![\"Blue](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/USATSI_27348094-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSEATTLE \u2014 A single noise broke the silence in the visitors\u2019 clubhouse. Every few minutes, the thud of a packed bag thrown onto a cart echoed in the room. The blue bags piled higher, destined for an airport. Thud. Silence. Thud. Silence.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the sound of a bullpen blow-up.<\/p>\n
Late losses break hearts. They hold a unique ability to demoralize. The feeling of victory evaporating is different from an early blowout. Those are the losses that fill a room with silence, somehow quieter than any other loss.<\/p>\n
The Toronto Blue Jays battled their fair share of late losses this season \u2014 every team does. They\u2019ve sat in many quiet clubhouses after leads slipped away. But none was more significant than Friday\u2019s reliever ruin in Toronto\u2019s Game 5 loss in the American League Championship Series, 6-2. Up 2-1 in the eighth inning, the Jays allowed two home runs and five late Seattle Mariners scores, replacing victory with defeat and celebration with questions. The team\u2019s weakness flared when it mattered most, sliding the Jays down 3-2 in the series. It pushed them to the edge of elimination, with only one way back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want these guys to crawl into a hole,\u201d manager John Schneider said. \u201cThat\u2019s not who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toronto\u2019s bullpen was the club\u2019s most visible vulnerability entering the postseason. The relief corps wasn\u2019t a disaster \u2014 it finished the regular season ranked 15th in ERA. It was fine, good for stretches and bad for others. It didn\u2019t hold the club back from winning 94 games, winning a division and earning a bye. But it was an inconsistent group that blew 23 saves. It was a group that caused tense jaws and nibbled fingernails.<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t change in October. The relief corps has had moments, like a brilliant bullpen game to vanquish the New York Yankees in the Division Series. It finalized all five of Toronto\u2019s postseason victories, as they pushed to within two wins of the World Series stage. But the vulnerability persists.<\/p>\n
The Jays entered ALCS Game 5 with a 5.71 bullpen ERA, easily the worst of any remaining team. On Friday, that number pushed higher.<\/p>\n
Brendon Little sat in the folding chair at his locker, scrolling through his phone. As a throng of cameras and microphones descended, Little stood and faced the lenses. It\u2019s very rarely a good sign when a reliever stands amid a growing group of reporters. When they pitch well, their success often goes uncelebrated. When they allow game-tying home runs and walk two batters in a postseason loss, cameras descend. On Friday, Little bore that burden.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it feels terrible,\u201d Little said. \u201cThe team battled all game to put us in a position to win. Came in and really couldn\u2019t have pitched worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision to pitch Little will be nitpicked and questioned. That\u2019s the magnifying glass of October. Little posted a 3.03 ERA this season, but allowed six baserunners in his previous three outings and struggled with command all year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Blue Jays pitcher Brendon Little reacts after giving up a home run to Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh. (Stephen Brashear \/ Imagn)<\/p>\n
Toronto turned to Little, hoping to give the top of Seattle\u2019s order a different look, manager John Schneider said. That pocket hadn\u2019t faced him since Game 1. The Jays, surely, valued the lefty\u2019s strikeout potential and his ability to suppress homers. On Friday, though, Little delivered neither of those attributes. He allowed a game-tying homer to Cal Raleigh and walked the next two Mariners. Seranthony Dom\u00ednguez entered, hit a batter and watched Eugenio Su\u00e1rez essentially end the game with a grand slam.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything gets magnified this time of year,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cDecisions get magnified, pitches get magnified. I get it. It is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps the Jays could\u2019ve gone to Dom\u00ednguez right away. Perhaps Schneider could\u2019ve turned to closer Jeff Hoffman, who said after the game he\u2019s been staying ready for the top of Seattle\u2019s lineup all series. But neither option would\u2019ve guaranteed a win. Dom\u00ednguez didn\u2019t look sharp, and Hoffman allowed more home runs than any American League reliever this year. Maybe it was a mistake. But, more likely, Friday\u2019s loss was a vulnerability manifesting.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at our season,\u201d Schneider said, \u201cincluding the postseason. You want to limit walks, limit damage. (The Mariners are) built around home runs. Today they out-slugged us, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Little spoke to reporters at his locker, hands stuffed in his pockets, Max Scherzer slowly drifted out of the visitors\u2019 clubhouse, turning toward the Seattle field. He paused at every newspaper on the hallway wall, soaking in the framed front pages celebrating previous World Series champions. He\u2019d helped print two of those pages. He wants one more.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s had their fault at some point in the year,\u201d Scherzer said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve done a good job of rallying around them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Jays are now tasked with two days of perfection. The room for error is gone, sitting one loss from the end. If Toronto wins twice at home, snatching a pair of victories, it will push on to the World Series.<\/p>\n
On Friday, though, one of those wins seemed particularly close. The Jays sat six outs away, to be exact. They could\u2019ve flown home resting nine innings from a pennant. Instead, after a bullpen blowup, they\u2019re on the brink.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be nice,\u201d Little said, \u201cto be up 3-2 right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 A single noise broke the silence in the visitors\u2019 clubhouse. Every few minutes, the thud of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,364],"class_list":["post-236028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}