The Blue Jays blew a 2-1 lead in the 8th inning of yesterday's ALCS game 5 as the Mariners scored 5 runs in the inning and won 6-2.

Certainly 2-1 is no insurmountable lead, but what is curious about this event is the Blue Jays used Brandon Little, who I generously describe as their fifth best reliever, to counter the middle of the Mariners order- Cal Raleigh, Jorge Polanco, Josh Naylor (and then Arozarena and Suarez after that) rather than their set up man Seranthony Dominguez (he did come in later in the inning) or closer Jeff Hoffman.

In game 4 they were ahead 7-2 and wanting to ensure the Mariners didn't get back into it used Hoffman in the 8th inning to face the same spot in the order but decided against it in a 1 run game.

Even if they thought Little wouldn't completely blow up, the prospect of scoring the next inning was limited as they had the bottom of the order coming up and then George Springer's spot at the top of the order which would need to be filled by Joey Loperfido (26th man) because Springer was removed from the game after being hit by a pitch. So it was set up that the Mariners were likely going to have two cracks at tying/taking the lead in the game and you weren't well set up to counter offensively. Seems like a situation you might want to use your best bullpen arms in.

Aside from Little being terrible, the decision to put Little in the game being egregiously awful, the bats could not get the big hit last night to break things open as they did the two games before. They were 2-11 with runners in scoring position. They had multiple chances to make it a 3, 4, 5 run lead going into the 8th but either failed, or had some bad luck (ball bounced off the dirt in front of the plate and rolled back to Raleigh for a double play- costing them a run, a hard liner to first led to another double play- costing them a chance to score, Clement missed a homer by a foot as Arozarena made a leaping catch up against the wall). The bats were not great in key spots but they had some "well that's just baseball" bad luck too.

If we want to go beyond the surface a little we can also trace this failure back to the trade deadline when Blue Jays General Manager Ross Atkins brought in two new relief arms but no bona fide "no brainer" high leverage/closer type. Probably could have used one last night to make it less likely the manager and his team outsmart themselves.

So who is to blame for the Blue Jays game 5 bird dropping?