons with the Cleveland Indians and early in his Yankees career. He can still serve as a valuable piece of the rotation, however, especially with New York being limited in terms of pitching depth. He finished this season with a 3.91 ERA in 30 starts.

He had previously established himself as one of baseball’s most reliable workhorses for more than a decade. Injuries have become an issue over the past couple of years, though. He missed most of the 2014 campaign because of knee problems, and a groin injury sent him to the disabled list earlier this season.

Since he should be back to full strength in time for spring training, the Yankees don’t necessarily have to focus on filling a void. But starting pitching is one area the team will probably try to address in the offseason after ranking 19th in starter ERA (4.44), per ESPN.com.

Sabathia should still have a place in the rotation after his solid bounce-back year. But the Yanks will probably take it easy on the 36-year-old lefty during camp to make sure there are no setbacks before the start of the new season.

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He was supposed to be wiping champagne from his eyes, rather than tears.

It was supposed to end that way for David Ortiz. Not this way.

That’s what I thought. That’s what we all thought.

But it did end this way Monday night at Fenway Park. It ended with the Cleveland Indians celebrating a sweep of Ortiz’s Boston Red Sox and the Fenway fans celebrating Ortiz’s career one more time.

“Pa-pi! Pa-pi!” they chanted in the eighth inning as Ortiz left for a pinch runner in the middle of a rally that seemed destined to send this American League Division Series into Tuesday and beyond.

“Pa-pi! Pa-pi!” they chanted again after that rally and a ninth-inning rally fell short, as the Indians charged onto the field at the end of a thrilling 4-3 Game 3 win.

Ortiz was already gone by then, up the tunnel to the Red Sox clubhouse the moment the final out settled into Lonnie Chisenhall’s glove in right field. He returned a few minutes later, walking alone to the Fenway mound, acknowledging the cheers from fans who had to be disappointed but were not devastated.

Ortiz was responsible for some of each emotion, because his 1-for-9 in the series contributed to the Boston power outage that sent him home earlier than expected. But no one in New England can feel devastated, for the simple reason that Ortiz’s 14-year Red Sox career forever changed the way we will think of this franchise.

He arrived in 2003, when the Curse of the Bambino was in full force. He leaves with the curse a distant memory, with three World Series rings and too many big moments to mention.

He leaves a team that is in fine shape for the future, with a lineup filled with great young talent and even more on the way. Ortiz was an MVP candidate at age 40 in his fantastic final season, but the likelier winner is Mookie Betts, the superb right fielder who turned 24 on Friday.

Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. couldn’t deliver enough for Ortiz against the Indians, and 21-year-old Yoan Moncada proved in September that he wasn’t yet ready to give the Red Sox another spark.

But the franchise is in good hands, and it’s no shame to lose a best-of-five series to an Indians team that now becomes the favorite to go to the World Series and try to end its own championship drought.

“They played unbelievable baseball, and that’s what the game is all about,” Ortiz said at a press conference.

He congratulated Terry Francona, the manager who won the first two of those three World Series crowns with Ortiz in Boston and has now turned the Indians franchise around.

We’re shortchanging Francona and his team with all this Papi focus, but if I know Tito, he’ll understand and won’t mind. He knows what Ortiz meant to Boston and baseball, and he could feel as well as anyone how much Monday’s game was about the iconic Red Sox star.

It was that way with each at-bat, with everyone understanding this could be Ortiz’s final game. It was that way in the sixth inning, when Ortiz’s sacrifice fly cut the Indians’ lead to 4-2. It was that way even more in the eighth, when Ortiz came to the plate representing the tying run.

Francona went to closer Cody Allen, and Allen didn’t throw Ortiz a single strike. Ortiz walked to first base and waved his arms to ask the fans for more noise. When Hanley Ramirez followed with a single that made it 4-3, Red Sox manager John Farrell had no choice but to pinch run for Ortiz at second base.

He left to cheers and chants, and then he stood on the top step of the dugout, a cheerleader for the rest of this game and perhaps the rest of his life.

He wanted it to go on, but it wasn’t to be.

“What [the Indians] did to us, we were expecting to do to them, because we thought we were the best team,” Ortiz said. “In the playoffs, it’s not about the best, it’s about who played the best. And they played the best.”

So often, it was Ortiz who played the best in October. In 85 postseason games, he drove in 61 runs, tied with his longtime rival Derek Jeter for the fourth most of all time (behind Bernie Williams, Manny Ramirez and David Justice).

Ortiz was the Most Valuable Player of the famous 2004 American League Championship Series against Jeter’s New York Yankees, and also of the 2013 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. His grand slam in the 2013 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers stands as one of the most dramatic moments in recent baseball history.

There was nothing like that in this series, not for him and not for the Red Sox. But there was a moment, and it came when Ortiz walked to the mound after it was over.

He had already spoken to his teammates, telling them they should be proud of their worst-to-first season and optimistic about their future. He walked to the field with cameras all around him, and he went to the mound with the realization this really was going to be it.

“I’ve been trying to hold my emotions,” he said. “At that last second, I couldn’t hold it anymore.”

He’ll be back at Fenway for sure, back to see friends and back for a number retirement ceremony sometime in the future. But as he walked off the field wiping away a tear, he knew he wouldn’t ever be back as an active player.

There’s sadness in that, for sure. He loved playing, and even many who don’t care a bit about the Red Sox loved watching him play.

But imagine the sadness this sweep would have brought in the days before Ortiz first wore a Red Sox uniform. In his 14 seasons, a curse was reversed and a franchise was changed.

If this was the way it had to end, that will have to be just fine.

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

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Although the season didn’t end as planned, the Boston Red Sox enjoyed a fantastic 2016 campaign, with one of the highlights being a high-powered offense that provided three players with 30 or more home runs and 100 or more RBI for the first time in franchise history, per MLB Stat of the Day.

Doing the honors were outfielder Mookie Betts, designated hitter David Ortiz and first baseman Hanley Ramirez, all of whom enjoyed fascinating season for entirely different reasons.

The 24-year-old Betts had a breakout campaign that places him among the American League MVP favorites, finishing with a .318 batting average, 31 homers, 26 stolen bases, 113 RBI and 122 runs—one of the more well-rounded stat lines you’ll ever see, in addition to play solid defense.

Ortiz, 40 years old and on the opposite end of the career spectrum, announced his impending retirement prior to the season and then proved that he’s still good enough to play a couple more years, though he made it clear he has no such intention.

Then there was 32-year-old Ramirez, who disappointed tremendously last year in his first season with the Red Sox but finally came on strong in the second half of 2016, ultimately having a fantastic campaign while successfully making a position switch to first base.

Of course, the ultimate goal was a World Series, and on that account the Red Sox fell short, getting swept in the ALDS by the Cleveland Indians.

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There was maximum tension in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Boston Red Sox twice stayed alive with two outs and two strikes, but they could not push the tying run home, and the Cleveland Indians emerged with a 4-3 victory to sweep their American League Division Series.

Travis Shaw popped out to right field on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and Lonnie Chisenhall settled under the ball to seal the Indians’ victory.

Cleveland swept the series in three games, winning the first two at Progressive Field before securing the final contest at Fenway Park.

Indians manager Terry Francona beat the team he led to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007 before he was fired after the 2011 season.

Josh Tomlin earned the win for Cleveland, while Clay Buchholz took the loss.

Former Red Sox Coco Crisp hit a two-run homer, and that hit proved decisive.

The Indians will face the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series.

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Canadians dig the long ball.

If that wasn’t true before the Toronto Blue Jays completed a sweep of the Texas Rangers Sunday night with a 7-6 extra-inning win, it’s certainly true now.

Toronto got a pair of home runs Sunday off the bats of first baseman Edwin Encarnacion and catcher Russell Martin. In all, seven Jays hitters have combined for nine home runs in the team’s four postseason games.

The Blue Jays have won all four contests, blasting past the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Wild Card Game and casting aside the AL West-winning Rangers.

Now, as they train their sights on the American League Championship Series, they’ve served notice to the Junior Circuit and the rest of the baseball world: There’s a threat looming north of the border.

Before we move on to the Jays’ chances, let’s look back at their tussle with Texas.

This wasn’t just any division-series scrum. There’s bad blood brewing between the Rangers and Blue Jays dating back to last year’s ALDS, when Jose Bautista let fly the bat flip heard ’round the galaxy.

Then, in May, Bautista got beaned, made a hard slide into second and met the mean right hook of Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor.

There were no such fireworks in the 2016 Rangers/Jays ALDS. But a fan did craft a stinging sign that burned especially hard after Toronto’s Game 3 win, via Error Free in 2015:

We’re not here to pile on the Rangers, who had a memorable season despite their ho-hum plus-eight regular-season run differential, easily the worst among playoff qualifiers.

In fact, yours truly picked Texas to advance to the ALCS. 

The point is to highlight these Jays and the way they’ve steamrolled through October. After busting the franchise’s 22-year playoff drought in 2015, Toronto is threatening to mimic those ’93 Jays and snag a Commissioner’s Trophy.

The power numbers leap off the screen. Really, though, the Jays are advancing a diverse attack.

Their deep starting rotation has been mostly exemplary, with Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ allowing two earned runs in 13.2 innings, Marcus Stroman fanning six in six innings and Aaron Sanchez showing flashes of brilliance in his uneven start Sunday against Texas.

Closer Roberto Osuna returned from his Wild Card Game injury scare and struck out six in five scoreless postseason innings, fronting a bullpen that has surrendered just two runs in 14 innings overall.

The heart of Toronto’s offensive, though, has been the bats. 

Encarnacion has three homers and a 1.411 OPS. Bautista boasts two home runs and five RBI. Ezequiel Carrera, Kevin Pillar, Troy Tulowitzki, Melvin Upton Jr. and Martin have also gone deep.

On Sunday, Toronto plated the winning run on an errant throw by Odor, much to the delight of the grudge-nursing Rogers Centre faithful. 

Josh Donaldson has been nursing a hip issue, which made his walk-off dash all the more impressive.

“With all the fans screaming, it kind of numbs the pain a little bit,” Donaldson said, per Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star. “It gives your legs that jolt of adrenaline.”

For the most part, the Jays’ trip to the ALCS is predicated on thump.

Encarnacion and Bautista are pending free agents. It’s likely, if not certain, this Jays team will be busted up in 2017.

That endows this run with a special, pressing significance.

Now Toronto awaits the winner of the ALDS matchup between the Cleveland Indians and favored Boston Red Sox, which Cleveland leads 2-0. The Jays went 3-4 against the Indians and 10-9 against Boston this season, for what it’s worth.

No matter who comes out on top, they’ll grapple with a Toronto team that’s flying high.

The Jays have plenty going for them. But maybe nothing is more compelling than a certain F-word, as Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal noted:

They smacked around Rangers ace Cole Hamels in Game 1. They vanquished co-ace Yu Darvish in Game 2. They dramatically finished the job Sunday in front of a roaring horde of Canadians who, presumably, dig the long ball.

And, more to the point, dig their Blue Jays.

All statistics current as of Sunday and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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Fact: David Price gave up 5 ER in 3.1 IP in the Red Sox‘s 6-0 loss to the Indians on Friday. He is now 0-8 in his career in postseason starts. 

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: B/R Insights

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When pitcher David Price was introduced as the Boston Red Sox‘s new $217 million toy last December, he said something the future would either vindicate or bring back to haunt him.       

“I think I was just saving all my postseason wins for the Red Sox,” he told reporters during his introductory press conference.

Now, the quote is sneaking up behind Price to say “Boo!” in his ear.

The left-hander did not last long in his first postseason game with the franchise: a 6-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians in Game 2 of the American League Division Series on Friday. Boston manager John Farrell pulled him after he allowed six hits, two walks and four earned runs while recording only 10 outs. Price had a fifth run tacked on to his line after one of his inherited runners scored, which did this to his career postseason ERA:

• Before: 5.12
• After: 5.54

The Red Sox could have lived with this if Rick Porcello had led the club to a win with a strong performance in Game 1 Thursday. But that didn’t pan out. In order to bounce back and avoid an 0-2 hole, the Red Sox at least needed good innings out of Price. They needed to be great innings if Indians right-hander Corey Kluber turned his Klubot mode to 11 in the first postseason start of his career.  

Naturally, that’s what happened. Seemingly anticipating that Red Sox hitters would be sitting curveball after Cleveland’s hook-heavy attack in Game 1, Kluber went right at them with two-seamers and overpowered them. He struck out seven and scattered the only three hits the Red Sox got in Game 2.

Congrats to Kluber on his brand-new 0.00 postseason ERA. Wouldn’t you know, Price had one of those once. Eight years ago, he made his first foray into October baseball with three scoreless appearances in the American League Championship Series against—who else?—the Red Sox.

But that was ages ago. Price has dominated in the regular season, punctuated by a 3.21 career ERA and an American League Cy Young Award in 2012. But whether he’s been wearing a Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays or Red Sox uniform, he just can’t carry that success into October. And Katie Sharp of River Ave. Blues highlights how, lately, he hasn’t escaped the opposite of success:

When Eno Sarris of FanGraphs dug into what’s gone wrong for Price in the postseason, he found in part that the quality of his competition has gotten tougher. But this is, of course, a fact of life for all pitchers who find themselves playing in October. It’s on them to overcome it.

One reason Price hasn’t done that is because he gets hurt at the worst times. He’s normally good at cracking down with runners in scoring position, allowing just a .240 batting average in the regular season. According to Baseball Savant, that figure jumps to .349 in his postseason outings since 2010.

Cleveland boosted that figure by going 2-for-3 against Price with runners in scoring position in Game 2. The big blow was the seed Lonnie Chisenhall sent just over the right field fence for a three-run homer that made it 4-0 in the second inning.

The one silver lining to take away from Price’s latest October flop is he was at least making decent pitches in that momentum-swinging, gut-punching second inning. All four of the hits he gave up came on pitches that were right on the edges of the strike zone.

While we’re on the topic of silver linings, the Red Sox have others to point to. The big one is that they’re not dead yet. Math confirms this, as the Indians have only two of the three wins they need to advance.

There’s also the fact this series is now shifting to Boston, where the Red Sox were 47-34 this season, for Game 3 Sunday. The return to Fenway Park should be especially beneficial to the Red Sox’s cold offense. Red Sox hitters had an .858 OPS at home compared to .762 on the road.

Facing Josh Tomlin in Game 3 could also awaken the offense. After seeing all sorts of power from Trevor Bauer and Kluber in Games 1 and 2, Tomlin’s 80-something heat will be a welcome change. The Red Sox could add to the whopping 36 homers he’s already allowed this year.

It’s unlikely the Red Sox can come back from their 0-2 hole, but it’s not impossible. Teams have done it before, even in instances where they’ve been outplayed worse than the Red Sox. Game 2 was a blowout, but Game 1 was an intense one-run contest either team could have won. If the San Francisco Giants could come back over the Cincinnati Reds in 2012 and the Blue Jays could do it over the Texas Rangers last year, the Red Sox can do it to the Indians in 2016.

If it does happen, Price is one guy who may have no part in it. Assuming Farrell doesn’t change his plans, Clay Buchholz will pitch Game 3. If necessary, Eduardo Rodriguez will take Game 4 and Porcello Game 5. If Price appears again in this series, it will likely be in relief.

To his credit, he doesn’t seem to care how he gets the ball again this season as long as he gets it, period.

“I know my number’s going to get called again to pitch again in 2016, and I’ll be ready,” Price said after Game 2, per Newsday‘s Erik Boland. “I want it for sure.”

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with enthusiasm. And in this case, you can’t blame Price for wanting to get back out there and deliver on what he said last December.

But what’s certain is this: If Price does get back on the mound, there are going to be a lot of raised pulses in and around the city of Boston.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Francisco Liriano suffered a concussion in Game 2 of his team’s playoff series against the Texas Rangers after being hit in the head by a line drive off the bat of Carlos Gomez.

It’s unclear when he will return to the field.

Continue for updates.

Liriano Replaced on ALDS Roster

Saturday, Oct. 8

Scott MacArthur of TSN reported the Blue Jays have replaced Liriano with Danny Barnes on their American League Division Series roster.

Latest on Liriano’s Status

Saturday, Oct. 8

Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com reported Liriano is in Major League Baseball’s concussion protocol.

ESPN.com’s Marly Rivera reported Liriano was released from the hospital and flew back to Toronto with the Blue Jays.

Per USA Today‘s Jorge L. Ortiz, Liriano was taken to an ambulance on a stretcher while wearing a neck brace.

Ortiz added that Liriano was being checked out after a liner off Carlos Gomez’s bat hit him in the head.

The incident occurred when Liriano tried to get out of the way of Gomez’s comebacker in the bottom of the eighth inning. The ball struck the pitcher on the side of the head and caromed into the outfield.

Liriano a Lockdown Reliever for Blue Jays

The Blue Jays starting rotation has done a terrific job of containing Texas’ offense so far in the ALDS. Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ have earned wins in each of the first two games, allowing a combined two runs on 13 hits with 11 strikeouts in 13.1 innings.

Liriano pitched to four batters in Friday’s game, recording one out and allowing two runs on two hits and one walk. He tossed 1.2 scoreless innings in the Blue Jays’ Wild Card Game win over the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday.

The Blue Jays added Liriano before the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline to provide depth and take pressure off Aaron Sanchez, who threw a total of 125.1 innings at the major league level over the previous two years and surpassed that total by mid-July this year.

Losing Liriano is not a problem the Blue Jays wanted to deal with at this point in the season. However, they are set up well. Sanchez, Happ, Estrada and Marcus Stroman form an excellent starting quartet alongside solid depth in the bullpen, so Toronto can get by in the short term without the big left-hander.

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From the way it was being billed, the American League Division Series showdown between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers sounded less like a baseball affair and more like a prizefight.

If that’s how it is, I’m compelled to say the Blue Jays have scored a first-round knockdown.

There was plenty of energy in Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, at the outset of Game 1 on Thursday afternoon—rightfully so in light of the still-fresh memory of Rougned Odor punching Jose Bautista, not to mention the roots of said punch in last year’s ALDS showdown. With that backdrop in place, how could anything other than a brutal back-and-forth ensue?

Well, how about a 10-1 drubbing in favor of the invading villains instead?

None other than Bautista provided the exclamation point with a three-run homer in the ninth inning, but the life had been sucked out of the stadium long before that. In fact, the win expectancy chart from FanGraphs makes no secret of where that happened:

That five-run third inning featured an RBI double by Josh Donaldson, an RBI single by Bautista and a groan-inducing, base-clearing triple by Troy Tulowitzki. It took Cole Hamels more than 40 pitches to get through it all, and boy did it feel like it had gone from a 50-50 game to one the Blue Jays had roughly a 90 percent chance of winning.

“We’re baseball players, not UFC fighters,” Bautista told Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet, “And we come here to play ballgames.”

All the Blue Jays needed to hang on was for Marco Estrada not to pull a Hamels and have a meltdown of his own. It wasn’t much of a challenge—granted—but he accepted it all the same.

Estrada did give up the Rangers’ lone run, but it came in the ninth inning after he had already hurled eight dominant frames. In all, he pitched 8.1 innings, struck out six with no walks and allowed only four hits.

As good as that line makes his performance sound, it was somehow even better than that. Case in point: One of the hits Estrada gave up was a soft trickler to first base off the bat of Adrian Beltre that had the characteristics of a batted ball that otherwise goes for a .000 batting average, according to Baseball Savant.

The Rangers needed more lucky hits like that, and Estrada just didn’t allow them. He was locating his fastball and keeping Texas hitters off balance with his ball-on-string changeup. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet would know when Estrada has a good changeup, so we should take his word for it that it was especially good in Game 1:

Estrada isn’t the most impressive name in a Blue Jays rotation that also features 20-game winner J.A. Happ, American League ERA champ Aaron Sanchez and fan favorite Marcus Stroman. But his Game 1 performance is a good reminder of how capable he’s been in his two years with the team. He led the AL in hits per nine innings for a second straight season in 2016, and his ERA only regressed to 3.48 from 3.13 in 2015.

Indeed, the fact that Estrada isn’t the most impressive name in Toronto’s starting rotation is a reminder of how strong the unit is. Blue Jays starters led the American League with a 3.64 ERA, and John Gibbons will tell you they’re ready to keep that up in October.

“If you keep them in line, we feel good about them all,” the Blue Jays manager said before the series began, per Brittany Ghiroli of MLB.com. “That’s a big part of our strength is our starting rotation. And we’ve managed the last couple of months to keep them all rested.”

As for Toronto’s offense, what was lost amid the excitement (and confusion over Zach Britton’s absence) of Edwin Encarnacion’s walk-off home run against the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Wild Card Game was that Blue Jays hitters struggled for most of the evening. Right up until Encarnacion took his parrot for a stroll, they still seemed mired in the slump that dragged the team to a 13-16 showing in September and October.

But Thursday? Thursday was more like it.

The presence of Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion gives Toronto’s offense the image of a parade of home run hitters. But while they do hit their share of dingers, what Blue Jays hitters really excelled at in 2016 was being tough outs. They saw the most pitches per plate appearance of any team in 2016, a notable departure from their more aggressive style in 2015.

Especially in that big third inning, the Blue Jays looked more like themselves in Game 1. They gave Hamels no quarter, forcing him to throw perfect pitches that he just didn’t have. Facing an offense that can do that is just as demoralizing as facing one that’s a threat for a dinger at any moment.

Of course, it must be said that Hamels is easier prey these days than his reputation suggests. He pitched well for most of 2016 but fell on hard times with a 4.28 ERA in his last 11 starts. Hard contact (37.2 Hard%) became a big problem, an indication that something is up with the Rangers ace.

Still, this is no time to balk about how the Blue Jays walked into Arlington and stole Game 1.

No, sir. They made the Rangers, they of the American League’s best regular-season record, look overmatched. The Blue Jays did it with the same ingredients that made them a good team in their own right for most of 2016. And with Happ set to take the mound opposite Yu Darvish, who had issues of his own at the end of the year, they could well do it again in Game 2 on Friday.

The Blue Jays still need two more wins before we can call the fight in their favor. But with their opponent reeling and them not even sweating, they have to like their chances.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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