ALCS Game #6 - Blue Jays vs. Mariners (Sunday, Oct 19, 8:00PM ET)

[JCP11]

Wow, came on here for the celebrations. I'm amazed at how much anger there is in this thread.

Lighten up, guys! The Jays are one win away from the World Series! How about we all put aside the petty grievances and enjoy it while it lasts!

The Jays forum is always like this. Maybe it's a Toronto complex idk, ghosts of Christmas past, but it's not the place to come and celebrate... strange I know.

It's sad, a lot thought the series was over after game 5, as far as I know it's a 7 game series with the last two at home. They've handled the Mariners offense pretty much the whole series except game 2 and the 8th inning blunder of game 5.

[-MetA4-]

Of course you do not want your Man Crush Varsho to move down. He is an atrocious 3 for 24 series, and Struck out like a fool, and could not get the job done again with men on base tonight.

He has sucked the entire series, being a rally killer and hitting pop outs; along with looking like an amateur at the plate Striking out on pitches way out of the Strike Zone. He has no business hitting in front of Clement. Your blind love affair with this guy means he can do nothing wrong.

What are these takes LMAO.

Dawg, you just watched MVP-candidate Cal Raleigh strike out 3 times last night. You just saw Jeff Hoffman mow down all of Seattle's best hitters on "pitches well outside the strike zone".

Varsho was 1 for 4 with a run, and hit a ball that went 398 feet to dead center for an .820 expected BA. This is what you are complaining about? He came ~2 feet away from a HR.

Some of you would probably off yourselves if you were Mariners fans. They struck out 12 times last night and hit into inning-ending double plays with the bases loaded in back to back innings. Maybe they should play all of their bench bats tonight as a result of that atrocious performance? Move Raleigh and Polanco down to #8 and #9 in the order?

[Fairview4Life]

Of course you do not want your Man Crush Varsho to move down. He is an atrocious 3 for 24 series, and Struck out like a fool, and could not get the job done again with men on base tonight.

He has sucked the entire series, being a rally killer and hitting pop outs; along with looking like an amateur at the plate Striking out on pitches way out of the Strike Zone. He has no business hitting in front of Clement. Your blind love affair with this guy means he can do nothing wrong.

What are these takes LMAO.

Dawg, you just watched MVP-candidate Cal Raleigh strike out 3 times last night. You just saw Jeff Hoffman mow down all of Seattle's best hitters on "pitches well outside the strike zone".

Varsho was 1 for 4 with a run, and hit a ball that went 398 feet to dead center for an .820 expected BA. This is what you are complaining about? He came ~2 feet away from a HR.

Some of you would probably off yourselves if you were Mariners fans. They struck out 12 times last night and hit into inning-ending double plays with the bases loaded in back to back innings. Maybe they should play all of their bench bats tonight as a result of that atrocious performance? Move Raleigh and Polanco down to #8 and #9 in the order?

I would like them to do those things.

[dh_45]

I just watched the replay of the game. Instead of walking vladdy Brash intentionally hit Vladdy on the elbow. They are lucky they didn't injured him.
Last game I believe they intentionally hit Springer.

[Parataxis]

Oh my gosh, that was such a fun game to be at. The energy was absolutely electric.

MONDAY BASEBALL!

[Cyrus]

Varsho is hitting like he's pitcher with those wild swings. I'd rather not see him get injuried, just ask MLB if his at bats can be recorded as outs at this point. Have an 8 man batting lineup

Drilling two balls today at 103 MPH for two of the six hardest hit balls of the game, yeah totally pitcher-like

How many hits has he had this series? 2 out 25 at bats? Seems very pitcher like, Hell IKF has had more hits then him in 2 games lool. Just bat him 9th where he belongs in this series until he can show he's not the currently worst hitter on the team, once he does, then yeah move him up to 8th, then 7th.

[Mehar]

Of course you do not want your Man Crush Varsho to move down. He is an atrocious 3 for 24 series, and Struck out like a fool, and could not get the job done again with men on base tonight.

He has sucked the entire series, being a rally killer and hitting pop outs; along with looking like an amateur at the plate Striking out on pitches way out of the Strike Zone. He has no business hitting in front of Clement. Your blind love affair with this guy means he can do nothing wrong.

What are these takes LMAO.

Dawg, you just watched MVP-candidate Cal Raleigh strike out 3 times last night. You just saw Jeff Hoffman mow down all of Seattle's best hitters on "pitches well outside the strike zone".

Varsho was 1 for 4 with a run, and hit a ball that went 398 feet to dead center for an .820 expected BA. This is what you are complaining about? He came ~2 feet away from a HR.

Some of you would probably off yourselves if you were Mariners fans. They struck out 12 times last night and hit into inning-ending double plays with the bases loaded in back to back innings. Maybe they should play all of their bench bats tonight as a result of that atrocious performance? Move Raleigh and Polanco down to #8 and #9 in the order?

Is this a joke? You are comparing an all-star like Raleigh having one bad game forgetting what he has done the entire series? Varsho has sucked the entire series (3 for 24), with one atrocious swing after another chasing balls out of the Strike Zone, killing one rally after another. If he was halfway decent, this team wins Game 1 and even Game 5 with one big swing from a guy hitting 5th.

Even in the New York series, he hits homers when the game is out of reach. Varsho hitting in front of Clement is a joke. I would like a total of the exact number of men Randle's hero has left on base? Hopefully he can produce something tonight, instead of looking like an amateur this entire post-season except for a decent game or two against New York.

[Randle McMurphy]

Varsho is hitting like he's pitcher with those wild swings. I'd rather not see him get injuried, just ask MLB if his at bats can be recorded as outs at this point. Have an 8 man batting lineup

Drilling two balls today at 103 MPH for two of the six hardest hit balls of the game, yeah totally pitcher-like

How many hits has he had this series? 2 out 25 at bats? Seems very pitcher like, Hell IKF has had more hits then him in 2 games lool. Just bat him 9th where he belongs in this series until he can show he's not the currently worst hitter on the team, once he does, then yeah move him up to 8th, then 7th.

Fortunately the team isn't stupid enough to make lineup decisions of that magnitude based on a sample size of 5 baseball games, so I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

Letting IKF hit with the bases loaded over Davis Schneider, though? That may still be an issue.

[Cyrus]

Drilling two balls today at 103 MPH for two of the six hardest hit balls of the game, yeah totally pitcher-like

How many hits has he had this series? 2 out 25 at bats? Seems very pitcher like, Hell IKF has had more hits then him in 2 games lool. Just bat him 9th where he belongs in this series until he can show he's not the currently worst hitter on the team, once he does, then yeah move him up to 8th, then 7th.

Fortunately the team isn't stupid enough to make lineup decisions of that magnitude based on a sample size of 5 baseball games, so I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

Letting IKF hit with the bases loaded over Davis Schneider, though? That may still be an issue.

What about letting Varsho hit in those circumstances, hell if we jsut wanna watch a guy strikeout/not get a hit, might as well just put Straw in his place. Hell he might get lucky and get a hit or two as well, which all Varsho has done so far this series, hopefully we make it, so he (Varsho) might be able to contribute offensive in the next series, maybe he's injuried again from taking those wild cricket swings.

[JaysRule15]

I'm not saying Varsho should be benched or anything. He absolutely belongs in this lineup and is a power threat. I just think it makes no sense that Clement (who's having a postseason for the ages and putting barrel on everything right now) is hitting below Varsho.

The Mariners might straight up decide today to not get beat by Vlad and not throw him anything in the zone at all. I'd much rather Ernie gets those at-bats with a man on base than see Varsho come up with a higher chance to strikeout.

[Randle McMurphy]

How many hits has he had this series? 2 out 25 at bats? Seems very pitcher like, Hell IKF has had more hits then him in 2 games lool. Just bat him 9th where he belongs in this series until he can show he's not the currently worst hitter on the team, once he does, then yeah move him up to 8th, then 7th.

Fortunately the team isn't stupid enough to make lineup decisions of that magnitude based on a sample size of 5 baseball games, so I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

Letting IKF hit with the bases loaded over Davis Schneider, though? That may still be an issue.

What about letting Varsho hit in those circumstances, hell if we jsut wanna watch a guy strikeout/not get a hit, might as well just put Straw in his place. Hell he might get lucky and get a hit or two as well, which all Varsho has done so far this series, hopefully we make it, so he (Varsho) might be able to contribute offensive in the next series, maybe he's injuried again from taking those wild cricket swings.

Just a reminder that the player you're talking about had an OPS of over 1000 in the playoffs 3 days ago and that it would have jumped up past .900 if one of his 103 MPH batted balls carried 2 more feet yesterday.

Might help give some context to the kind of small sample size we're dealing with.

[Randle McMurphy]

I'm not saying Varsho should be benched or anything. He absolutely belongs in this lineup and is a power threat. I just think it makes no sense that Clement (who's having a postseason for the ages and putting barrel on everything right now) is hitting below Varsho.

The Mariners might straight up decide today to not get beat by Vlad and not throw him anything in the zone at all. I'd much rather Ernie gets those at-bats with a man on base than see Varsho come up with a higher chance to strikeout.

Even if Varsho wasn't a better hitter than Clement (which he is), they clearly wouldn't bat Clement at 5 anyway to prevent a RHB-RHB-RHB 3-5 window and LHB-LHB 6-7 window for the Mariners to exploit with relief pitching.

Varsho is batting where he is at the 5 spot partially because of lineup construction as much as anything else. You need to space out your LHBs and RHBs in general but it's especially important in the playoffs.

[Cyrus]

Fortunately the team isn't stupid enough to make lineup decisions of that magnitude based on a sample size of 5 baseball games, so I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

Letting IKF hit with the bases loaded over Davis Schneider, though? That may still be an issue.

What about letting Varsho hit in those circumstances, hell if we jsut wanna watch a guy strikeout/not get a hit, might as well just put Straw in his place. Hell he might get lucky and get a hit or two as well, which all Varsho has done so far this series, hopefully we make it, so he (Varsho) might be able to contribute offensive in the next series, maybe he's injuried again from taking those wild cricket swings.

Just a reminder that the player you're talking about had an OPS of over 1000 in the playoffs 3 days ago and that it would have jumped up past .900 if one of his 103 MPH batted balls carried 2 more feet yesterday.

Might help give some context to the kind of small sample size we're dealing with.

3 days ago? or you mean a week ago and half ago when we were playing the yankees, he has had an ops of .327 in this series. So while you like to point a small sample size of 1000 OPPS in 4 games against the yankees that occured a week and half ago, vs. almost the double the amount of sample against the Mariners, where his OPS is worse than some people batting average :lol

And yeah maybe he had his ball carried 2 more feet it his ops would have changed, but the fact is it didn't, just like Ernie didn't when he almost smashed in seatle as well, talking about coulda/shoulda...

[Randle McMurphy]

What about letting Varsho hit in those circumstances, hell if we jsut wanna watch a guy strikeout/not get a hit, might as well just put Straw in his place. Hell he might get lucky and get a hit or two as well, which all Varsho has done so far this series, hopefully we make it, so he (Varsho) might be able to contribute offensive in the next series, maybe he's injuried again from taking those wild cricket swings.

Just a reminder that the player you're talking about had an OPS of over 1000 in the playoffs 3 days ago and that it would have jumped up past .900 if one of his 103 MPH batted balls carried 2 more feet yesterday.

Might help give some context to the kind of small sample size we're dealing with.

3 days ago? or you mean a week ago and half ago when we were playing the yankees, he has had an ops of .327 in this series. So while you like to point a small sample size of 1000 OPPS in 4 games against the yankees that occured a week and half ago, vs. almost the double the amount of sample against the Mariners, where his OPS is worse than some people batting average :lol

And yeah maybe he had his ball carried 2 more feet it his ops would have changed, but the fact is it didn't, just like Ernie didn't when he almost smashed in seatle as well, talking about coulda/shoulda...

Varsho had a 1.016 OPS in the playoffs on Thursday lol

He was also the Jays’ 4th best hitter in OPS during the actual season, just fractions behind Bichette

You gotta try a bit harder on this one

[Cyrus]

Just a reminder that the player you're talking about had an OPS of over 1000 in the playoffs 3 days ago and that it would have jumped up past .900 if one of his 103 MPH batted balls carried 2 more feet yesterday.

Might help give some context to the kind of small sample size we're dealing with.

3 days ago? or you mean a week ago and half ago when we were playing the yankees, he has had an ops of .327 in this series. So while you like to point a small sample size of 1000 OPPS in 4 games against the yankees that occured a week and half ago, vs. almost the double the amount of sample against the Mariners, where his OPS is worse than some people batting average :lol

And yeah maybe he had his ball carried 2 more feet it his ops would have changed, but the fact is it didn't, just like Ernie didn't when he almost smashed in seatle as well, talking about coulda/shoulda...

Varsho had a 1.016 OPS in the playoffs on Thursday lol

He was also the Jays’ 4th best hitter in OPS during the actual season, just fractions behind Bichette

You gotta try a bit harder on this one

What's varsho OPS now against the 6 games in Seattle? .327 - He and you need to try harder bruh! It's worst on the team who has had more than 3 at at bats against Seattle. There is no way to spin in this series he's adjective bad - .125 batting avg, .167 Slugging, 1 double, 1 walk, that's the whole thing he's contributed this series. He should be moved down - hell move LF Barger up if your worried about lineup construction, he's shown more offensive ability in this series atleast.

Your boy IKF is hitting .909 OPS in Seattle series, he's been more productive offensive in less games, and less at bats. Much rather have him in based loaded or people scoring position, than Varsho at this point.

[Randle McMurphy]

3 days ago? or you mean a week ago and half ago when we were playing the yankees, he has had an ops of .327 in this series. So while you like to point a small sample size of 1000 OPPS in 4 games against the yankees that occured a week and half ago, vs. almost the double the amount of sample against the Mariners, where his OPS is worse than some people batting average :lol

And yeah maybe he had his ball carried 2 more feet it his ops would have changed, but the fact is it didn't, just like Ernie didn't when he almost smashed in seatle as well, talking about coulda/shoulda...

Varsho had a 1.016 OPS in the playoffs on Thursday lol

He was also the Jays’ 4th best hitter in OPS during the actual season, just fractions behind Bichette

You gotta try a bit harder on this one

What's varsho OPS now against the 6 games in Seattle? .327 - He and you need to try harder bruh! It's worst on the team who has had more than 3 at at bats against Seattle. There is no way to spin in this series he's adjective bad - .125 batting avg, .167 Slugging, 1 double, 1 walk, that's the whole thing he's contributed this series. He should be moved down - hell move LF Barger up if your worried about lineup construction, he's shown more offensive ability in this series atleast.

Your boy IKF is hitting .909 OPS in Seattle series, he's been more productive offensive in less games, and less at bats. Much rather have him in based loaded or people scoring position, than Varsho at this point.

IKF over the team’s 4th best hitter/50 HR projected hitter Varsho, eh?

I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate then that you aren’t making the lineup decisions lmao

[pingpongrac]

Varsho had a 1.016 OPS in the playoffs on Thursday lol

He was also the Jays’ 4th best hitter in OPS during the actual season, just fractions behind Bichette

You gotta try a bit harder on this one

What's varsho OPS now against the 6 games in Seattle? .327 - He and you need to try harder bruh! It's worst on the team who has had more than 3 at at bats against Seattle. There is no way to spin in this series he's adjective bad - .125 batting avg, .167 Slugging, 1 double, 1 walk, that's the whole thing he's contributed this series. He should be moved down - hell move LF Barger up if your worried about lineup construction, he's shown more offensive ability in this series atleast.

Your boy IKF is hitting .909 OPS in Seattle series, he's been more productive offensive in less games, and less at bats. Much rather have him in based loaded or people scoring position, than Varsho at this point.

IKF over the team’s 4th best hitter/50 HR projected hitter Varsho, eh?

I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate then that you aren’t making the lineup decisions lmao

You know it's okay to agree with someone about your favourite player when they've been bad for a while, right? Varsho's OPS in the ALCS (.328) has been marginally better than the bottom of Seattle's order (Canzone, Robles, Rivas and Crawford have combined for a .290 OPS) – which had been a major talking point because of how ineffective they have been – while he has also struck out at an alarming rate (33% of his ABs) in addition to failing to bring runners in or even moving them along (13 runners left on base and just 2 RBI).

He was due for a big hit and he finally came through in G3 with the double off the wall. Now he is due for a big hit again and hopefully we get one tonight or he may not get a chance to redeem himself for another 6 months. Time to show up.

[Randle McMurphy]

What's varsho OPS now against the 6 games in Seattle? .327 - He and you need to try harder bruh! It's worst on the team who has had more than 3 at at bats against Seattle. There is no way to spin in this series he's adjective bad - .125 batting avg, .167 Slugging, 1 double, 1 walk, that's the whole thing he's contributed this series. He should be moved down - hell move LF Barger up if your worried about lineup construction, he's shown more offensive ability in this series atleast.

Your boy IKF is hitting .909 OPS in Seattle series, he's been more productive offensive in less games, and less at bats. Much rather have him in based loaded or people scoring position, than Varsho at this point.

IKF over the team’s 4th best hitter/50 HR projected hitter Varsho, eh?

I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate then that you aren’t making the lineup decisions lmao

You know it's okay to agree with someone about your favourite player when they've been bad for a while, right? Varsho's OPS in the ALCS (.328) has been marginally better than the bottom of Seattle's order (Canzone, Robles, Rivas and Crawford have combined for a .290 OPS) – which had been a major talking point because of how ineffective they have been – while he has also struck out at an alarming rate (33% of his ABs) in addition to failing to bring runners in or even moving them along (13 runners left on base and just 2 RBI).

He was due for a big hit and he finally came through in G3 with the double off the wall. Now he is due for a big hit again and hopefully we get one tonight or he may not get a chance to redeem himself for another 6 months. Time to show up.

Due for a big hit? Was his hit and run scored last night in an elimination game not big enough for you?

Criticize him all you want for playing a bad half week of games but drawing any sort of real conclusions based on that (or even worse, making lineup decisions based on that) would be idiocy far worse than even this FO is capable of.

Again, he had a 1000 OPS in the postseason literally 3 days ago. In baseball terms, the sample size here is hardly even worth commenting on.

[pingpongrac]

IKF over the team’s 4th best hitter/50 HR projected hitter Varsho, eh?

I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate then that you aren’t making the lineup decisions lmao

You know it's okay to agree with someone about your favourite player when they've been bad for a while, right? Varsho's OPS in the ALCS (.328) has been marginally better than the bottom of Seattle's order (Canzone, Robles, Rivas and Crawford have combined for a .290 OPS) – which had been a major talking point because of how ineffective they have been – while he has also struck out at an alarming rate (33% of his ABs) in addition to failing to bring runners in or even moving them along (13 runners left on base and just 2 RBI).

He was due for a big hit and he finally came through in G3 with the double off the wall. Now he is due for a big hit again and hopefully we get one tonight or he may not get a chance to redeem himself for another 6 months. Time to show up.

Due for a big hit? Was his hit and run scored last night in an elimination game not big enough for you?

Criticize him all you want for playing a bad half week of games but drawing any sort of real conclusions based on that (or even worse, making lineup decisions based on that) would be idiocy far worse than even this FO is capable of.

No, one lead-off single to the outfield in the last 3 games is not enough from our supposed top 3 hitter when we are without Bo. If we wanted more singles, we could just put Clement there (see what I did there?) and he would deliver far more frequently. Not to mention he wouldn’t be striking out in nearly every crucial AB.

When the high point of Varsho’s ABs lately is swinging at balls in the dirt two feet in front of the plate that we’ve managed to score on because of just how terrible the pitch was that Raleigh couldn’t even block it, that’s a problem. He has been terrible for the majority of this series and he needs to produce. Sooner or later guys like Arozarena and Rodriguez are going to wake up from their slumps and we need the guys behind Vladdy to be a threat or we’re basically relying on Clement, IKF and Gimenez to do all of the work on the offensive end.

[Randle McMurphy]

You know it's okay to agree with someone about your favourite player when they've been bad for a while, right? Varsho's OPS in the ALCS (.328) has been marginally better than the bottom of Seattle's order (Canzone, Robles, Rivas and Crawford have combined for a .290 OPS) – which had been a major talking point because of how ineffective they have been – while he has also struck out at an alarming rate (33% of his ABs) in addition to failing to bring runners in or even moving them along (13 runners left on base and just 2 RBI).

He was due for a big hit and he finally came through in G3 with the double off the wall. Now he is due for a big hit again and hopefully we get one tonight or he may not get a chance to redeem himself for another 6 months. Time to show up.

Due for a big hit? Was his hit and run scored last night in an elimination game not big enough for you?

Criticize him all you want for playing a bad half week of games but drawing any sort of real conclusions based on that (or even worse, making lineup decisions based on that) would be idiocy far worse than even this FO is capable of.

No, one lead-off single to the outfield in the last 3 games is not enough from our supposed top 3 hitter when we are without Bo. If we wanted more singles, we could just put Clement there (see what I did there?) and he would deliver far more frequently. Not to mention he wouldn’t be striking out in nearly every crucial AB.

When the high point of Varsho’s ABs lately is swinging at balls in the dirt two feet in front of the plate that we’ve managed to score on because of just how terrible the pitch was that Raleigh couldn’t even block it, that’s a problem. He has been terrible for the majority of this series and he needs to produce. Sooner or later guys like Arozarena and Rodriguez are going to wake up from their slumps and we need the guys behind Vladdy to be a threat or we’re basically relying on Clement, IKF and Gimenez to do all of the work on the offensive end.

You do realize that Varsho remains one of the best power threats on the team regardless of whether he struck out a few times this week, right?

If he pulled the ball he hit 400 feet last night even slightly, I suppose he'd still be a good hitter. But because he didn't, I suppose all is lost.