You can ask yourselves which is going to hurt for the longest time. Will it be Ubaldo Jimenez, after surrendering a wild card game-winning 3-run homer on the first pitch to Edwin Encarnacion in the bottom of the eleventh Tuesday night? Or will it be Buck Showalter, after he's roasted all the way around the Beltway for leaving Jimenez in rather than bringing in Zach Britton?
With one swing at one fastball going anywhere but where it should have gone up to the plate, Encarnacion laid the Orioles' season to waste under the thunder of a 5-2 Blue Jays win that once looked like any resolution might not come into view until maybe a few more extra innings had passed.
Showalter even had a confab around the mound between himself, Jimenez, catcher Caleb Joseph, and the entire Oriole infield before Encarnacion checked in at the plate. The conversation was most likely around the theme of, "We need a double play ball. We don't care which way it goes as long as you throw him something low enough that he can only whack it on the ground and send us to the 12th."
Exactly why Showalter didn't stride from the dugout with a hook in his hand for Jimenez and a sign for Britton to hustle in and go to work is going to be debated for a very long time. It may even turn up at the beginning of Showalter's (many many years hence, we hope) obituary.
"No one has been pitching for us better than Ubaldo," Showalter said wanly enough after the Blue Jays punched their tickets to the American League division series. Actually, that isn't exactly true.
Oh, Jimenez has been a solid starter down the stretch following a somewhat horrid first half. Hitters only hit .175 off him with a .252 on-base percentage from August's beginning to regular season's end. The Orioles might not have gotten to the wild card game without him.
But a starter Jimenez is, not a bullpen bull. And even if he was a bullpen bull, he wasn't Zach Britton, who allowed four earned runs all season ... and none since April, in 67 relief appearances. Jiminez isn't in the Cy Young Award conversation at all, never mind getting there with the absolute highest win-probability-added percentage for any American League pitcher since — wait for it! — Pedro Martinez in 1999.
He did enter the Toronto eleventh and surrender back-to-back singles to Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson, Travis taking third when left fielder Nolan Reimhold, a late-game replacement, bobbled Donaldson's single a moment enough. Now with one out (a leadoff punchout by Jimenez's immediate predecessor, Brian Duensing), a mere sacrifice fly could win it for the Jays.
Where was Britton? Wherever he was, he sure wasn't on the mound. And Jimenez went to work on Encarnacion. He threw a fastball right down the pipe, and Encarnacion hit it right into the second deck. And Rogers Centre went berserk.
Britton, with 47 saves on the regular season and not one blown save, wasn't even a topic, apparently. When Encarnacion's blast landed, Showalter joined the sad roll of managers who think their shutdown closers have no business being in any game unless it's the bottom of the last with a lead to protect. The managers who still don't get that there are times you need a stopper like five minutes ago.
No, Britton wasn't hurt. Showalter acknowledged as much after the game. "He simply liked what he had seen recently from the other pitchers," as MassLive's Annie Maroon paraphrased. Showalter used six relievers in the game and none of them could have come in with a 0.94 ERA on his 2016 jacket.
"I considered a lot of things over the course of the game," the skipper said — after it was over and the Orioles' winter vacation had begun.
Did he consider how lucky he was in the first place that the Jays started Marcus Stroman instead of a left-hander, knowing the Orioles struggled all season long against portsiders?
Did he consider how much fire he was playing with when the best the Orioles could get off Stroman was Mark Trumbo hitting a two-run homer in the fourth — overthrowing the early 1-0 lead Jose Bautista gave the Jays when he led off the bottom of the third hitting a 3-1 pitch from Orioles starter Chris Tillman over the left field fence — after a diving catch by Toronto center fielder Kevin Pillar snatched a hit from Manny Machado?
Did he wonder what happened when Michael Bourn couldn't run down Pillar's line double to right in the fifth, setting up the tying run?
Did he wonder how silly he sounded telling reporters post-game that the Orioles tried four times to get a lead for Britton before his failure to reach for Britton cost him the season? And allow Encarnacion to join a rather exclusive group of men who've ended win-or-be-gone postseason games with big flies?
(Hello, Bobby Thomson, Bill Mazeroski, Chris Chambliss, Joe Carter, and Aaron Boone. And, our condolences, Ralph Branca, Ralph Terry, Mark Littell, Mitch Williams, and Tim Wakefield.)
Before the game, FanGraphs analyst Dave Cameron — after observing Britton's 2016 virtues include 202 out of 254 hitters facing him this season either striking out or hitting grounders — observed thus:
"Nothing in baseball is automatic, but Britton shutting down opposing hitters is about as close as something gets; it's just really hard to mount a comeback when the pitcher only lets you choose between whiffs and grounders. But the problem for the Orioles is getting the game to Britton, given that as the capital-c Closer, baseball orthodoxy says to save him for the ninth inning.
"But in elimination games, orthodoxy should go out the window. Britton is the Orioles best pitcher, and saving him for the final three outs of the game would be a waste of a premium asset."
And the waste of the Orioles' season, too. Encarnacion made sure of that once he saw Jimenez's meatball arrive into his smokehouse. That, and a ticket for the Blue Jays to meet their absolute favorite American League team in the division series.
Leave a Comment