http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/sports/baseball/texas-rangers-toronto-blue-jays-american-league-division-series.html 2016-10-08 19:00:39 Rangers’ Best-Laid Plans Go Awry When the Playoffs Begin The Blue Jays, playing their best baseball lately, have jumped out to a 2-0 lead in their American League division series against Texas. === ARLINGTON, Tex. — This, it seemed, was the team the “Sounds good when you say it like that,” General Manager Jon Daniels said, smiling, before a regular-season game down the stretch. “I find that this time of year in general, and these kinds of conversations, you’re walking such a fine line. I love what we’ve got going on. But at the same time, we need to be aware, from our past experiences, how fragile it all is.” That premonition — more than any actual punches from the In the opener, “Home crowd, home field, can’t take advantage of it, at least scratch out one win — it’s frustrating,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “We’re in a hole, but we’ve got to dig ourselves out of it now.” The matchup for Sunday’s Game 3 looks grim: Colby Lewis, who was 0-4 with a 6.38 E.R.A. in September, will face Toronto’s Aaron Sanchez, whose 3.00 E.R.A. led the league this season. The Blue Jays’ fans, naturally, will be as raucous as they were when Edwin Encarnacion swatted his home run “I expect more than that,” Encarnacion said. “They’re going to be louder and louder.” Louder is fine. Rowdier would be a problem. Last October, in the Blue Jays’ division-series clincher over the Rangers, fans pelted the Rogers Centre field with bottles and debris after a controversial call. On Tuesday, a fan fired a beer can at a Baltimore outfielder, Hyun Soo Kim, as he made a catch in the seventh inning. Ken Pagan, a Postmedia sports journalist, was charged with one count of mischief in connection with the incident. “We’ve also talked to the Blue Jays about the policies with respect to the serving of alcohol,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week. “No cans, those sorts of things, to make sure that we have as positive an environment going forward as possible.” The tenor of this series, at least so far, is unlikely to incite any fans. The Rangers and the Blue Jays deeply dislike each other and brawled in May when Texas’ Rougned Odor punched Toronto’s Jose Bautista in the jaw after a hard slide at second base. Bautista was on base because Matt Bush had drilled him with a pitch, exacting revenge for Bautista’s bat flip in the playoffs last fall. With Joe Torre, baseball’s disciplinarian, watching from the press level, the teams played the first two games of this series without incident. (Torre did not travel to Toronto.) The teams vowed to play clean, and they have. “That’s what we expected,” Toronto’s Kevin Pillar said after his home run helped sink Darvish in Game 2. “I’m sure that’s what they expected. You don’t work this hard for 162 games to put yourself in this position to go out and not just take care of business and play baseball.” The Blue Jays have played their best baseball lately, winning their last two regular-season games to clinch a wild-card spot and then stifling the Orioles and the Rangers. They scored 759 runs this season, a sharp drop from last season, when they scored 891, the most in the majors since 2009. But they could be peaking at just the right time. “That’s the way we’re supposed to be,” Encarnacion said. “We didn’t have that great a season in the regular season; everybody didn’t hit like the way we used to hit. But now we’re here, and it’s the perfect moment to get everybody hot.” The Blue Jays lost to Kansas City in the A.L. Championship Series last fall, and Troy Tulowitzki, who was 5 for 9 with a triple and a homer in Texas, said that experience was helping now. “These guys learned a lot,” Tulowitzki said. “I learned a lot. I think each and every postseason that you get there, and the further you make it, the more composed you are.” The Rangers, perhaps, could use a new setting. They are 1-11 in division-series games at home, and they also lost here in the 2012 wild-card game and in a one-game playoff in 2013. They did better in later rounds in 2010 and 2011 but could not quite win a World Series. For this to be the year, they must improve immediately. With the team one loss from elimination, there is no other choice. “It’s not frustrating yet because it’s not over,” outfielder Carlos Gomez said. “It’s not time for frustration. It’s time to put it together.”