Why Trey Yesavage has what it takes to help the Blue Jays force a Game 7 in ALCS

What a year it's already been for Trey Yesavage. The 22-year-old phenom has climbed five ranks of professional baseball to make his MLB debut over a year after he was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays. Ever since he put on a that Blue Jays jersey he has felt like a major contributor to the ball club.

Now he has a chance to make one of the biggest contributions of the season, when he gets the ball to start Game 6 of the ALCS against the Seattle Mariners on Sunday night at Rogers Centre in Toronto. By virtue of what he has shown all season, there is no doubt Yesavage has what it takes to help the Blue Jays even up the ALCS and force a Game 7.

Why Trey Yesavage has what it takes to help the Blue Jays force a Game 7 in ALCS

Yes, Yesavage is only 22-years-old but he's already got some of the best stuff in the majors and it has given hitters a ton of fits over his first five big league outings, with three in the regular season and two in the postseason, and he's doing it on basically a three pitch mix. Yesavage has relied mostly on his four seamer, slider and split finger, with the split being a deadly pitch for the opposition.

He's used that split finger on 26.4% of his throws and hitters just don't know what to do with it as he has a 57.1 whiff rate on that pitch and an xBA of .145 and an actual batting average of just .111. Only two hits have come off that pitch against the ten strikeouts he's racked up. Yesavage's splitter is also generating a hard hit rate of only 37.5%, compared to 57.1% on his four seamer and 76.5% on his slider.

The only blemish on that pitch so far has been the home run Yesavage gave up to Julio Rodriguez in Game 2 of the ALCS. He started the at-bat with a slider that was called a strike on the outside corner. That was followed up with a splitter middle away that Rodriguez whiffed on.

He threw another splitter on the next pitch which went in the dirt that didn't cause Rodriguez to chase. He went back to the splitter for a third consecutive pitch, and this one was his hardest one of the at-bat at 84.1 mph, but he left it up and over the plate and Rodriguez hit it up, and over the wall for a three run shot.

This stemmed after a controversial non-strike three call to leadoff hitter Randy Arozarena. The count was 1-2 and Yesavage threw an 88.1 mpg slider that very clearly caught the outside edge of the zone. Everyone knew it was a strike - Arozarena included as he started walking back toward the dugout, but then stopped when he didn't hear the strike three call.

Yesavage proceeded to strikeout three of the next four hitters to get out of the first inning. He then allowed just one hit over the next three innings, before being taken out with two men on and nobody out in the top of the fifth.

While it wasn't his best start with the Blue Jays, it was certainly passable and he did enough to keep his team in the game as they rallied from that 3-0 hole. When Yesavage left the game it was 3-3, but the bullpen couldn't hold that score and Toronto lost 10-3, earning Yesavage his first loss at the big league level.

But these are the situations where the Blue Jays have come through all year. They need the ultimate come from behind rally as they trail the series 3-2. The Blue Jays, and Yesavage, will need to find that extra gear and it's not hard to believe Yesavage can deliver that. In three regular season starts, Yesavage had 16 strikeouts in 14 innings pitched. Over two games and 9.1 innings in the playoffs he has 15 K's.

The Mariners, throughout this series have 49 strikeouts and are hitting just .216 with a .762 OPS. The Blue Jays have only struck out 28 times and are hitting .254 with an OPS of .800. The Mariners hitters have done most of their damage against the bullpen arms of the Blue Jays and if Yesavage can get that splitter working early - and maybe avoid a controversial call - there's no reason to doubt he can deliver a performance that can send the Blue Jays to a Game 7.