PLAYOFFS!!!1! Threat: Looking for a rebound, Travis done for playoffs (Jays 0-1) @ Cleveland (1-0)

For the second year in a row, the Jays were shut out by their opponent in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, this time by former Cy Young winner Cory Kluber. 

The Jays certainly had their chances to score. In each of the first three innings, they managed to get two runners on base, but failed to come up with that big hit to break the game open. Kluber worked his way out of danger, which excellent pitchers like himself tend to do, eventually found a rhythm, and cruised the rest of the way. 

Marco Estrada pitched an excellent game, tossing eight strong innings and making only one mistake to Francisco Lindor in the seventh inning that resulted in Cleveland’s only two runs. Unfortunately, Estrada was given literally zero room for error, as Kluber and the back-end of Cleveland’s bullpen shut the Jays down. 

It wasn’t ideal, but it certainly isn’t the end of the world, either. From a Cleveland perspective, you pretty much have to win both of your Kluber starts, because after him, the rotation becomes a lot more dicey. 

Josh Tomlin, Trevor Bauer, and Mike Clevenger. That’s who Cleveland will be tossing out there for the second, third, and fourth games of the series, which still puts the Jays a nice position to take control of this series despite getting shut out last night. 

But as we know, things are far from certain in baseball, and that sentiment is amplified further in the playoffs. Tomlin and Bauer were supposed to be the easy wins for the Red Sox in the ALDS, but they both managed to completely shut Boston down. 

And if the Jays do get dropped again today and allow Cleveland to take a 2-0 lead in the series, they’ll be in a rough position, as 27 teams have dropped the first two games of a seven-game ALCS, and only three have ever managed to come back and advance. 

Trevor Bauer was scheduled to start today’s game, but he hurt his finger fooling around with a drone, so Josh Tomlin, who was scheduled to go on Monday, will fill in. Welcome to 2016. 

The Devon Travis conundrum is still raging, as the second baseman was forced to leave yesterday’s game in the fifth inning after covering first base on a ground out play. John Gibbons added Ryan Goins to the roster for this exact reason, as there was always uncertainty as to whether Travis’s health would hold up for the entirety of a seven-game series. 

Travis is going for an MRI today, and the Jays will make a decision after the results are in as to whether they’ll be able to keep Travis on the roster or not. As Buster Olney says above, if the Jays remove Travis due to injury and replace him with, say, Justin Smoak, he can’t return for the World Series, if the Jays make it that far. 

UPDATE:

According to multiple Jays beat writers, Devon Travis has been removed from the ALCS roster, meaning his playoffs are over. To nobody’s surprise, he’ll be replaced by Justin Smoak, giving the Jays a pinch hit option for Darwin Barney or Ryan Goins in late-inning situations. 

After last night’s game, Johan Keri asked why John Gibbons has consistently opted to bat Russell Martin ahead of Troy Tulowitzki in the batting despite his poor offensive production. And, well, apparently Gibby is a fan of Jonah, or he’s an active user of Twitter, because the two will swap places today. 

This is a pitching matchup that most certainly favours the Jays. Josh Tomlin allows a lot of contact, pitches in the zone, doesn’t walk anybody, and gets murdered by right-handed hitters, sporting a .269/.291/.487 slash line against them. That said, Tomlin was quite solid against the Red Sox, surrendering only two runs over five innings, and that damn good bullpen carried them the rest of the way, so the Jays absolutely need to jump on him early before Terry Francona can throw Andrew Miller and friends at them.