BALTIMORE — Bo Bichette grew up a big Troy Tulowitzki fan and an even bigger homerun fan, so naturally he was interested in the Toronto Blue Jays even before they picked him in the second round of the 2016 draft. He closely watched their back-to-back American League Championship Series runs and has since revisited the legendary drives of Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, awed by the cameras shaking and players pouring out of the dugout in celebration.
Six years later, the opportunity to make memories of your own when the Blue Jays host Game 1 of a wildcard series against the Seattle Mariners on Friday is “a dream come true,” the star shortstop said.
“I remember watching those games,” he continued Tuesday afternoon, just before Game No. 161 rained for the Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles, “and it was just a chill as I thought about taking the opportunity.” have to play in such an environment. So (Hosting the Wild Card) is a dream come true.”
Bichette is far from alone in anticipating the first postseason game at Rogers Center since Game 5 of the 2016 ALCS, a 3-0 loss that sent Cleveland into the World Series. Though the Blue Jays did make the 2020 playoffs — being carried away in two games by the host Tampa Bay Rays — it was more of an asterisk than a proper playoff experience.
Amid the pandemic, circumstances were strange, the stands were empty and when asked how he would describe the mood of those games, Bichette bluntly replied, “There weren’t any.”
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been part of the postseason yet,” he added.
The real thing comes Friday, after an absurdly traditional doubleheader Wednesday meant to make up for Tuesday’s rain and staged because Major League Baseball always strives to play 162 games when conditions are safe and there’s a weather window , which allows this.
Plans for everything from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Santiago Espinal’s training sessions to the throws were fluid like the grass at Camden Yards, according to interim manager John Schneider.
Expect Mitch White and Yusei Kikuchi to lean heavily, Casey Lawrence is among the Taxi Squad players here and can offer some length and with several helpers wanting at least a bit of work to be sharp for Friday the will Blue Jays looking to make their way through 18 innings.
Everything is done with a view to optimizing for Friday.
A rain-cut 5-1 win over the Orioles on Monday, combined with Seattle’s 4-3 loss to Detroit, secured home field for the Blue Jays, who greeted the moment with a flurry of messages in their group chat with Alek Manoah jump in first of course.
While qualifying for the playoffs was paramount, securing home field advantage quickly became a secondary goal.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment since 2017,” said right fielder Teoscar Hernandez. “I saw that in ’15 and ’16 and that’s what I want to experience and that’s the opportunity. … It feels great to see that in the past and now you can see it in person. Knowing that all these people are cheering for you and your teammates is a special feeling.”
While the postseason will be very familiar to the likes of George Springer, Matt Chapman, Jackie Bradley Jr., Kevin Gausman, Ross Stripling and Jose Berrios, it will be much newer to the majority of the club. Experience cannot be accelerated, and while it can be overrated, it can sometimes normalize the abnormal, which is partly the value Schneider sees in hosting.
“I just feel like you’re comfortable with your environment and your clubhouse and your apartment, the condo, whatever it is, your family, all of that stuff,” Schneider said. “You just know the routine. When everything is magnified and extra things happen, do it in your stadium with your fans and your clubhouse and people you are familiar with. I think that kind of extra stuff goes a little unnoticed, but then you throw the fans on top and it’s huge.”
Also huge is the impact of the new post-season format in its first season.
Although the Blue Jays would have qualified for the postseason even under last year’s system, they would have only guaranteed themselves a game rather than a best-of-three to advance to the Division Series. The new system also left teams with something to play for after the fact, with the top two division winners earning direct byes to the Division Series.
Mark Shapiro, the President and CEO of the Blue Jays, who is also a member of the Baseball Competitions Committee, was a big supporter of the push to reach a 12-team playoff during the spring bargaining session, and “I actually wanted it by one.” expand a little further,” he said.
“I love the idea that has been floated before that the top team (playoff team) chooses who they play against. I thought that was a cool idea,” added Shapiro. “But it’s a further reflection that we continue to think differently about the game and are open to how we grow the game and gain fan bases. With more fan bases in August and September and April, with a tangible reason to believe there’s a chance they can play, I think it’s accomplished that. It was also important not to belittle what it means to win the division, not belittle what it means to win more games. It has been resolved. That combined with a more balanced schedule next year is a better place to get there.”
The balanced schedule comes into effect next season and aims to level the playing field in the competition for the wildcard spots.
Stripling, who was then involved in the CBA negotiations as the Blue Jays’ union representative, said the players understood that bigger playoffs would always be part of the deal, but “we wanted it to be a system that made sense to us .”
So far, so good.
“That’s exactly what we wanted,” Stripling said. “We didn’t like 14-team structures that we put together. Some had ghost wins, if you remember we had teams that started with 1-0 leads in the series in one of the proposals we sent. Twelve always felt better.
“We motivated teams to keep winning even after they secured a place. You get three games in that wild card on your home court if you have the better record – that’s a huge deal. The byes are a little odd, but they’re not so long that a starter gets completely rusty or out of step or out of routine. So it feels like it hit all the things we needed, which was to extend the playoffs, get a different team, and not go down to a game after 162 – everyone hated that.”
Well, maybe not the Blue Jays of 2016, who advanced to the Division series with Encarnacion’s epic walk-off homer against the Orioles, a moment ingrained in both Bichette’s memory and franchise lore. Friday is the turn of a new breed of Blue Jays in October.
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