Johnny Cueto’s meltdown in Toronto in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series last week was testament enough to a gathering sense of his inability to process such pressure.
But it also was delivered with the insinuation of a certain flakiness in Cueto.
It wasn’t just the way Cueto appeared as he came off the mound that day smiling — while surely grimacing inside — to the jeers of Blue Jays fans. He’d been removed from a debacle in which he’d be charged with eight runs in two innings of an 11-8 loss.
The perception also stemmed from his allusion to the mound height being different on the field than it had been in the bullpen and by a suggestion that he had been flustered by sign-stealing by the Blue Jays.