Mariners pitching dismantling Blue Jays lineup through first two games of ALCS

It was only a week ago when the Toronto Blue Jays bats could seemingly do no-wrong against the New York Yankees. In the ALDS, the Blue Jays over four games put up historic offensive numbers, but those numbers have yet to be replicated against the Mariners in the ALCS.

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.

Mariners dismantling Blue Jays lineup through first two games of ALCS

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.

The Blue Jays approach to taking long at-bats against the Yankees pitching staff and wear them down has yet to materialize in the ALCS. They made Bryce Miller throw 27 pitches in the first inning of Game 1 and had a 1-0 lead thanks to George Springer's leadoff home run. However, Miller needed just 23 pitches to get through the next three innings, and the Blue Jays had just one hit and one walk after the first inning off of Miller.

The entire Mariners staff needed just 100 pitches to get through Game 1, whereas the Yankees didn't throw less than 136 pitches in any of the four games in the ALDS. In Game 2, the Mariners used four pitchers to get through nine innings, throwing 163 pitches. Toronto was a lot more selective in Game 2, drawing five walks, but they went 3-for-10 with runners in scoring position, and left seven on base.

The Mariners have been especially effective against the hitters in the Blue Jays lineup who were doing the most damage against the Yankees.

So far, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has no hits and just one walk in the two games. While he hasn't recorded a strikeout, he's had several at-bats where he has just pounded the ball into the ground. Ernie Clement, was the Blue Jays best hitter in the Yankees series going 9-for-15 with five RBIs, has one hit against the Mariners.

The secondary cast of Addison Barger, Andrés Giménez and Daulton Varsho have no hits, with three walks and four strikeouts combined. Meantime, Alejandro Kirk has a hit and an RBI in the first two games.

In the series against the Yankees, that foursome went 19-for-61, a .311 batting average. They combined for nine RBI's and 15 runs scored with four home runs. Yes, they had two extra games to play with to increase those stats, as they do in this series against the Mariners, but the results out of the gate have been underwhelming.

The only guys who have carried any momentum over from the Yankees series are Nathan Lukes who has three hits in five at bats and one RBI, and George Springer who has just two hits, but one was a home run and the other was a double that hit off the wall in the left-center field gap.

The travel day to Seattle may be coming at the right time, allowing the Blue Jays to reset and regroup and hope that the bats can come out yielding better results in Games 3-5, otherwise, the Blue Jays quest to get to their first World Series since 1993 may come to an abrupt end.