My spouse, Martha, and I were out grocery shopping the day after the Blue Jays were eliminated by Cleveland. She wondered aloud why the Blue Jays hitters had been so ineffective in the series. My response was that the approach which had served them well against Texas played into the strength of the Cleveland pitchers.
Against Texas the Blue Jays faced pitchers who struggled with their “command”, baseball lingo for the ability to throw ball to a particular spot. It made sense against such pitchers to take pitches, even fall behind in the count and then foul off pitches in or close to the strike zone until they got a pitch they could handle or drew walks.
Most Cleveland pitchers, however, had the ability to put the ball where they wanted to. The Blue Jays hitters continued to take the first pitch or two, which were often hittable strikes, and then panicked and chased pitches out of the strike zone. They did try to avoid pulling the ball and many of their hits were up the middle or to the opposite field. But this sound strategy was undermined by failing to foul off borderline pitches when they got behind in the count as they had against Texas. Instead, they either let them go (often for called strikes) or tried to hit them fair, producing swinging strikes or weak grounders.
In other words the Blue Jays needed to be more aggressive early in the count and more patient after they fell behind in the count. The superb control of the Cleveland pitchers allowed them to take full advantage of this passivity, followed by impatience.