By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
Baseball is a game played best with relaxed muscles we have been told.

It’s not a game where you get angry and give a fore arm shiver to a lineman playing over you. Or hammer someone into the end boards like in the NHL.

Baseball is close to basketball ... you’ve seen picture of that Michael Jordan guy going up on a layup with his tongue stuck out.

So the Jays trudged onto Globe Life Park in Arlington, Tex. ... deep into the heart of Texas, deep behind enemy lines.

And how relaxed were they?

Well, “easy-peasy” as Garth Iorg used to say, or as laid back as sitting on the front porch sipping lemonade counting the cows as they come home 1-by-1 as Dizzy Dean might have said, or “the ball travels further when you don’t try to hit the ball 700 feet,” as Hall of Famer Bobby Cox used to say. 

Instead of trying to hit the ball to Oklahoma, the Jays had a relaxed approach, some even had a two-strike approach, scoring five times in the second inning on the way to a 10-1 win over the Texas Rangers in the best-of-five American League Division Series. Game 2 is Friday afternoon.

If Round 1 was Bautista’s bat flip and Round 2 was Rougned Odor’s punch, Round 3 would have been stopped on cuts.

In all, the Jays had 13 hits with big boppers staying back and taking the ball the other way: Josh Donaldson singled and doubled to right on his 4-for-4 day with a pair of RBIs; Troy Tulowitzki hit a game-breaking, bases-clearing triple to right and singled to right centre and Edwin Encarnacion singled to right. They had eight two-strike hits: Melvin Upton’s solo homer and Jose Bautista’s three-run shot plus hits by Ezequiel Carrera, Donaldson (two), Encarnacion, Bautista and Tulowitzki.

Marco Estrada looked as if he was throwing a B game on the back field in Dunedin putting up eight zeros -- with seven innings in which he only faced the minimum three hitters -- before a lead-off triple by Elvis Andrus in the ninth.

And the unflappable Jose Bautista was Jose Bautista. In all my years I have never seen anyone react to adversity the way he does. Whether it was Darren O’Day of the Baltimore Orioles or Kansas City Royals’ Yordano Ventura or whomever, Bautista is always calm no matter the storm around him. We’ve seen players get ruffled and pop up a ball nine miles.

Bautista singled up the middle scoring Donaldson for a 2-0 lead and then hit a three-run homer in the ninth. The 47,434 came to bury Bautista, not praise him. If Game 1 was your first ball game you would have thought his last name was BOOO-tis-Tah. T-shirts and signs were on display “Hey Jose, Don’t Mess With Odor." and "Bat Flips Get Fat Lips."

He didn’t toss the bat, just lying it down Ben Zobrist style (“good dog boo-boo”). He has six home runs in 13 post-season games, the same as Joe Carter had in 29 games.

ON THE MOUND: Estrada came within two outs of his first complete game in 128 career major league starts and four in the post-season. He allowed an infield single to Adrian Beltre in the second, then set down 12 men in order. Elvis Andrus singled leading off the sixth and was caught stealing. Carlos Beltran singled and was erased on a 6-4-3 double play. He had faced one over the minimum going into the ninth when Elvis Andrus tripled. He struck out six and walked none. With the Jays facing elimination last year in Arlington, Estrada allowed one run on five hits in 6 1/3 innings in a 5-1 Jays win ... Cole Hamels began flustered. He faced only seven hitters in the first two innings (a walk to Donaldson) but after the first out walked Carrera to begin a streak of 13 men faced as he retired three with seven runs scoring (six earned). He walked two in the third both of whom scored and during the at-bat when he walked Russell Martin he threw up his arms and walked off the mound when he and catcher Matt Lucroy could not get together on pitch selection. He threw 42 of 82 pitches he threw in the game in the third, faced nine men and threw four first-pitch strikes. Hamels has lower ERA throwing to the other Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos: (1.39), Bobby Wilson (3.52), Bryan Holaday (3.79) than Lucroy (4.28). In his last six outings, Hamels had a 6.75 ERA giving up at least six earned runs in three of those six starts, bumping his ERA from 2.67 to 3.32.

IN GAME: Ian Desmond made a successful move from playing shortstop for the Washington Nationals to patrolling the Rangers outfield but a case of alligator arms as he approached the wall hurt on Tulowitzki’s triple as he entered the shadows on the edge of the warning track. That is back pocket for Gold Glover Devon White ... Bautista’s homer travelled 425 feet to deep left ... Besides starting Upton over Michael Saunders, manager John Gibbons had a good day as Estrada proved to be an excellent choice to start. 

THE GOOD: Upton was in the lineup to chase down fly balls. He homered in the fourth, his eighth career playoff dinger. With the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, he hit seven -- 15 RBIs against the Chicago White Sox in the ALDS and the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS. He was homerless against the Philadelphia Phillies ... Jays were 6-for-10 batting with men in scoring position ... Estrada and reliever Ryan Tepera threw 105 pitches, 77 for strikes ...  C Russell Martin threw out Elvis Andrus stealing -- on an Estrada change -- with the Rangers down 7-0.

THE BAD: Adrian Beltre hit a weak grounder to second and Estrada didn’t cover first base. True, 1B Edwin Encarnacion roamed too far, but a pitcher can’t assume what is going to happen. The same happened in the wild card game when Marcus Stroman was late covering ... 2B Devon Travis, C Russell Martin and CF Kevin Pillar were hitless, a combined 0-for-14 with one walk. 

FAREWELL: Ed Lynch, the former Chicago Cubs general manager, was let go by the Jays hours the morning after the wild-card win by the Jays over the Orioles. Lynch had been with the Jays for six seasons and had just finished scouting the Seattle Mariners down the stretch in case the Jays faced the Mariners in post-season play.

NUMBERS: From Game 1 ...  
11 _ Times that the Rogers connection conked out in the first three innings, but then it is tough getting reception inside the Arctic Circle. 

927 _ Number of times we have seen Rougned Odor punch Bautista after his slide in the previous meeting.

1,243 _ Number of times we’ve seen a replay of the Jose Bautista bat flip.

UP IN THE BOOTH: TBS did the game -- since Rogers Communications had the Canadian rights but chose not to spend the dough -- so Brian Anderson headed up the three man team which also consisted of Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, a Boston Red Sox broadcaster, and Joe Simpson, who works Atlanta Braves games ... Anderson talked over the anthems asking the truck for instructions on what the studio hosts had said during the pre-game show ... Eck was Eck “a parachute piece there,” describing Estrada’s change up ... And Simpson had all kinds of golden nuggets like it has been 13 games since fly ball pitcher Estrada has had a ground ball double play. Like always we wish we could hear more from the talented Simpson. 

JET STREAM: The new yard in Arlington opened in 1994. The Rangers spent vast amounts of money examining the wind currents of their new stadium. Management was assured with accompanying charts and graphs by the experts that there was no such thing as a jet steam.

Before the park opened on opening day the Rangers played two exhibition games against the Houston Astros. The Rangers shortstop Manny Lee, the former Blue Jay shortstop when they won the 1992 World Series, went upper deck twice to right field.

Ex Rangers general manager Tom Grieve said: “We didn’t need to do any wind studies to know there was a jet stream out to right.”

EXPERT PICKS: Scribes and TV types from SI.com, FOX Sports, ESPN and the New York Post made their predictions for the Blue Jays-Rangers series.

The best newsman in the bidness Ken Rosenthal has the Rangers winning in five, Tom Verducci has Texas in five, Ben Reiter and C.J. Nitkowski had the Rangers winning in four. Jay Jaffe and Joe Sheehan picked the Jays in five, Ken Davidoff of the Post has the Jays in four. 

ESPN selectors who chose the Rangers: Jim Bowden, Jerry Crasnick, Doug Glanville, Eric Gomez, Pedro Gomez, Christina Kahrl, Tim Kurkjian, Andrew Marchand, Eddie Matz, Britt McHenry, Jorge Morejon, Buster Olney, Doug Padilla, Marly Rivera, Jesse Rogers, Rafael Rojas Cremonesi, Enrique Rojas, Adam Rubin, Mark Saxon, Mark Simon, Sarah Spain, Jayson Stark, Dan Szymborski.

And those ESPNers who picked the Jays: Jim Caple, Bradford Doolittle, Eric Karabell, Scott Lauber, Claire Smith, Ardy Torres, Adnan Virk.