Blue Jays fans are wrong to rip John Schneider for walking Shohei Ohtani

After watching Shohei Ohtani launch three homers in three games to start the World Series — including two over the first seven innings of Game 3, the last of which sent the game to extra innings in an eventual win for the Los Angeles Dodgers — Toronto Blue Jays fans begged their team to just stop pitching to Ohtani altogether. And John Schneider was happy to oblige, treating the two-way phenom with kid gloves every time he came to the plate. Toronto took Games 4 and 5 in L.A., the stars behind Ohtani continued to struggle and everything was copacetic.

Until Game 6, that is, when Blue Jays fans got mad at Schneider all over again for the crime of ... not pitching to Shohei Ohtani. Wait, what?

Kevin Gausman was cruising to start Game 6, with six strikeouts in his first seven batters faced, including Ohtani to lead off the game. But a double from Tommy Edman in the top of the third brought Ohtani back to the plate with the go-ahead run in scoring position and first base open with two outs. Schneider, as he has throughout the last three games, hardly hesitated to hand out an intentional walk.

This time, though, the guys behind Ohtani made the Blue Jays pay. First, Will Smith doubled home a run to open the scoring, and then the slumping Mookie Betts delivered a huge two-run single to bump L.A.'s lead up to 3-0. And it wasn't long before the second-guessing began: How could you possibly pitch around Ohtani?!

It's understandable to feel frustrated. This is a golden opportunity for Toronto, and with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound for the Dodgers, every run is critical. But this sort of hindsight is bordering on shamelessness, and it's ridiculous to pretend as though there was no reason for Schneider to play the inning the way he did.

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Pitching around Shohei Ohtani is always the right call, even if it backfires

Seriously: Just days ago, the entire country of Canada was shaking its head in disbelief that Schneider let reliever Seranthony Dominguez pitch to Ohtani with a one-run lead late in Game 3. And that was with nobody on base!

Sure, Ohtani had looked bad in his first at-bat against Gausman on Friday night, and sure, he entered the game just 2-for-15 lifetime off the right-hander. Smith, by contrast, just homered off of Gausman in Game 2. But Smith's overall numbers against Gausman are hardly impressive, just four hits in 17 plate appearances. Unlike Ohtani, he's been in a funk at the plate of late, and he too struck out in his first AB against Gausman in Gmae 6.

It's unfair to judge a move strictly by its outcome. The only thing Schneider can control is process, and the process here was sound. A good way to know that's the case? Imagine the reaction had he let Ohtani hit there, and he'd come through to give the Dodgers the lead. Fans wouldn't have let him hear the end of it, because they know that Ohtani is arguably the most dangerous hitter in the sport regardless of matchup.

If you want to get mad, get mad at Gausman, who hung a splitter to Smith before inexplicably throwing three fastballs to Betts — the third of which got smacked into left-field for a back-breaking hit. Ultimately, it's on the players to execute, and you can't tell me that any of the keyboard warriors would've handled things any differently.