Charlie Montoyo's Game Management Leaves a Lot to be Desired

 Heading into the Wild Card Series against the Rays, the Blue Jays knew they were in tough. Widely regarded as the favourite to represent the American League in the World Series, it seemed as if the threat Tampa posed scared Toronto, or more specifically, Charlie Montoyo.

There is nothing wrong with respecting your opponent, but at the end of the day, you have to focus on your ball club and focus on how your team is going to win - not so much on how you are going to beat your opponent. For Toronto, a talented but young team, the key to success in my opinion would have been simplification. Yes, it's postseason baseball, but it's still just baseball. For guys that have little to no postseason experience, it's the job of the coaching staff to make it feel as close to a regular baseball game as humanly possible. This gives your team the best chance of living in the moment and allowing their God-given talents to guide them through 9 innings. 

Instead, before a pitch was even thrown, it was clear Charlie and the coaching staff were already overthinking every aspect of the game. We heard it with our own two ears: "We have to be creative," said Montoyo. If I'm in that clubhouse, this doesn't exactly give me an extra shot of confidence. Montoyo basically admitted his team wasn't good enough to go out there and beat their opponent 1 on 1. He made up his mind that in order to have a shot in hell of advancing, he had to outsmart Kevin Cash. Instead, all he did was place his ass directly on the hot seat for the start of next season.

Going back to Game 1, it was clear as day he had his mind made-up that Shoemaker would only go 1 time through the order, essentially piggy- backing Robbie Ray off of Matt Shoemaker in hopes of piecing together a quality start. You see, the thing about postseason baseball is that 5it's the job of the manager to give his team the best chance to win a ballgame. There is nothing wrong with having a plan laid out beforehand, but if the game progresses differently than you had envisioned, ride that wave and hopefully find yourself victorious 27 outs later. 

In theory, the game 1 plan "worked out" on the pitching side of things. Giving up 3 runs certainly gives your offence a chance to win the ballgame. But if someone decides to give your team better than a "chance", then awesome. Through 3 innings of work, it looked like Matt Shoemaker may have been in the process of putting together a career- defining type of start. At the very lest, I have little doubt he could have gotten through another couple clean innings of work. That alone could've been enough to bypass your middle relief entirely. Which in a game that was decided by a 2-run shot given up by middle reliever AJ Cole, this ended up looming large for the ball club.

Fast forward to game 2 - the leash for Ryu in my opinion was ironically much too long. It was clear early on Ryu did not have his best stuff. It was likely going to be a start where he was going to have to grind for every out. Magnified by a couple of errors by Bichette, the game was out of hand before 6 outs were even recorded. In the postseason, a manager's ability to have a feel for the game is absolutely critical. Even more so in an elimination game. Pulling Ryu earlier than he did could have very well saved the team 3 to 4 runs and would have at least kept his team within striking distance. When in a game that unfolded like game 2 was for the Jays, that is really all you can ask for out of your team's manager. Charlie was not able to do that. 

Overall, it was a 2 game series filled with many negatives and few positives across the diamond. That isn't the end of the world for a team that is just scratching the surface, but for a guy like Charlie Montoyo who's been preparing for the opportunity to manage a Big League ball club his entire adult life, his first trip to the postseason was an overwhelming failure across the board. 

Much like the players, we can only hope this serves as a learning experience for the next time the team finds itself in the October mix. 

Because there WILL be a next time. 

The silver lining is that it's the beginning of this era of Blue Jays baseball. Although ending on a sour note, Chapter 1 was still a resounding success.