Controversial Decision to Remove José Berríos Prematurely Costs Blue Jays the Game

The Blue Jays’ Puerto Rican starter, José Berríos, was prematurely removed from the mound on Wednesday, in the Minnesota Twins’ 2-0 victory over his Toronto Blue Jays.

The controversial decision came after Berríos pitched the first three innings, fanning five and allowing only three hits. Berríos entered the fourth inning by walking Royce Lewis and was replaced by the pitcher, Yusei Kikuchi.

“We had a few different plans in place. José was aware of this. He had difficult stuff to handle, and I think with the way (the Twins) are built, you want to use your entire roster and it didn’t work,” said Toronto manager John Schneider after being eliminated by Minnesota in two games.

The Puerto Rican took the loss after Kikuchi allowed the next three batters to reach the bag, one with a walk and two with singles.

The Bayamo native concluded the regular season with 11 wins and 12 losses and an ERA of 3.65 in 189.2 innings pitched.

The Blue Jays justified substitution of Berríos by arguing that the Twins’ next four batters were left-handed, whom Kikuchi could have dominated.

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“We look at the general type of work. We look at how unique their alignment is, left-handed and right-handed. And we look at what we have in the bullpen, the right-handers, especially against their right-handed hitters,” Schneider added.

“You can look at it in general terms and say that it didn’t work because they scored two runs when we made a change, you can also look at the fact that it didn’t work because we didn’t take advantage at that time,” he added, ensuring that he tried to use all available resources to, at least, equalize the series.

With the 2-0 victory, Minnesota booked its ticket to the American League division series.

2023-10-05 06:01:07
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