3 Blue Jays most to blame for epic failure in the Wild Card Series

To say that things didn't go according to plan for the Blue Jays in the AL Wild Card Series would be a massive understatement. It's been a season full of sky-high potential but limited followthrough, and these WC games against the Twins are a perfect example of that.

To the dismay of us all, the Blue Jays fell way, way short in this series, losing two games to none against the AL Central-winning Twins. While Toronto out-hit Minnesota in the first (and second) game, Royce Lewis became Kevin Gausman's father and singlehandedly carried the Twins to victory. Once the Twins secured the victory, it snapped their historic 18-game losing streak in postseason play.

Game two was much more drama-filled, even if it ultimately resulted in the Blue Jays failing to score a single run. This one will forever be remembered as the day that manager John Schneider yanked José Berríos way too early in his start and it led to a Jays loss. More on that in a bit.

Beyond that, it was just a matter of some of the team's top contributors going ghost mode on the team. Multiple offensive stars were held hitless, there were some horrendous baserunning blunders, and there were also a handful of pitchers that weren't able to match their regular season success on the game's biggest stage.

At the end of the day, the Twins were just the better team, fair and square. On paper, it has consistently felt like the Blue Jays were the better club, but it quickly became all about execution and only one of these teams properly executed in big moments. For the Twins, this is the club's first postseason series victory since the 2002 campaign.

Next up for the Twins? The NLDS, where their opponent has yet to be determined. For the Blue Jays? Time to go home and work on an improved 2024 campaign that should feature a very different looking team.

Let's reflect a bit on the disaster that was the Wild Card Series.

Here are the 3 Blue Jays most to blame for their Wild Card meltdown.

John Schneider

All season long, John Schneider was the biggest scapegoat every single time the Blue Jays lost a game. This is obviously an over-exaggeration, but the fingers were pointed at him by Jays fans after nearly every loss.

During the course of this series, though, he has earned some of the finger-pointing. In the first game, he made some questionable calls, especially when it came to lifting Daulton Varsho for Whit Merrifield in a late-game scenario. Merrifield has struggled mightily at the plate lately and Varsho has been solid against left-handed pitching this year, so this decision was a head-scratcher for sure.

Game two was the one where Schneider really put himself into the crosshairs of Jays fans, and baseball fans in general, around the league. Heck, even a handful of players (including former Blue Jay John Axford) took to social media to share their thoughts.

José Berríos started the game and was absolutely dominant through three innings, as he held the Twins offense to three hits and struck out five along the way. He walked Royce Lewis to start the fourth inning and Schneider, who had both Tim Mayza and Yusei Kikuchi warming up on and off throughout the first few innings of the game, immediately came out of the dugout and pulled Berríos.

Of course, Blue Jays Twitter had a field day with this and the decision instantly led to the game trending downhill for the Jays. It never recovered.

It's worth noting that Schneider is not the only decision-maker in the clubhouse and likely is not 100 percent to blame for this move. However, managers in Major League Baseball will always be the first ones to earn the praise and scorn, whichever is applicable on that given day. This is not to say that he's good as gone and is for sure going to be fired, but the early exit for the Jays may lead to some conversations starting over the offseason.

...the rest of the offense

It's tough to say that a Blue Jays offense that out-hit the Twins in both games of the series was a disappointment, but there's no other way to go about it. We've already covered Vladdy and his non-existent bat, but he's far from the only one that needs to shoulder some of the blame.

For starters, Brandon Belt, who was participating in perhaps the final postseason of his storied career, was a combined 0-for-8 with six strikeouts.

Cavan Biggio was 1-for-8 with three strikeouts. Matt Chapman was 1-for-7, Daulton Varsho was 0-for-5, the list goes on and on.

There were certainly some players that stepped up with base hits, but random singles here and there without these runners being driven in went nowhere. Props to Santiago Espinal, Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk for putting together decent at-bats, but nearly every one of them were left stranded on the bases (which is of no fault of their own).

The Blue Jays had an extremely streaky offense all year long, and it's entirely possible that the Twins just caught them at a bad time. One can point to the slow finish in the regular season all they want, but the Jays should've turned it up a notch when the stakes were raised and they simply did not.

There are quite a few pending free agents on this roster as of right now, so there's a strong possibility that 2024's Blue Jays are going to look much different than 2023's. It was a nice season for this year's squad, but at the end of the day they fell short again and need to shake things up a bit if there's any hope for deep future playoff runs.