TORONTO — If the start to the season was a playoff series — and sorry for those Blue Jay flashbacks — the Rangers would be in a significant hole, sure, but the gap between the teams is not nearly as visible.
The difference is a playoff series might be over by the time the Rangers leave Canada on Sunday afternoon, but the young season gives them plenty of time to answer questions that were bound to arise.
On Saturday, in a 4-3 win, Toronto exposed the weakness in the defense of inexperienced third baseman Andy Ibáñez to open up an early lead. And as they had a night earlier, the Blue Jays took advantage of a Rangers’ bullpen, which was the one area of the team in which there was not significant offseason investment. So, the Rangers got swabbed for mandatory US re-entry COVID tests on Saturday and face the possibility of being swept Sunday.
But the truth: The difference between the team that is perhaps the favorite to win the AL and the team coming off 102 losses hasn’t been that great. Certainly not like last year when Toronto swept three games in July by a composite score of 25-2. If you want to boil the difference in this series down to one thing: Toronto has outscored the Rangers by three runs, the same difference in the teams two-out run totals. Toronto has finished innings off; the Rangers have not.
“Yeah, that’s a little frustrating,” manager Chris Woodward said. “That’s the hallmark of a team that’s going to be a winner. You’ve got to be able to finish innings. You’ve got to get zeros after scoring and you’ve got to score after getting zeros. There are lots of little things that lead to winning. Two-out runs are a backbreaker. And that was the difference today.”
Specifically, the difference was the bat of Santiago Espinal, pinch-hitting for No. 9 hitter Kavan Biggio. Espinal has had two-out, run-scoring hits in each of the first two games from the No. 9 spot.
Oh, Vladimir Guerrero had a run-scoring hit, but it was a broken-bat single. Bo Bichette homered. The Jays are a good hitting team, maybe the best in the league. There are a lot of threats. Espinal wouldn’t exactly spring to the front of one’s mind. On Friday, he’d also doubled home Danny Jansen with two outs in the sixth to give the Jays their first lead of the 10-8 come-from-behind win. On Saturday: He doubled to score Raimel Tapia in the sixth when Brett Martin left a 1-1 fastball over the middle of the plate.
The bullpen is one area in which the Rangers will have trial by error. Another: third base.
Ibáñez, who turned 29 a week ago, became the starting third baseman only after Josh Jung underwent season-wrecking shoulder surgery in February, after Isiah Kiner-Falefa was traded and after a short spring training audition. It included an afternoon tutorial with future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltré, but how much can a GOAT impart in a single afternoon.
He’s a hitter, first and foremost, whose ascent to the majors has been slowed by questions over his defense. Mostly a second baseman in Cuba and the minor leagues, he finally got a promotion last season. He had started all of 12 games as a major league third baseman before Saturday. His start Friday at Rogers Centre was his first ever on the artificial surface at Toronto, which is slightly different than the one at Globe Life Field.
If there is one issue that most stands out as problematic for Ibáñez at third, it’s his setup and his first move. On Saturday, Toronto leadoff hitter George Springer hit a bouncer to him to start the bottom of the first. It’s the kind of play that calls for the fielder to go towards the ball aggressively to reduce the hop. Ibáñez, however, stayed back on it. The ball took a big hop, above his glove and off his chest. Even though Springer stumbled coming out of the batters’ box, Ibáñez stumbled to find it and his throw was late.
Four hitters later, after Toronto had already scored a run, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., bounced to him again. This should have been a simple-to-turn double play. The ball rolled up Ibáñez’s glove and he had to double-clutch to make a throw to second. The Rangers got only one out. Bichette scored the second run of the inning on the play.
“I want to see how he bounces back,” Woodward said of Ibáñez. “That’s a big key, to see if there are any lingering effects. That’s baseball. You are playing a good team that expects to win and there is a little bit of pressure there to know that if you make a mistake or two, it’s going to potentially not give us a chance to win. Those things are heightened now because I want our guys to expect to win. I want our guys to not shy away.”
If they do, they can perhaps trim the gap a little more between them and the playoff contenders. If not, they’ll be searching for other answers soon enough.
