Showalter in July: I’m not going to save Britton around

One does not need Showalter’s baseball acumen to understand the basic premise of going down swinging with your best players.

Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The only good thing about it is that the Red Sox proceeded to hire the best manager they’ve probably ever had: Terry Francona.

One of the smartest men in baseball had one job to do Tuesday night: Find the best time to get his closer Zach Britton, the sinkerballing lefty, into the game. This game is over.

There was no escape in the 11th with runners at the corners and Encarnacion coming to the plate.

Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Troy Tulowitzki and Kevin Pillar each have three homers versus Tillman, who limited the Jays to two runs (one earned) over 5 2/3 innings last Wednesday but is 5-10 with a 5.44 earned-run average in 24 career starts against Toronto. Six more outs and they’d vanquish the hated New York Yankees in the Bronx. Kim, after being booed on Opening Day, hit.302 and became a fan favorite. And Showalter’s gotten away with moves like that much more often than not – so is it really fair to be overly-critical? In his seven seasons with the Baltimore Orioles, Showalter holds a 547-482 record (.532) and the furthest the O’s have gone under his watch was the 2014 ALCS in which they were swept by the Royals. However, the Orioles went through Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, Brian Duensing and finally Ubaldo Jimenez with the game tied 2-2, rather than using Britton.

The Blue Jays have made a name for themselves by blasting southpaws the past two years, and you generally expect a right-handed pitcher to fare better against their righty-heavy lineup.

Hopefully the next manager in this spot will think of Torre and Showalter.

The big elephant in the batter’s box is the fact that the Orioles and all their offensive firepower managed to score more than three runs in just four of their final 16 games.

So let’s not waste time today debating whether Showalter took a calculated gamble. Perhaps. But here is a rule all managers/coaches should follow, especially this time of year: Do what your opponent wants you to do least.

“It’s not my call”.

And then consider this additional remarks by Showalter in his postgame presser.

And Showalter, facing elimination, did not use him.

It wasn’t the case in September, however, when both combatants in Tuesday’s American League wild-card playoff game saw the bats go dormant at the most stressful time. “There are a lot of different ways to look and it but that’s the way we went and it didn’t work out”. “Has nothing to do with philosophical”. “We just couldn’t finish it off”.

Besides Britton’s dominance, the Orioles’ bullpen mirrors the depth Kansas City deployed last season, when the Royals had shut down relievers from the sixth inning on and won the World Series. So there’s a bunch of decisions to make there during the course of the game.

If you were looking for a rational explanation of why Showalter used Jimenez – who lost his job as a starter early in the season and spent the rest of the year bouncing back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen – you likely didn’t get it.

“You could (second guess it) afterwards, but we went about four innings afterwards … but playing on the road had a little something to do with it”.

Writer: “I’m sorry to harp on this…” Tim Kaine to try to throw Gov. Mike Pence off his game, or if he is just a pretty obnoxious gentleman, but it made it almost impossible to comprehend what Pence was saying because Kaine just kept muscling in every few words.

Showalter: “We can talk about it privately”.

You know what this means: Blue Jays versus Rangers.