Blue Jays-Rangers Game 2: Final score, eight things to know as Jays win again

Toronto heads home one win away from advancing to the ALCS

By Dayn Perry

Oct 7, 2016 at 4:50 pm ET • 5 min read

The Blue Jays on Friday edged the Rangers 5-3 in Game 2 of the ALDS in Arlington (box score). The Blue Jays now lead the best-of-five series by a margin of two games to none. Game 3 will be Sunday in Toronto.

In one concerning development for the Blue Jays, left-hander Francisco Liriano was transported to a nearby hospital after being struck in the head by a line drive in the eighth inning. It's perhaps a good sign that Liriano was able to remain on his feet throughout. We'll update his situation as soon as we know more.

Now for some things to know about Game 2 between Toronto and Texas ...

1. Yu Darvish got rocked like never before.

Darvish is of course one of the best pitchers in baseball, and 2016 has been no exception, at least on a rate basis. It follows, then, that blow-ups are rare for Darvish. In fact, Game 2 against the Blue Jays was the first time in his career that Darvish allowed four or more home runs in a game. Perhaps even stranger is that all four of the solo shots that Toronto hit off Darvish on Friday came on four-seam fastballs.

2. The Blue Jays can indeed hit for power on the road.

Because of the tendencies of the Rogers Centre, we tend to think of the Blue Jays' offense as being in part the product of their home environment. That's true, to an extent. This season, the Blue Jays ranked just 10th in the AL in road OPS. That's not optimal. On the other hand, their power very much translated to road games. In fact, the 2016 Jays ranked second in the AL -- behind the Orioles -- with 114 home runs in road games. By comparison, Toronto hit 107 home runs at home this season. In that sense, the Jays' power display in Arlington on Friday wasn't shocking.

3. Kevin Pillar's home run was especially unlikely.

In the top of the fifth, Pillar accounted for one of those Blue Jays home runs -- a line drive shot to left field. Pillar, of course, is a defense-first type who in the regular season hit just seven home runs in 146 games. In that sense, Pillar is an unlikely source for power. Now consider the nature of the fastball he cracked out of the park ...

Kevin Pillar's HR was 4.2ft high... There were only 2 HRs hit higher than that pitch ALL season. pic.twitter.com/AERQlFlInK
— Daren Willman (@darenw) October 7, 2016

As you can see, pitches that high are almost never hit out of the park. As well, Pillar was somehow able to handle a 92-mph that high and that outside and somehow rip it to the pull side. That's a pretty remarkable piece of hitting from a guy who's usually dropping jaws with his glove-work.

4. J.A. Happ continues to strand runners.

Happ in Game 2 worked 5.0 innings and allowed only one run despite giving up nine hits and a walk. In related matters, the Rangers while Happ was in the game were just 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. That's nothing new for Happ.

During the regular season, Happ stranded 79.7 percent of baserunners, which ranked 10th among qualifiers in all of baseball. To be sure, any strand rate that deviates far from the league norm (typically around 72 percent) in either direction tends to correct itself given a large enough sample. Happ, though, kept the good times rolling for at least another game.

Then again, it wasn't just Happ suffocating Texas bats in key spots on Friday ...

The Rangers left 13 on base. Most they've ever left stranded in a postseason game.
— Evan Grant (@Evan_P_Grant) October 7, 2016

5. Ian Desmond's base-running was costly.

With one out in the seventh, Desmond hesitated at third base in coming home on an Adrian Beltre chopper. Josh Donaldson cut him down at the plate by a fraction of an inch (the out call was upheld on replay, but it was hard to tell on even the slowest of slow-motion views). Had Desmond committed earlier, he would've been easily safe, and the potential tying run would've been on deck with one out. Instead, Desmond's hesitation cost the Rangers. After Desmond was out, the Rangers' chances of winning Game 2 dropped to 5.4 percent. Had Desmond scored, the Rangers' would've had an 11.3 percent chance of coming back. Yes, it still would've been unlikely, but Texas would've been more than twice as better off.

6. Roberto Osuna's slider isn't your typical slider.

Osuna's a bit of an oddity is that he's a 21-year-old closer. He's also a bit of an oddity in that he's not afraid of using his slider as an out pitch against the opposite side. The slider, thanks to its typical glove-side movement, usually isn't something you throw to the guy in the glove-side batter's box, but Osuna's not your typical hurler.

Osuna in his rookie season threw his slider to left-handed batters less than 8.0 percent of the time, but in 2016 he more than doubled his slider rate when in platoon-disadvantaged situations. When he's got two strikes on the lefty batter, he'll go to that slider more than a quarter of the time -- only the fastball has a higher percentage of use in such spots. That's because Osuna's hard, 87-mph slider is more vertically oriented than most slide-pieces, that helps keep it out of the left hitter's wheelhouse while still looking tantalizing as it approaches.

Just ask Carlos Beltran. In the eighth -- after being pressed into action following the injury to Francisco Liriano -- Osuna got Beltran, who represented the potential tying run, to whiff on a slider. Back out for the ninth, Osuna went fastball-heavy, but he called upon his unconventional slider to retire a switch-hitting future Hall of Famer in one of the biggest spots of the game. That's something.

7. The Rangers are facing long odds.

As noted, the Rangers are now down 0-2 in this best-of-five series, and as you can imagine history hasn't been kind to teams in such spots. In the history of best-of-five postseason series in baseball, 72 teams have gone down 0-2 (not counting the 2016 Rangers). Here's what became of those 72 teams ...

43 times the team with the 2-0 lead went on to sweep.
20 times the team with the 2-0 lead went on to win the series but didn't sweep.
Nine times the team down 0-2 came back to win the series.

In other words, history suggests the Rangers have a 12.5 percent chance of pulling off the come back (i.e., winning three straight). On the coincidence front, can you name the last team to come back from down 0-2 in a best-of-five? That team would be the 2015 Blue Jays, who did it at the expense of the Rangers.

8. Francisco Liriano suffered a potentially serious injury.

The Blue Jays' lefty in the eighth inning took a Carlos Gomez liner off the back of his head. As noted above, he was able to remain standing throughout, but then there's this: