While Donald Trump is claiming that the American election will be rigged, Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista is insinuating the same about the American League Championship Series.

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In a word — an extended word with an enormous eye roll — puh-leeeeeeeeze.

“All you gotta do is look at the video and count how many times (Cleveland pitchers) throw pitches over the heart of the plate,” Bautista said Sunday, as reported by Mike Vorkunov. “They’ve been able to do that because of the circumstances — that I’m not trying to talk about because I can’t. That’s for you guys to do, but you guys don’t really want to talk about that either.”

Let’s talk about it, because, like Bautista said, we can.

After the Blue Jays’ 2-0 loss to Cleveland in Game 1 of the ALCS on Friday, there were multiple questions about the strike zone of home plate umpire Laz Diaz. Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin gave a pretty honest assessment of the situation, saying, “Laz was pretty good. I wasn’t hitting. He didn’t really make many mistakes when I was catching. But then, when we were hitting late, it seemed like he might have missed one or two. But overall, I felt like he did a pretty good job.”

A couple of the pitches Diaz missed did happen to be to Bautista, who had a six-pitch at-bat in which he might not have seen a strike, but still struck out. In the dugout afterward, Toronto backup catcher Dioner Navarro appeared to indicate to Bautista that he had seen the video of the at-bat, and that the pitches were a good amount outside.

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Fair enough, and that happens. But to suggest a wide-ranging conspiracy — what, because the Blue Jays are from Canada? — is both ludicrous and demonstrably false. As to the nonsensical aspect of Major Leauge Baseball having it in for the Blue Jays because they come from Toronto, again, puh-leeeeeeeeze. The Blue Jays are the only team in Canada, and were they to win the World Series, it would be a nationwide phenomenon, with MLB able to make money hand over fist from coast to coast cashing in on the Jays’ popularity.

Have you seen a Blue Jays-Mariners game in Seattle? Fans pour over the border from British Columbia and make it a virtual home game for Toronto. This is a team with a wide-ranging and eager-to-spend fan base. No, it’s not great for Fox to have the Jays in the Fall Classic, but it’s not like Cleveland is the move-the-needle team for the World Series: The drawing card will be the National League champion, whether it’s the team from the United States’ second-largest media market in Los Angeles, or the Cubs, whose appeal should be obvious at this point.

Now, to the absurdity of Bautista’s claims on an evidentiary level. In Game 1, the Blue Jays who offered the most dramatic remonstrations for Diaz after strikeouts were Melvin Upton Jr. and Edwin Encarnacion.

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Upton struck out on a pitch that was borderline low, but certainly not a pitch that a hitter can afford to take with two strikes in any situation.

Encarnacion got even more upset, nearly getting himself ejected. He struck out on a pitch that could not be argued to be anything but a strike.

In Game 2, there was another Encarnacion strikeout that drew attention. Again, it looked like a fine pitch that plate umpire Jim Wolf called a strike.

Now, those images are from MLB’s own website, but to rig that software in real time to make a few calls look OK when they, in fact, hurt a specific team would be an enormous undertaking not worth anyone’s time. And Cleveland had the perfect response to Bautista’s whining.

Patriotism might be the last refuge of a scoundrel. Complaining about umpires is the last refuge of the losing baseball team.