#alcs

#alcs

There was a lot of optimism that perhaps Giménez could return to the form he had in 2022 when he slashed .297/.371/.466 with 17 home runs in 557 plate appearances. His month of March was encouraging, as he hit three home runs in his first five games, but his play dropped like a rock from there. As a whole, the second baseman slashed .210/.285/.313 with seven home runs in 369 plate appearances for a career-worst 70 wRC+.

Back at the trade deadline, the Toronto Blue Jays were looking for some key players that could be difference makers for them down the stretch and especially in MLB Playoffs. The Blue Jays ended up doing well in the pitching department, with starter Shane Bieber delivering when the team needed him most and reliever Louis Varland becoming a trusted arm to come in for key high-leverage situations.

Are we having fun yet? Friday was one of the most unforgettable days ever seen in the playoffs, with Eugenio Suarez's go-ahead grand slam rocking T-Mobile Park and putting the Seattle Mariners one win away from the World Series, and then Shohei Ohtani's historic three-homer, 10-strikeout performance that goes down as perhaps the single greatest individual performance in postseason history. Let's call it a top-five day of all time and add this to our list of future projects to research.

Through the first two games of the series the Blue Jays are hitting .131 as a team, going 8-for-61 with one home run, after hitting .338 against the Yankees, going 50-148 with nine home runs. The Blue Jays in total slashed .338/.373/.601 with a .974 OPS in that series against the Yankees with eight walks and 24 strikeouts. So far against Seattle, that slash line sits at .131/.232/.197 with a .429 OPS and eight walks with nine strikeouts.

Pretty rarely does a series outcome rests entirely in the hands of one player. But for the Toronto Blue Jays to have any chance of winning the ALCS, there is actually one player on the Seattle Mariners that could do exactly that. That player is none other than the modern day Blue Jays killer Cal Raleigh. Raleigh was at it once again on Sunday night in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Blue Jays.