Any story of the Toronto Blue Jays’ 5-2 Wild Card victory over the Baltimore Orioles at the Rogers Centre on Tuesday night will start and end with Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter’s refusal to allow ERA leader, Cy Young candidate, and flawless closer, Zach Britton, into the game. Britton watched from afar as Ubaldo Jimenez threw the final five pitches of the their team’s season, and considering how baffling Showalter’s decision-making was, it’s only right the stories should start and end there.

But a start and an end leave room in the middle, and the ending we got couldn’t have happened without everything that led up to it. Showalter’s decision was key to the final outcome of the game, as was Jimenez’s failure to execute. But we never get there without Jose Bautista’s first-inning home run, or the five innings of scoreless relief by Toronto’s bullpen, or Edwin Encarnacion hopping all over that fat Jimenez fastball in the 11th and raising his hands in triumph. And while those were the most obvious keys to success for Toronto last night, Bautista and Encarnacion have crushed hittable pitches hundreds of times in their career prior, and bullpens have thrown countless scoreless innings. What Kevin Pillar did in the fifth inning is something he’s never done. What Pillar did in the fifth was something most have never done.

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Tonight’s AL Wild Card game is a pretty fascinating matchup. Both teams launch home runs at prodigious rates, as the Orioles led the majors in long balls, and the Blue Jays finished fourth overall, just four home runs back of a tie for second. Interestingly, however, neither team was as good offensively as those home run totals might make you think; Toronto ranked 11th in offensive runs above average while Baltimore came in 13th. If they’re not launching homers, they can be held in check, so tonight’s game might not be the slugfest that could otherwise be expected.

Especially because the rules of the Wild Card game incentivize frequent pitching changes, and both of these teams should be taking advantage of the flexibility. The Blue Jays are starting Marcus Stroman, but they also have starters Francisco Liriano and Marco Estrada on the roster, plus the normal compliment of seven relievers; the Jays could mix-and-match their pitchers from the first inning and still have enough arms to get through the game, even while holding one of the extra starters in reserve for a potential extra inning contest.

Likewise, the Orioles are also carrying 10 pitchers, with Ubaldo Jimenez and Dylan Bundy available in relief, along with seven traditional relievers. But if you’re Buck Showalter, you’re probably a lot less excited about the possibility of bringing in Jimenez (5.44 ERA/4.43 FIP/4.64 xFIP) or Bundy (4.02 ERA/4.70 FIP/4.61 xFIP) in an elimination game, and the plan is more likely going to be to ride Tillman as long as he’s effective, than to turn the ball over the team’s normal relief corps.

That relief corps, of course, is anchored by Zach Britton, the best pitcher the Orioles have. Britton’s dominance is almost hard to believe at this point; 202 of the 254 batters he faced this year (80%) either struck out or hit a groundball. He’s the most extreme groundball pitcher we’ve ever seen, only he also blows hitters away with a similar strikeout rate to what Noah Syndergaard posted this year. Opposing batters hit .161/.221/.191 against him this year. To put that in perspective, Mariano Rivera only held hitters to a lower OPS than Britton’s .430 mark once in his career; in 2008, when hitters put up a .423 OPS against him.

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Francisco Liriano has pitched his way into consideration for today’s American League Wild Card game by having been excellent since his return to the rotation — during which period he’s recorded 24.2 innings with 26 strikeouts, six walks, and four earned runs — but also by being on the right schedule to pitch today and by pitching with his left hand.

It’s easy enough to sort this list of teams and find that the Orioles have been the worst American League team against lefties this year. But that’s just what’s happened in the past. It doesn’t necessarily dictate what would happen in the future.

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Following Torontos’ Wild Card-clinching win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday, I asked Blue Jays reliever Joe Biagini if he’d just thrown the biggest inning of his life. Before answering, he paused to watch a champagne-soaked teammate traipse across the clubhouse, adorned in only a jockstrap, amid a cacophony of exultations.

“Probably,” mused Biagini. “Yesterday’s, today’s. They just kind of keep getting bigger.”

This one was huge. The 26-year-old rookie right-hander had entered in the eighth inning with the tying run on second base, and Dustin Pedroia — .318/.376/.449 on the season — due up. Two outs were needed to preserve a precious lead. That’s exactly what he got.

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I’ve got a vote for American League Manager of the Year this season and I’m terrified. My first vote as a member of the Baseball Writer’s Association, and it’s the impossible one.

Maybe impossible is too tough a word. I’m sure I’ll figure something out in time to submit a vote. But evaluating the productivity of a manager just seems so difficult. We’ve seen efforts that use the difference between projected and actual wins, or between “true talent” estimations for the team and their actual outcomes. But those attribute all sorts of random chance to the manager’s machinations.

I’d like to instead identify measurable moments where a manager exerts a direct influence on his team, assign those values or ranks, and see where each current manager sits. So what are those measurable moments?

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In a good way, Francisco Liriano is making life more complicated for the Blue Jays. Not that a team should take anything for granted, but as the Jays look ahead to the playoffs, it’s hard to know exactly which starters could and should serve as their starters. The Jays already had some depth when Liriano arrived as something of a salary dump, but a funny thing has happened — Liriano has found himself after leaving Pittsburgh. He’s slashed his walk rate, he’s upped his strike rate, and his ERA with Toronto is 2.92. Liriano looks good again, and he looked terrific Wednesday night.

Ultimately, for the Blue Jays, Wednesday was disappointing. They suffered through a blown save and a loss, and they still haven’t locked up an actual playoff spot. There’s work to be done, and because of the ninth-inning collapse, moments from Liriano’s start earlier have been forgotten. They simply can’t matter that much if the end result was a loss to a rival. I want to bring something to your attention, though. In the fifth inning, Liriano came through with a crucial strikeout of Chris Davis. In that showdown, Liriano took a hell of a chance, and the gamble paid off.

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Last Monday, in what was a pretty critical game against the Mariners, Josh Donaldson got ejected in the seventh inning. Officially, he was ejected for arguing balls and strikes, but, unofficially, he was ejected for being a jerk. During his seventh inning at-bat, Donaldson tried to check a swing, and he disagreed with the determination that he didn’t check it enough. A couple pitches later, Donaldson was called out on a pitch that was probably below the zone. That was too much, and Donaldson expressed himself, and that was that. Donaldson wasn’t likely to hit again, so the ejection didn’t mean much, but he felt like he was getting screwed. Josh Donaldson belligerently wondered aloud why he couldn’t catch a break.

If only he knew then what he might know now. I don’t want to say that Donaldson deserved a break. A grown man needs to be able to control himself. But borderline calls are luck, and given enough time, luck will even out. Several days ago, Josh Donaldson felt like he was unfairly struck out. Friday night in Toronto, Donaldson was in the box for the very worst called ball of the entire PITCHf/x era.

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Over in the National League, differing philosophical differences could shape the voting for the Cy Young award. Unless voters choose to embrace a closer like Zach Britton or look at only wins, however, we don’t have the same type of arguments over which to rage in the American League. In the AL, for example, there’s no pitcher with a massive, Kyle Hendricks-like difference in ERA and FIP. There’s no Clayton Kershaw-size innings gap between most of the contenders. Rather, the AL offers a large group of deserving candidates. To decipher which candidate is the most deserving, we’re going to have to split hairs. Let’s start splitting by discussing weak contact and its role in the candidates success.

To determine potential candidates for the Cy Young, just as I did for the National League, I looked at those in the top 10 of both RA/9-WAR as well as the WAR used on this site. If the pitcher appears among both groups, he’s included below. I also included J.A. Happ because he has a lot of pitching wins, and whether you agree or disagree with the value of a pitching win (I honestly had no idea Happ had 20 wins before beginning to write this, if you want to know the value this author places on them), some voters will consider them, so he’s on the list. A few relevant stats, sorted by WAR:

Those top four candidates seem to have the most compelling cases. Of those candidates, only Sale doesn’t appear among the top five of both ERA and FIP, but he also leads the AL in innings pitched this season. Rick Porcello has presented a strong argument for his candidacy in recent weeks, Tanaka leads the league in ERA, and Kluber looks to have best combination between FIP and ERA. There probably isn’t one right way to separate these candidates, but one aspect of the season at which we can choose to take a look is the impact that weak and strong contact has made in turning batted balls into outs.

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Last year’s Blue Jays didn’t win the World Series. They probably could’ve, though — they were absolutely good enough. They certainly gave the Royals fits. And the Blue Jays appealed to me in particular because I’m a little bit of a contrarian, and the Blue Jays could hit the crap out of the ball. Every October, we hear about the importance of pitching. And, you know, the Blue Jays had pitching. But what the Blue Jays really had was hitting. I liked them because they were an offensive juggernaut, and even in the playoffs they showed flashes of that ability.

The Blue Jays this year aren’t all that different. Much of the personnel is the same. But if we’re looking for a comparison to last year’s Jays, the closest comp isn’t this year’s Jays. Rather, it’s this year’s Red Sox. Like hitting? Like trying to argue ever so slightly against narratives? The Red Sox’s lineup is about as productive, and it stands to be the team’s strength as it tries to win another title.

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Watch J.A. Happ pitch, and you know he has to have a secret. The Blue Jays lefty throws a fastball with average velocity nearly three-quarters of the time, pitches in a tough home park, and somehow is a win away from 20 with an ERA better than three-quarters of baseball.

He must have a secret. And it’s not that he has a riding fastball: we’re getting more comfortable with that one and he’s a known rise-baller. Nor is it a secret with which Ray Searage blessed him. “I was pitching pretty good for two-and-a-half months in Seattle,” he responds at the prospect being counted as a Searage Surprise. “I wasn’t struggling to get outs.”

It isn’t a sexy secret, and of course it wouldn’t be. Happ’s never lit up the radar gun or dazzled anyone with his darting, diving stuff. And it’s not even his first secret regarding his stuff; he might have three secrets about the fastball. But it’s his newest one, and it’s been a big driver for his success this year.

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