MLB: Dissecting the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays Wild Card Match-Up
By Jason Burke
The MLB regular season came to an end yesterday, and now we are set for two wild card games to determine the final entrants into the Division Series. On Tuesday the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays will collide at Rogers Centre, while on Wendesday the New York Mets will send Noah Syndergaard to the hill to face the 2014 World Series champs and the Series MVP in Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants.
With the down-to-the-wire nature of this year’s wild card race, the Toronto Blue Jays rotation isn’t quite lined up the way that they would like. Aaron Sanchez, who went 15-2 with an even 3.00 ERA across 30 starts with the club in 2016, was used on Sunday to ensure that there would be a game for the Jays on Tuesday. With Sanchez out of the mix and with J.A. Happ and Marco Estrada having pitched Friday and Saturday, Toronto will be turning to the preseason’s pick to be the ace of the staff in Marcus Stroman to start the big game. The Orioles have yet to announce their starter, but there are two candidates: Ubaldo Jimenez and Chris Tillman.
Jimenez has been on a tear since re-joining the rotation, putting up a 2.45 ERA in seven starts. Just last week in Toronto he went 6 2/3 innings and allowed just one hit in a 4-0 Oriole win. Tillman on the other hand started the season off scorching, but has certainly cooled off of his early season Cy Young pace, posting ERAs of 6.60 and 3.79 over the final two months. That said, he also pitched well against the Jays last week, allowing just two runs (one earned) over 5 2/3 innings. He holds a 2.38 ERA in two starts in Toronto this year.
If Tillman gets the call, he could be navigating around trouble the entire evening, as a number of Jays hitters have solid career numbers against the right-hander. This includes the usual suspects in Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, but also the unlikely heroes in Troy Tulowitzki (.417 average, 3 homers, 5 RBI in 12 at-bats) and Kevin Pillar (.348, 3 HR, 6 RBI in 23 AB). We could even see Dalton Pompey get the start in left as he is 4-for-7 (.571) with a homer and four driven in against Tillman. The Jays lineup generally packs a punch, and they could potentially feast on Tillman.
Those same eye-popping numbers don’t exist against Jimenez, outside of Michael Saunders‘ .429 average and 4 homers in 21 at-bats and Ezequiel Carrera‘s 4-for-7 mark. The heavy thumpers in the lineup (Bautista, Donaldson, Encarnacion and Tulo) have combined to go 18-for-118 (.153) against Jimenez with two homers and 11 RBI.
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Stroman on the other hand has had his trouble with the Oriole lineup, surrendering a total of 18 runs in 23 innings, and had not allowed fewer than three runs to Baltimore in any of his four starts against them this season. In his most recent start against the O’s in Toronto on September 29, he surrendered four earned across seven innings and was charged with the loss. Francisco Liriano could be available in relief for this game, and in his only appearance against the Orioles this season he went 6 1/3 scoreless innings. Stroman could have a quick hook.
The Toronto bullpen has struggled over the final month outside of Joaquin Benoit (0.96 ERA) and Brett Cecil (1.04). Closer Roberto Osuna worked 16 innings and held a 3.38 ERA which isn’t terrible, but it’s well above his season’s mark of 2.68. His strikeouts per nine dropped from a rate of 9.97 to 6.19.
The Oriole bullpen has been solid over the final month, led by potential Cy Young candidate Zach Britton, who allowed all of four earned runs all season and none since August 24 and none in eight innings against the Blue Jays. The highest ERA in the Baltimore bullpen over the final month belongs to Vance Worley, who posted a 3.72, which is not much higher than Toronto’s closer.
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The Blue Jays finished the season with a 10-9 record against Baltimore this season, including a 5-4 record against them in the second half. The Orioles won two of three in Toronto just last week, which coupled with a better chance of their starter (assuming Jimenez gets the ball) going deeper and a bullpen that has been solid of late and includes MLB’s best closer this season, may be just enough to give the O’s a slight advantage in this match-up.