TORONTO — The Blue Jays had home-field advantage for Game 5 of the American League division series on Wednesday, but John Gibbons’ decision in Game 4 left Toronto at a strategic disadvantage.
Gibbons used David Price out of the bullpen for three innings on Monday, having the star left-hander throw 50 pitches in a game that the Blue Jays led by six runs when he entered. Price allowed three runs on six hits in relief of knuckleballer R.A. Dickey.
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It was one thing to decide to have Marcus Stroman start Game 5 over Price after the 24-year-old right-hander pitched so well in a no-decision in Game 2 of the series, which wound up going 14 innings. Using Price so heavily in Game 4, though, left the Blue Jays without a left-hander in their bullpen for the deciding game of the series after Aaron Loup, the replacement for the injured Brett Cecil, had to leave the Blue Jays for a family emergency.
The Rangers had five left-handed hitters in their Game 5 starting lineup: right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, designated hitter Prince Fielder, first baseman Mitch Moreland, left fielder Josh Hamilton and second baseman Rougned Odor. Gibbons refused to completely rule out using Price, but he was clearly against the idea of using the pitcher the Blue Jays acquired from Detroit on July 30 for Matt Boyd, Jairo Labourt and Daniel Norris.
“Don’t count on it, you know?” Gibbons said when asked if Price would be able to talk his way into a relief appearance. “One of the reasons we used him so long the other day was knowing, if he got in the game, he probably isn’t going to pitch today anyway. … David came over here through a trade. He’s a huge part of us even getting here. … But I have a conscience, I’m not going to abuse him. I don’t think that’s fair to him, I don’t think that’s fair to anybody else and I’ll stick by that because he’s done a hell of a lot for our team.”
Gibbons was realistic in saying that Toronto needed Stroman to be good anyway, and going to another starting pitcher out of the bullpen would be a bad sign. He did have a couple of other options for situational relief against lefties, though, one being Ryan Tepera, who held left-handers to a .568 OPS during the regular season, albeit in 59 plate appearances.
The other candidate for a spot against a lefty might be Dickey, because the knuckleball can be tricky to hit no matter what side of the plate a hitter is on. Lefties hit .228/.288/.378 against Dickey during the regular season.
“It’s always a possibility,” Gibbons said. “It’s really hard to say.”
Whatever the Blue Jays decided to do to counter the Rangers’ left-handed thunder, Texas was ready – and not counting out the chance that Price might come out of the bullpen.
“Look we prepared that he is available,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. “I’m not going to assume that any player over there is not available. So, we’ll prepare for it. And if we don’t see him, we don’t see him. And if we do, we’ll be prepared for it.”