Momentum swings again as Jays return home on the ropes

Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays have learned an unfortunate lesson this October.

The deeper you go in the playoffs, the more you have to deal with the stress of playoff baseball.

This reached its apex, or perhaps its nadir, on Friday night as the Jays turned a late 2-1 lead into a 6-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners.

Toronto came into these playoffs with one nagging doubt: a shaky bullpen. That problem had been overcome by the simple fact that, when the Jays hit, they tended to hit a lot. The Toronto offense blasted the New York Yankees for two straight games to open the American League Division Series, then did the same thing over two consecutive nights in Seattle to claw their way back into the American League Championship Series.

Jeff Hoffman, their homer-prone closer, had yet to even pitch in a typical save situation.

But then, when they needed clean relief innings to close out Game 5 in Seattle, they didn't get them. John Schneider made the mystifying decision to open the eighth inning with lefty Brendon Little, who immediately gave up a towering game-tying homer to Cal Raleigh. The wheels quickly came off from there, and Eugenio Suárez eventually hit a grand slam off Seranthony Domínguez to blow the game open in the same inning.

Suddenly, a team that was on the verge of a 3-2 series lead now goes back home needing consecutive wins to make it to the World Series.

Is that possible? Absolutely. Has anything happened over the first five games of the ALCS that would give you confidence in predicting what will happen over the next two? Not at all.

Postseason baseball remains an extraordinarily fickle mistress.

The good news for the Blue Jays is that momentum has meant very little in the ALCS. Toronto came into the series tanned and rested, having dispatched the Yankees in the previous round in four games. Seattle limped in after a 15-inning marathon Game 5 win over the Detroit Tigers. But the Blue Jays promptly scored just four runs across two games at the Rogers Centre, and none of those came after the second inning. Behind solid pitching and plenty of slugging, the Mariners stormed out to a 2-0 series lead. Heading to the Pacific Northwest for three games, the Jays appeared to be in serious trouble.

Then it was their turn to put the series on its ear, rolling to a pair of comfortable wins keyed by Andrés Giménez home runs, of all things, and excellent starts from Shane Bieber and Max Scherzer. Bieber had started the only ALDS game that the Jays lost to the Yankees, and Scherzer hadn't even been on the roster for that series. These guys weren't exactly riding hot streaks, and yet they provided just what Toronto needed, with Scherzer etching himself into franchise postseason lore after launching a variety of cuss words at Schneider when he considered pulling him in the fifth inning.

Then came one more momentum swing in Game 5, when Toronto's bats went as quiet as they had been back in the series opener. Suárez, who had been ice-cold for most of October, suddenly went nuclear with a pair of home runs. Sure, he had 49 of them during the regular season, but there had been no sign that he was about to break out, until he did.

Toronto will hope for one more momentum flip behind rookie starter Trey Yesavage, who has been a one-man case study in the unpredictability of the playoffs. He delivered a historic performance in the ALDS, striking out 11 Yankees and surrendering zero hits as he pitched into the sixth inning. He kept burying his split-finger fastball in the bottom of the strike zone, or below it, and the Yankees kept chasing it.

But against Seattle in Game 2 of the ALCS, that phenomenal run came to a halt. He couldn't locate the splitter, and the Mariners piled up five hits and three walks over four-plus innings.

Which version of Yesavage shows up on Sunday night will go a long way to determining whether the Blue Jays' season stays alive. It's hardly an ideal situation for Toronto. Yesavage's major-league career has lasted exactly 14 innings, plus 9.1 more in the playoffs. When Schneider made the decision to start the big rookie in Game 2 against the Yankees, taking advantage of New York's unfamiliarity with him and giving him the benefit of a comfortable home crowd, he wasn't thinking about what that might mean nine games and one series later. But what it means is that the most inexperienced pitcher on the Toronto staff has the team's fate in his hands, with no room for error.

It sounds like the ideal scenario for Seattle. A pitcher they have already seen, and beaten, and a game at the Rogers Centre, where they have already won twice. One team rolling, and the other searching for answers.

You'd think you'll know exactly how this will work out. Except for all the times in this baseball postseason when it has not.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.