Every Toronto Blue Jays fan has their own least favorite moment from Game 7 of the World Series, but it was clear which moment represented the Blue Jays’ biggest blunder.
Blue Jays relievers giving up home runs and Alejandro Kirk grounding into a game-ending double play were just cases of falling victim to the other Los Angeles Dodgers’ best punches. But Isiah Kiner-Falefa failing to score on a ground ball by Daulton Varsho in the bottom of the ninth inning, which second baseman Miguel Rojas didn’t charge, was a failure to prepare for every scenario.
It took almost a month, but someone who was in a Blue Jays uniform on that fateful Saturday night at Rogers Centre finally admitted that Kiner-Falefa needed a bigger lead off third base in that situation.
In a Tuesday interview for “The Show” podcast, recently departed Blue Jays bench coach Don Mattingly told host Jon Heyman and fellow guest Sean Casey that Toronto would like a mulligan on the decision to keep Kiner-Falefa so close to the bag.
“I think it’s played properly, because you’ve got the bases loaded, you’ve got one out, the infield’s totally drawn in, so you’re not in a contact situation there, right?” Mattingly said. “You’ve got to at least freeze on a line drive, and if you really look at that video, (Alejandro Kirk’s) in the perfect spot, he’s about a foot off (first) base, like IKF because of Varsho, he does pull the ball.
“So I’d say the one thing that we kind of missed, and I’d say it myself, (manager John Schneider), is that Varsho does not line out to third base. He does not hit line drives to that side of the field, really. And so you can get a little bit more. … That’s probably the one play that you feel like, if we really looked at that over again and had a split second more time and said, ‘Hey, we can be off further.'”
As Blue Jays/Sportsnet live events producer Chris Black pointed out in the days after the World Series ended, Varsho had only four lineouts to third base in his previous 2,500-plus career plate appearances, three of which were hit so softly that a runner could get back to the bag if needed, versus 412 ground balls to the second baseman.
Kiner-Falefa was out by a half-step at most, and with another three feet of primary lead, he probably would have scored, giving the Blue Jays their first World Series win since 1993. It’s not as though people need to lose their jobs over the failure to recognize that in the moment, but it illustrates just how much the smallest details imaginable still matter at baseball’s highest level.
More MLB: Yankees Predicted to Sign $182M All-Star Despite Awkward Trent Grisham Fit