Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider removed starting pitcher Jose Berrios after just 47 pitches in Game 2 of the AL Wild Card series, a matchup his team eventually lost thanks to two runs given up by Berrios's replacement, Yusei Kikuchi.
Schneider was second guessed in the moment, and even more so when the Blue Jays lost. Even Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Whit Merrifield questioned the decision postgame, with the latter firing on all cylinders.
"I hated it, frankly. It's not what cost us the game, but it's the kind of baseball decisions that are taking away from managers and baseball, at this stage of the game," Merrifield said.
Blue Jays: Everything John Schneider said about pulling Jose Berrios
Safe to say, Schneider has a lot of explaining to do this offseason. The choice to remove Berrios, one of the team's top pitchers, after less than 50 pitches likely did not come solely from the manager. It's a front-office philosophy, and one rooted heavily in analytics.
"We had a few different plans in place. Jose was aware of it. He had electric stuff, tough to take him, and I think with the that they're constructed, you want to utilize your whole roster and it didn't work out," Schneider said. "You can look at it broadly and say it didn't work out because they scored two runs when we did make a change, you can also look at the fact that it didn't work out because we didn't take advantage of at-bats we had with runners in scoring position."
When asked if he cared about some of the blowback he's received from fans and even players on his own team, Schneider had this to say:
"You can sit here and second guess me, second guess the organization, second guess anybody."
And second guess we will! Were Berrios struggling, it would have made plenty of sense to pull him early. The stakes are higher in playoff baseball, and so is the margin for error.
Rather than Berrios, it was Schneider's flaw which ended up costing Toronto on Wednesday.
