2023 AL Wild Card Series Preview: Toronto Blue Jays vs. Minnesota Twins
After an always long and grueling regular season, we have made it to playoff baseball starting with the always exciting wild card matchups. One of those matchups is between the Toronto Blue Jays and Minnesota Twins. Let’s take a deeper look at this series and see who will come out on top.
| Game | Date | Probable Starter | Time (ET) | TV |
| 1 | 10/3 | Kevin Gausman vs. Pablo Lopez | 4:38 | ESPN/Sportsnet |
| 2 | 10/4 | Jose Berrios vs. Sonny Gray | 4:38 | ESPN/Sportsnet |
| 3 | 10/5 | TBD | 4:38 | ESPN/Sportsnet |
Toronto Blue Jays
Overview:
It was a pretty up-and-down season for the Toronto Blue Jays. This is bound to happen when playing in the grueling AL East–it can be hard to find a rhythm when you’re forced to play such good competition on a routine basis. While the offense wasn’t quite the explosive unit we all thought it would be, the pitching more than made up for it thanks in large part to guys like Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios paired with a lights-out bullpen. They finished 89-73, surviving the AL East gauntlet.
The Good:
Going into this season you probably would have said the offense would be the Blue Jays strength. A lineup including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and George Springer is bound to produce some numbers. While that certainly was the case for those three, the Blue Jays’ pitching is far and away the reason they are here right now.
Kevin Gausman proved his worth by tossing 185 innings with a 3.16 ERA and 237 strikeouts; Jose Berrios was also huge for this rotation, tossing 189.2 innings to the tune of a 3.65 ERA.
Toronto’s bullpen was also a top 10 unit boasting names such as Jordan Romano, Erik Swanson and Tim Mayza. But the most impressive thing about this bullpen is their depth–they currently have seven relief pitchers with an ERA below three. Bowden Francis, Jay Jackson and Jordan Hicks have given the Blue Jays great innings and round out a dominant bullpen.
Pitching is what’s got the Blue Jays here, so stands to reason it will be why they succeed in the playoffs. The only question now is if this rotation and bullpen can continue to carry this team. It has been a long season. Wonder if they have enough left in the tank.
The Bad:
Well, I’ve sort of already alluded to it a bit, but the bad for the Blue Jays is the overall consistency of this offense. We all know they have top-end talent with guys like Guerrero and Bichette. The issue is outside of those two, Whit Merrifield and Springer, this offense suffers a rather big drop-off.
It has created real problems for the Blue Jays specifically towards the bottom of the lineup. An issue that became rather clear throughout the season. Especially when the usual producers were going through struggles of their own.
The Twins also have some great pitching, so offense is going to need to be the X-Factor for the Blue Jays. We know what guys like Guerrero are going to do. But if the Blue Jays want to win this series, they are going to have to scrap together runs. This can only be done if the bottom of the lineup is producing, something we haven’t seen from the Blue Jays really all season.
When the Blue Jays offense is on, it’s really on, we’ve seen that before firsthand. But it can also get really cold and if that happens against an amazing Twins pitching staff the Blue Jays could find themselves in some real trouble.
Minnesota Twins
Overview:
The Twins earned the automatic playoff spot by winning the anemic AL Central with an 87-75 record. Showing just how funny playoff matchups can be as the Blue Jays would have finished first in this very division. But just because the AL Central is terrible, doesn’t mean the Twins should be overlooked. They have a rotation that can give any team fits, especially in a three-game series.
The Good:
Pitching, Pitching, Pitching!!! The strength of this Twins team is 100 percent its pitching from both the rotation and bullpen. It’s frankly the entire reason they are even here right now. They ranked No. 6 as a unit in team ERA and were a consistent source of wins for them over the season.
The Twins also seem to have a perfect three-headed monster of pitchers for a wild-card series. Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray and Bailey Ober have been amazing for them all season and could easily silence a lineup over the course of three games.
But the great pitching doesn’t just end there. Emilio Pagan and Jhoan Duran have fronted a great bullpen which could play huge in a pitcher’s duel series like this.
The Twins are a team who have relied on pitching this entire season. If they were winning games, they weren’t giving up a lot of runs. But if they find themselves down early in some of these games, it could be too much for this offense to overcome.
The Bad:
This brings us to the bad of this Twins team, which is the entire lineup … or should I say really bad? I’ll be blunt when I say this Twins lineup sucks. When Max Kepler has the highest rWAR of anyone in your lineup at 2.9, it’s clear you have some real problems.
Carlos Correa was supposed to be that jolt of offense this team desperately needed, but it just never panned out for Correa this year. He was just never able to find that rhythm and really neither was this entire offense.
They didn’t hit for average, didn’t hit a lot of home runs and, overall, just didn’t drive in a lot of runs. Really they didn’t do anything good on the offensive side. Which I think will be a really big problem for the Twins. The Blue Jays also boast great pitching but far and away have the better lineup.
So either the rotation or bullpen will really have to answer the call, or this lineup is going to have to wake up fast, if not, the Twins could be facing another early playoff exit.
Prediction:
In short, I think the Blue Jays win this series in two games. I just have no faith in this Twins offense and think Gausman and Berrios are gonna have a field day with them. Lopez and Gray may be able to keep it close, but overall I think this Blue Jays offense will be able to figure it out enough to get past this Twins team. The offense is the X-Factor in this series, that is simply an advantage I give clearly to the Blue Jays.
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