Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider said it's fair to second guess the decision to remove Jose Berrios amid a scoreless start in Wednesday's Game 2 against the Minnesota Twins.
Berrios threw three shutout innings against his former team in Minneapolis, but Schneider followed through on his promise that the entire pitching staff, excluding Game 1 starter Kevin Gausman, was available to try to extend the American League Wild Card Series and removed the right-hander after one batter in the fourth.
It didn't work.
Berríos was pulled after a leadoff walk to Game 1 star Royce Lewis. Left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, one of four Blue Jays who made 31 or more starts this season, was greeted by a single from Max Kepler. Pinch-hitter Donovan Solano walked, Carlos Correa put the Twins up with his single, and pinch-hitter Willi Castro's double-play groundout got another run on the board as Minnesota plated both its runs in what ultimately was a 2-0 series-clinching win.
The decision to remove Berrios was a hotly debated topic during the game and remained so after it.
"He had electric stuff. Tough to take him out," Schneider said. "But I think with the way they're constructed, you want to utilize your whole roster. It didn't work out. You can look at it broadly and say it didn't work out because they scored two runs when we did make a change. You can also look at the fact it didn't work out and we didn't take advantage of at-bats we had with runners in scoring position.
"So you can sit here and second-guess me, second-guess the organization, second-guess anybody. I get that. I get that. And it's tough. And it didn't work out for us today or yesterday. But that's baseball sometimes. There's 29 teams that are going to say the same thing when the season's over."
Berrios ended up throwing 47 pitches, allowing three hits and ultimately taking the loss.
"I just control what I can control," Berrios told reporters. "I pitched my ass off.
"I understand the move [to remove him], and I have to deal with that."
Blue Jays infielder Whit Merrifield said he didn't like what happened.
"I hated it, frankly," he said, according to SI.com. "It's not what cost us the game, but it's the kind of baseball decisions that are taking away from managers and baseball, at this stage of the game."
Added Vlad Guerrero Jr. through an interpreter, via the Toronto Star: "Obviously everybody was surprised. Everybody was surprised by the decision, but there are things you can't control. You can ask yourself many times, it was a hard decision, but yeah, we were surprised."
Toronto has now been swept in the wild-card round in two straight postseasons under Schneider and for the third time in four seasons overall.
"We got beat up two years in a row in the playoffs," Bo Bichette said. "So I think there's a lot of reflection needed, from players but from the organization from top to down. Everybody needs to reflect to see what we can do better. So I think that's the next step."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.