That is important to remember: Showalter knows more about his team — and more about baseball strategy — than anyone in the stands or the press box. But unless Britton was hurt, it defied logic to use six other relievers, but not him.
Showalter said Britton was not hurt. Britton also said he felt fine. He warmed up in the ninth, 10th and 11th innings, yet he never came in.
“I figured he would wait, maybe eighth or ninth if we were ahead, I would be in the game,” Britton said. “Once the score was tied, I felt like when there was an opportunity for me in the game, I was gonna get in the game. Whether that was a lead or not, I wasn’t sure. It was just frustrating having to sit down there and watch and not be able to help the team.”
These are the kinds of decisions that linger. Who can forget 2003? In Game 7 of the A.L. Championship Series, Red Sox Manager Grady Little refused to lift an exhausted Pedro Martinez, and the Yankees advanced to the World Series. When they got there, though, Manager Joe Torre left Mariano Rivera in the bullpen in a deadlocked Game 4 against the Marlins. The Yankees lost with Jeff Weaver and never won again.
In Britton, the Orioles had a pitcher who has summoned the best of Rivera. Britton gave up one run after April 30. He might become the first reliever to win the Cy Young Award in 13 years. His E.R.A., 0.54, was the best ever for pitchers with at least 65 innings. He was 47 for 47 in save chances, as dependable as a pitcher can be.
Showalter first went to his bullpen in the fifth inning, and the first five relievers collected 18 outs without allowing a run. Maybe that emboldened Showalter to think that his moves would continue to work; if they had, he would have looked brilliant. But the logic was flawed all along: as soon as one swing could have ended the game — in the bottom of the ninth, that is — the best reliever in baseball should have come in.
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If he had, and the score had still been tied after Britton was done, nobody knows who would have closed the game. But last October, in a road playoff game in Toronto, the Texas Rangers used closer Sam Dyson with a tie score in the eighth. They won in 14 when Ross Ohlendorf got the second save of his career.
Showalter had an opening to say he was waiting for a lead to use Britton. But he insisted he was not bound by that philosophy, and never quite specified his reasoning.
“You can use Zach Britton in the seventh and eighth inning and not have anybody to pitch the last inning,” he said. “So there’s a lot of risk taken every inning, every pitch. You take that on when you get in this format.”
Asked directly if he regretted losing without using Britton, Showalter said that was only true after the fact.
“We went for about four innings there trying to get to that spot,” he said. “It looked like if he pitches a couple innings — if he can physically, then you’re assuming, which is a pretty good assumption with the way he’s pitched this year. Playing on the road has a little something to do with it, too. But we have some good options that have done a great job for us all year, and Zach’s one of those.”
Britton is not merely one of those good options; he is the best option there is. He got five outs in his last appearance, on Sunday at Yankee Stadium, and said he was ready to go two innings Tuesday.
“I was expecting in certain situations, maybe if there’s an opportunity for a double-play ball in a big situation, whether or not we were ahead or behind or whatever,” Britton said. “Coming into today, they just told me to be ready to go multiple innings, if need be. I was prepared.”
At Camden Yards, of course, this would not have been an issue. For the home team, there cannot be a save situation if a game is tied after eight innings. Things are different on the road, and the veteran catcher Matt Wieters understood that.
“It’s the great thing and the bad thing about playing on the road,” Wieters said. “Because if you can get a lead, then you have our shutdown closer we can bring in the game. I see that side of the strategy. And Ubaldo is the reason we were even in this game, the way he’s thrown the ball in the month of September. I didn’t see, really, any issue with it.
“It just kind of happened so quick. Maybe first and third there with one out, maybe that’s where you say, ‘O.K., let’s take our shot with Zach.’ But it happened so quick. Up until that ball left Edwin’s bat, I thought we were still going to get a double play and win that game later on.”
Brian Duensing retired one batter to start the 11th. Then Jimenez — 3-1 with a 2.31 E.R.A. in five September starts — allowed singles to Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson, putting runners at the corners with one out.
This was Showalter’s last chance to call for Britton, and he passed. Jimenez — who has owned the on-deck hitter, Jose Bautista — tried to induce a grounder. The plan went horribly awry.
“I was trying to throw it down, trying to get a double play,” Jimenez said. “But it didn’t do anything. It didn’t sink.”
Jimenez said he was surprised Britton never got in.
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “I guess we were waiting to get on top and score. He’s our best pitcher, and we couldn’t get him into the game. What can you do there?”
The Blue Jays and the Orioles had identical 89-73 records, but Toronto won the right to host the game by winning the season series, 10-9. Bautista said that made all the difference in keeping Britton benched.
“They’re on the road, hopefully trying to get a lead so he can seal the win,” Bautista said. “It’s tough as a manager, as a team, to kind of throw your closer out there when you don’t know what’s gonna happen in the next inning. He’s not a guy necessarily who goes six outs a lot. It was a tough decision to make for them. That’s what home-field advantage does, and we were in that position.”
And Showalter was back in a familiar position, eliminated on a game-ending playoff hit. It happened with the Yankees in 1995, when Seattle’s Edgar Martinez doubled off Jack McDowell in the Kingdome. It happened with Arizona in 1999, when the Mets’ Todd Pratt homered off Matt Mantei at Shea Stadium.
Now this. The Orioles have the most victories in the American League over the last five seasons, but still no pennants to show for it.
“I got a 10-hour drive where I’ll do most of my processing on it,” Wieters said. “Every year, that’s kind of my process time. I get home, and every year I say I won’t watch the playoffs, but I end up turning them on anyway after about two days.”
Wieters will see a Blue Jays team that deserves its October rematch with the feisty Texas Rangers. He is a free agent after the season and might have played his last game with the Orioles. If so, he saw the final, agonizing moment from a crouch, the same spot where he ended the All-Star Game in July, when Britton got a double play.
This time, at the end, it was not Britton standing 60 feet 6 inches away. It was Jimenez. Only Showalter knows why.
