2023 American League Wild Card Series 1

2023 American League Wild Card Series

Minnesota Twins 87 - 75 in the AL	2 - 0 Series Summary	Toronto Blue Jays 89 - 73 in the AL

Overview[edit]

The Teams[edit]

Managers: Twins: Rocco Baldelli | Blue Jays: John Schneider

Twins

Blue Jays

Umpires[edit]

Andy Fletcher, Adam Hamari, Mike Muchlinski, Dan Iassogna (crew chief), Mark Wegner, Jeremie Rehak

Series results[edit]

Game	Score	Date	Starters	Time (ET)
1	Toronto Blue Jays 1 Minnesota Twins 3	October 3	Kevin Gausman (0-1) Pablo López (1-0)	4:38 pm
2	Toronto Blue Jays 0 Minnesota Twins 2	October 4	José Berrios (0-1) Sonny Gray (1-0)	4:38 pm

Results[edit]

Game 1 @ Target Field[edit]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Blue Jays	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	6	0
Twins	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	x	3	5	1
WP: Pablo López (1-0); LP: Kevin Gausman (0-1); SV: Jhoan Duran (1)
Home Runs: MIN - Royce Lewis 2 (2)

Attendance: 38,450

Both the Twins and the Blue jays came into Game 1 on a postseason losing streak, the Jays' going back to Game 5 of the 2016 ALCS and having now reached five games, while the Twins' was a painful 18 games, dating back to the 2004 Division Series. Something had to give, and it was the Twins who were able to finally win a postseason contest. On the mound, Pablo López, the man obtained for once and future batting champion Luis Arraez, started the game for Minnesota, while American League strikeout champion Kevin Gausman did so for Toronto.

The first batter of the game, the Jays' George Springer reached on a wild throw by 3B Jorge Polanco, but López retired the next three men. Then Gausman took the mound, and the Twins had a plan, which was not to lay off Gausman's splitter, which was normally out of the strike zone, take a walk if necessary, and wait for him to either elevate the splitter or leave a fastball over the plate. Easier said than done, but the Twins executed this to perfection: Edouard Julien drew a lead-off walk, then after a first out, Royce Lewis drove an inside fastball well back into the left-field stands for a two-run homer. Gausman continued to struggle over the next two innings, needing a lot of pitches to get out of the 2nd without allowing a run, and then giving up another homer to Lewis, this one a solo shot to right field, to lead off the 3rd. For Lewis, he joined the short list of players who have homered in their first two career postseason at-bats, now consisting of three names. Gausman struck out the side in the 4th, but had expended too many pitches and had to leave the game early, while the Blue Jays could not dig themselves out of that early 3-0 hole.

The Jays got their first hit in the 4th, a single by Bo Bichette, then Alejandro Kirk was plunked on the wrist with two outs. Kevin Kiermaier followed with a ground ball that SS Carlos Correa could not pick up. Bichette decided to take a risk and dash home, but Correa managed to retrieve the ball quickly and his throw cut Bichette off at home plate to end the inning. The Jays then had another chance to tie the game in the 6th when Bichette singled and Kirk drew a two-out walk. Kiermaier followed with a clean single to left field for a first run. That was the end for López and facing Louie Varland, Matt Chapman drove a ball 400 feet to the top of the center field fence, but Michael A. Taylor corralled it before it could leave the yard, and the inning was over. The bullpens dominated the proceedings for the remainder of the game, although Jordan Hicks loaded the bases in the bottom of the 8th before striking out Willi Castro. Jhoan Duran then pitched a dominant 9th inning with two strikeouts, a walk and a ground ball by Springer that gave Minnesota the long-awaited win.

Game 2 @ Target Field[edit]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Blue Jays	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	9	1
Twins	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	x	2	7	0
WP: Sonny Gray (1-0); LP: José Berríos (0-1); SV: Jhoan Duran (2)
Home Runs: none

Attendance: 38,518

Game 2 was a continuation of the Blue Jays' year-long struggles, largely their inability to get hits with runners on base, while the Twins once again got strong starting pitching and scored just enough runs to win the game. On the mound, Sonny Gray was coming off an excellent season in spite of a pedestrian won-loss record of 7-7, while José Berríos, who had spent years pitching for the Twins, had also pitched well even if he had ended up with a losing record. Both starters were very good in the early going, each keeping their opponents off the scoreboard over the first three innings, although both teams left men on base, including a total of five by Toronto.

After Gray pitched a perfect top of the 4th, the Blue Jays decided to do something cute, namely to replace Berríos by lefthander Yusei Kikuchi in order to take advantage of the Twins having a lot of lefthanded batters in their line-up. The idea was to make the change after the first batter in the 4th, Royce Lewis, yesterday's hero, who managed to work a walk from Berríos. The move to Kikuchi may have made sense in theory, but ignored the fact that Berríos was pitching really well, and that the issue for the Jays was not preventing runs, but pushing them across the board. Kikuchi came in and took a few batters to get himself fully in the game (he had not pitched even once in relief all season), by which time he had loaded the bases on a soft infield single by Max Kepler and a walk to pinch-hitter Donovan Solano. Carlos Correa then followed with another single, pushing across a first run, and another pinch-hitter, Willi Castro, grounded into a double play, allowing a second run to score. That was pretty much it for the Twins' offense for the game, but it was enough. Another puzzling thing was that Kikuchi was removed after two outs in the 5th, meaning the Jays' bullpen once again would have to pitch for a long stretch if they were to win the game, and would be pretty much spent if there was a Game 3. The removal of Berríos also gave the Twins a psychological edge, since it told them that the Jays thought that the only way for them to win the game was to resort to these sorts of unusual moves.

In any case, the Jays had a couple of opportunities to get back in the game, and wasted them both. In the top of the 5th, George Springer singled and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drew a two-out walk. Both runners then advanced on a wild pitch by Gray, but with a full count on Bo Bichette, Guerrero was picked off second base by Gray and SS Carlos Correa - an egregious baserunning mistake. In the 6th, it was Matt Chapman who missed being a hero by inches, as had been the case in Game 1: with the bases loaded and one out, he hit a line drive down the left field line that was foul by less than a foot. When the at-bat continued, he grounded into a double play against Caleb Thielbar, and those two consecutive misses completely deflated the Jays. Their unusual pitching decisions meant that closer Jordan Romano came into the game in the 7th - not something he was used to. As had been the case in Game 1, Jhoan Duran closed out the game; before he could start the 9th, he cut his thumb while throwing his warm-up pitches, but after some work by the training staff, he was able to continue. After giving up a one-out single to Santiago Espinal, he struck out Chapman and Daulton Varsho by overwhelming them completely, ending Toronto's season. It had taken the Twins 19 years to get one postseason win, and 24 hours to get a second one.