Facing an unfavorable 2-0 deficit against the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series, the Toronto Blue Jays return home Monday. But they’ve already been in this position in the 2015 postseason.
Toronto became the seventh team in MLB history to overcome a 2-0 deficit in a division series after churning out three consecutive wins over the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series. As right fielder Jose Bautista indicated to MLB.com’s Richard Justice, last week's comeback has instilled confidence in the team.
"We've been in the same situation before," Bautista said. "We have a little bit of experience being down 0-2. It's not the most comfortable place to be, but we're still confident.”
But the Royals present a tall task. Their 29-year playoff drought, quenched in 2014, is so last year. They’ve since rattled off an 11-6 postseason record and embodied resilience in a back-and-forth, five-game ALDS victory over the Houston Astros.
Kansas City plays with confidence, as it should, per MLB GIFs:
The ALCS winner will face a formidable foe in either the Chicago Cubs or New York Mets, who both boast brawny lineups that are chock-full of power in addition to solid pitching.
Though youth might be perceived as a weakness for the Cubs and Mets—their position-player starters are 24.8 and 28.6 years old on average, respectively—it might be their hidden strength, as Chris Cwik of Yahoo Sports noted:
The common thought was that both of these teams were still a year or two away from actual contention. A large part of that has to do with both clubs depending on young players. It's always risky to bet on prospects. Some take years to make an impact, others never develop and a smaller portion are superstars immediately.
Both the Cubs and Mets feature more of the latter.
The Blue Jays are in the postseason for the first time since 1993, but they have plenty of veteran leadership with October experience. And the Royals, of course, were a win away from the title last year. Either way, the World Series is shaping up to be a young-versus-experienced matchup.
With the World Series just over a week away, here is a look at the remaining ALCS schedule:
Predictions
The Blue Jays have a chance to exact revenge on a grudge that is 30 years in the making.
Toronto met Kansas City for the AL crown in 1985, with the Blue Jays winning the first two games at home before an epic collapse that pushed the Royals to the World Series—and eventually their first and only major league title.
Shi Davidi of Sportsnet wrote the following: “Such eliminations don’t happen very often, and they leave an enduring heartache.”
History indicates the odds aren’t in the Blue Jays’ favor—only three of 25 teams have come back from 2-0 deficits in LCS history. In fact, they have only a 19.9 percent chance of winning the series, per FanGraphs. But given the Blue Jays’ proven perseverance, unforgiving lineup and highly capable rotation, they’re still the team to beat.
They return to the hitter-friendly Rogers Centre, where they smacked 123 home runs and scored 450 runs in the regular season, a league high. But their pitching has been a hidden gem at home as well.
The Blue Jays’ respective starters for Games 3 and 4, Marcus Stroman and R.A. Dickey, have found a haven within their home confines. Mike Petriello of MLB.com took a closer look at the pair's stats:
Dickey, home: .208 BABIP
Dickey, road: .307 BABIPStroman, home: .264 BABIP
Stroman, road: .342 BABIPThat's measuring "Batting Average on Balls in Play," which is just a fancy way of asking how often a batted ball finds its way into a fielder's glove for an out, and the differences are enormous, especially when it's noted that the MLB average was .296.
Their balanced attack is why the Blue Jays will not only win the ALCS but also go on to top whichever team emerges from the National League—likely the Mets, given that they've shown they can halt the Cubs.
Chicago's power is as good as any other team's, but its lineup strikes out often—a league-high 1,518 times in the regular season. The Mets' loaded rotation of Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom will present an insurmountable challenge.
The Cubs and Mets have been two of the best stories of 2015 and will both be October regulars among this new and exciting generation of baseball. The Cubs have locked up most of their impact players through 2019, and it doesn't look as though the Mets intend to break up what could develop into MLB's best rotation.
But this has been, and will continue to be, Toronto’s year.
The Blue Jays stumbled in the second half of 2014 and blew a seven-game lead in the AL East, which prompted general manager Alex Anthopoulos to push all his chips to the middle this year, making trade-deadline deals that hauled in superstars David Price and Troy Tulowitzki, neither of whom the team will be able to afford in the long term.
Talent, experience, leadership and will are intangibles that permeate within the veteran Blue Jays clubhouse and are why Toronto will win the title.
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