2016 ALCS: Toronto Blue Jays vs Cleveland Indians

i think this could go 7, and i'm on the fence in both rooting and inkling.

Tribe can beat the BoSox they can beat anybody. Indians in 4.

praying for a game similar to this six hour classic earlier in the season

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201607010.shtml

Jays in six. I'm way too confident.

tribe in 5

via a Torontonian on fb:

For the second straight year, the Toronto Blue Jays will be the most-recent World Champion among the final four clubs in the CSes. This has happened in two consecutive years now, and the Jays' last title was 23 years ago.

voted jays in 6 also; will root either of these teams in the ws

I have no idea if the Tribe have a 4th starter or even need one at this point but it's game over Blue Jerks!

Probably Tomlin as 3rd and then Kluber on short rest if need be? If Salazar can come back, i'd be surprised if they used him as a starter this series.

Salazar out.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

oh hey i just realised that a few weeks ago i booked tickets to go see the new ken loach movie during tonight's game :c

http://d2s3dt9f4iyeup.cloudfront.net/images/resized_v1/28bb6163-602e-4eba-80bb-5a1f888f9365.jpg

haha awesome

@NickCaminoWTAM
#Indians President of Baseball Operations Chris Antonetti just told us on @wtam1100 that Trevor Bauer lacerated his pinky repairing a drone.

@jonahkeri
Terry Francona on what happened with Trevor Bauer: "It's pretty self-explanatory. We've all, at some point, had a drone-related problem."

Gnarly movement on a couple of those first pitches by Kluber.

lmao @ drone injury

http://todayinsci.com/Events/Patent/PropellerBeanieAds-Billboard-5Jun1948.jpg

I read somewhere that letting Cy Young winners off the hook in the early innings sometimes comes back to haunt you.

Two runners on base in the first three innings against Kluber and no runs scored.

Xpost well said

Wow, Kipnis

Travis has looked bad ranging to his right on a couple of balls hit up the middle. Obviously his knee is far from being 100 percent.

That seemed to drop about four feet in front of Bautista--couldn't he have made some sort of attempt? (I guess he's still hurting.)

Andrew Miller has some crazy downward motion. There is definitely some similarity to the Unit in watching him pitch.

was thinking the same thing actually

Donaldson totally switched his swing there to be able to get meat on that inside pitch cutting in. They had a feature with him on MLB right before the playoff pregame with him talking about altering his swing to get that pitch.

John Gibbons has an eternal look of "I'm getting too old for this shit" on his face.

Kkkkk

donaldson's a pretty cerebral player

russ martin is schlumping

Who are starting game 2?

Fabulous game

From Twitter today. Funnier now after the game.

Zack Meisel ‏@ZackMeisel

Indians' rotation:
-guy with the hurt quad
-guy with the broken hand
-guy with forearm strain
-guy with the drone injury
-Tomlin

i like the Jays' odds the next 2-3 games.

I'm sure the A's and Braves and Phillies felt like this in '92 and '93 with Alomar--you're on the wrong end of a national coming-out party for an unknown superstar.

Didn't realize "shutdown ERA" was a thing

The Jays are completely hopeless against Miller.

Unhittable.

Lord

God, we're about to go down 2-0 having only given up four runs.

Hopeless.

Forget about Bauer, they should have started Miller in game 3.

The idea on talk radio the before this series started was that our offense was back to something resembling last year. No--we had one big game and one big inning against Texas. We remain mired in the same slump we've been in for the rest of that series, for the wild card, and for all of September. (Don't mean to take anything away from Cleveland's stellar pitching.)

tribe rolling

Yep.

Don't f*** with the formula.

do these playoffs feel more broken than usual or am i just imagining things are different? if cleveland and LAD both win there'll be like 40% of a single actual big league rotation between them.

and beyond that there just seems to be a lack of strong teams this year. like there's the cubs, who are freakishly good at everything, and then every other team has glaring weaknesses. i guess the red sox were pretty balanced. but the giants, orioles, rangers just weren't very good, and the nats and mets and aforementioned teams are broken, and the dodgers aren't built to win championships anyway in this era of the specialist. and then there's a blue jays, who seem like the iffiest team of too-olds and too-youngs.

idk, just feels like the cubs and sox are the only teams that 'feel' like a contender

cubs are super stacked obv
sox didnt/dont have pitching i trust
jays/tribe are decent teams
dodgers are def kinda broken rn but wont be shocked if theyre competitive w cubes

Andrew Miller: 28 batters faced, 18 strikeouts.

andrew miller's FIP this postseason coming into tonight was -0.51. (yes, that's a negative sign.) tonight he actually lowered that, with 3 Ks in 1.1 innings for a FIP on the night of -(negative)1.35

please to ilxors can explain to me why Indians and Blue Jays have to play another game? I thought it was just best of 5, and they've already won 3 ?

Best of 7. Best of 5 was the last series.

can't believe Cleveland's going to win 2 titles in a calendar year

thanks brownie, stupid me.

well, there's always the possibility that karma will circle back around and the tribe will blow a 3-0 lea- *is shot by every member of the internet*

does anyone else think Ron Darling completely changes his cadence/energy toward the annoying for the PS games? have we discussed this?

scheduling is amazing/fluky that this srs could be over and nl yet to start gm 3

well... i'm going to the game today. hoping for a tired, short rested Kluber and exhausted bullpen...
little sad, (not just for the obvious, elimination reasons) because won or lose we'll probably be saying goodbye to a coupe long serving Jays.

does anyone else think Ron Darling completely changes his cadence/energy toward the annoying for the PS games? have we discussed this?

[Andrew Miller shown warming up]

Darling: Terry Francona told me yesterday that, in situations like these during the post, there's a member of his bullpen he'd take over any other reliever in Major League Baseball. That pitcher? [pause] ANDREW MILLER.

and he kind of shout/spits it An-drew MILL-er. anyway! i wonder if it comes from on high TBS or w/e or if he just gets so excited after decades of moribund mets seasons

man, I don't like his voice at all and I don't like Ripken either. A bittersweet TV experience to be sure.

I have no problems with him during the regular season--he has a great rapport with Gary and Keith in the mets booth.

All right, Nate Silver has us at 3% to win the World Series--not sure if that's the now-cast or polls-plus. (Has the Indians tied with the Cubs at 38%.)

Actually looked like EE steered the ball precisely in that direction...couple of feet, though, and it's a DP.

Was it necessary to bring in Osuna? I'd give somebody else a baserunner...there's a game tomorrow.

holy shit there is! thought tomorrow was an off day!

who the fuck is R Merritt

He won a fan contest.

like a vox explainer, but not shitty http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/everything-you-need-to-know-about-ryan-merritt/

Fastball sitting 85.9, fastest: 87.5.

Something, anything: sort of looking forward to what kind of send-off Bautista and Encarnacion get in their last AB (even though EE could be back).

That could very well have been EE's last at-bat.

Most depressing Jays post-season series since they got swept by the Twins in '91 (endpoint of their underachieving years).

The Indians are going to the World Series!!!!!

sorry clemenza

Thanks. The Indians are a great story--it hurts, but the fact that they did that without two (or three) starters, no question they're the better team. If it's them and the Dodgers, I'll be rooting for Cleveland; Indians/Cubs, I'm okay with either.

(Had it in my mind the whole series that Cleveland hadn't been in the WS since '54--completely forgot about '97 until the announcer just mentioned it.)

lol and 95!!!

this is clevelands year

Of course, '95 too. Geez...why the hell was I feeling sorry for this franchise?

'95 too! One of the best offensive teams ever! Manny Ramirez batted NINTH!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzhj2ev0Xwo

Hate the Indians but that's probably wholly because of the name and horrendous, can't believe this is allowed in 2016 caricature hat logo

it is awful and I wish they ditched it

The Jays looked almost exactly like the Tigers did in the 20__ DS/CS/WS.

Jays well and truly bested tho hey,hardly a contest.

guess I'm rooting for the Cubs now.

Wish at least one player would add Cleveland to his no-trade clause, due to the name and logo, and be vocal about it.

"Not having seen him is something that could go either way but, with the experience in our lineup, I'm pretty sure he's going to be shaking in his boots more than we are.

"So, I like where we're at."

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/10/19/blue-jays-bautista-says-indians-merritt-will-be-shaking-in-his-boots-in-game-5

@MLBastian
Someone in mob of players yelled at Merritt: "Were you shaking in your boots?!"

Congrats to the Indians, doing this without 3 of your five best players is incredible.

(xpost) One of the radio guys was all over Bautista for that this morning.

Bautista is a jerk. The thing about 'circumstances' was the last straw, I do enjoy bat flips and showmanship but that kind of talk comes across as not smart.

Speaking of which...

Don't mean to insult any Cleveland fans, and I may regret saying so, but I'm much rather the Jays have to face the Indians if they advance. So I'll root for them.
― clemenza, Thursday, October 6, 2016 2:32 PM (one week ago)

Where's Morbs?

lol

idk, i think bautista was just answering the question and happened to use a catchy, quotable phrase

KC kind of showed that you got a shutdown pen, you can dominate a short series.

Most depressing Jays post-season series since they got swept by the Twins in '91 (endpoint of their underachieving years).

Actually yeah, that's a good reference point. In both cases it should have been an even matchup but the Jays looked completely out of place and were never really in the series.

I was hoping they could at least make an exciting game of it today, but instead they looked terrible at the plate by and large, wasted the few scoring opportunities they had, and got dominated by Cleveland's bullpen yet again.

Miller was unbelievable.

Did he drop his leg kick when he became a full-time reliever?

Can't think of a pitcher with such lousy-to-dominant statistical contrast. I mean... http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/millean01.shtml