Long Ball Stories

As great a game as Toronto turned in tonight, you have to start with Edwin.

I’ve always thought it was about his face, this love we Blue Jays’ fans have for Edwin Encarnacion. It’s a wise face, philosophical. It’s a sweet face, cherubic. It’s a face that lights up the whole stadium when it breaks into a smile.

As much as we respect the work ethic and achievement of Jose Bautista, his is the face of a warrior. In the heat of the moment or not, there’s nothing warm and fuzzy coming from Jose’s mien. But Edwin’s is the face of a friend, a brother, a beloved uncle.

For me, the best moment of last night’s emotional return to Toronto by Edwin as a member of the Cleveland team belied some typical inanity from our blathering broadcast crew.

It was the second inning, his first at bat, and Edwin, after being saluted by the crowd, had stepped into the box, lashed at the first pitch from Marcus Stroman, and hit a vicious shot off the pitcher’s glove that deflected to Ryan Goins at short, too late to get Edwin at first as he reached on an infield single. Buck and Tabby had just finished agreeing that, all sentiment aside, these guys were all pros, and once they got between the lines and the umpire called “play ball”, they’d be all business on the field.

Then Edwin and his old pal Jose Bautista turned the announcers’ platitudes upside down. Jose Ramirez stepped in on the left side and bounced one past Justin Smoak into right for a single. As Bautista raced in to pick up the ball, Edwin improbably rounded second and took a few steps toward third, as if to challenge Bautista’s arm. Of course he pulled up short while Bautista rifled a one-hopper dead to the bag at third. Trotting back to second, Edwin beamed a big grin out to Jose, and Jose’s fierce beak cracked into an answering laugh.

Not everything stops between the lines.

There was, of course, a ball game to be played last night, and leaving aside the significance of Edwin’s return to the house where he became a star, important story lines were rife.

How would Marcus Stroman perform after his tightness-abbreviated last outing in New York?

Would the Blue Jays continue their puzzling batting slump, which is so easy to relate back to their complete power outage against these self-same Clevelands in last year’s ALCS? (In fact, of course, the slump has endured unabated since at least the beginning of September last year.)

Would Toronto recover a measure of over-all respect after the humiliating elimination by Cleveland?

Would Trevor Bauer’s pitching overshadow the lingering gory image of his sliced digit drip-drip-dripping blood down his pant leg to mix in a ghoulish paste with the red earth of the pitching mound?

Interestingly, for a match steeped in such moment, and one that was never a given for the Jays, this game was somehow less fraught than so many of the close ones have been.

Sure, Stroman was having a bit of trouble getting his pitches down to his safety zone, and sure Bauer’s curve ball was at its mesmerising best.

But hard-hit balls by Santana and Kipnis found gloves deep in the field in the first, and the Encarnacion/Ramirez base knocks in the second were followed by a weak opposite-field fly from Lonnie Chisenhall, and a tailor-made double play ball by Yandy Diaz, and by the third Stroman was starting to cook, 2 grounders and his only strikeout of the night on thirteen pitches.

And he was pitching on the lead by the third, thanks to Ryan Goins seriously punishing a two-out mistake by Bauer. Bauer had started the third with a gift punchout of Steve Pearce by home plate umpire Mark Ripperger, whose faulty and biased outside corner, favouring Bauer and punishing Stroman, was continually shown up by PitchCast. Then Devon Travis did what he does best, line one into the gap in the opposite field for a double. Darwin Barney hit the ball on the nose, but right at Bauer who flipped to first for the second out.

This brought up Goins, who, as of tonight, has now started more games at shortstop than the injured Troy Tulowitzki. Despite his relative lack of success on balls in play, Goins has never swung harder and with better purpose than in this recent string of games. And when Bauer left one up and in, Goins pole-axed a two-run tater, and when he pole-axes a tater (messy image, that), he does a real job on it. StatsCast had it projected to 439 feet, more than enough insurance to reach any part of the park, let alone dead right field.

After the enlivened Stroman mopped the third, his boys went at it and picked up a couple more for him in the bottom of the inning. Kevin Pillar, who was fighting Bauer’s curve unsuccessfully all night, led off with a walk. Bautista popped up again; will his nightmare never end? Kendrys Morales followed with a double to right, Pillar stopping at three. This brought Justin Smoak to the plate, and I have to say it: at this time, in this crazy season, is anyone now seriously questioning the decision to resign Smoak for two years in the middle of last year?

Smoak, facing that crazy extreme shift to the right that they put on when he’s hitting left, turned in a veteran at bat, a pro right to the end. Sawed off on a high, inside 2-1 fast ball, he muscled a broken bat dying quail into short right for a single. Pillar trotted home easily, of course, but what about the ponderous Morales, steaming around third with a daring green light from Luis Rivera? Abraham Almonte was charging fast, and things looked dire for Morales, so Smoak forced Cleveland’s hand by heading for second, giving himself up to the easy cutoff, Almonte to Santana to Lindor, to protect Morales’ run.

Well done, Smoaky, and as it turned out we were damned glad to have that run!

There was no more to be had off Bauer for the night, as he toiled on through the sixth racking up the amazing total of 125 pitches. He had to pitch around some defensive sloppiness in the fourth, when the usually sure-handed Lindor bobbled the transfer and missed a sure double play on a good feed from his pitcher, and then Almonte, losing it in the lights in his first game under the TV Dome, had Luke Maile’s liner clank off his glove for his first hit as a Blue Jay. Not to worry, though, because that brought Kevin Pillar to the plate, and three tantalizing hooks later the inning was over.

For all of his six innings of shutout ball on only 94 pitches, Marcus Stroman needed a lot more help from his friends than Bauer, and boy, did he get it. There had already been the double play in the second. Then there was the fourth, when a sparkling grab of a Jason Kipnis liner by Goins almost led to Lindor being doubled off first. Stroman then got the ground ball to Barney he needed for the second DP behind him.

Sometimes it’s not enough to get the ground ball when you need it. Sometimes you need a little extra help, and Ryan Goins again provided it for Stroman in the fifth, when he found himself in another jam. Lonnie Chisenhall led off the inning by stroking a solid single into centre. Stroman compounded his problem by walking Yandy Diaz in a seven-pitch at-bat, and then bouncing one to Almonte, with Chisenhall taking third on a tough passed ball charged against Maile.

The pressure eased a bit when Almonte popped out to short for the first out. This brought the catcher, Roberto Perez, to the plate, and Goins back into the limelight. Perez hit a comebacker to the mound, a sure third double play for Stroman. But the pitcher, who usually fields his position like the shortstop he used to be, rushed a high throw to second. Goins had the bag, but the throw was high to his glove side. He calmly stretched like the first baseman he sometimes is, held the bag with his foot until he had the ball, cleared the sliding Diaz and, knowing his runner coming to first, finished the play with ease to Smoak. Cleveland manager Terry Francona briefly considered reviewing whether Goins had held the bag, but then waved it off.

Were it not for the heroics of Kevin Pillar to save Stroman’s bacon in the sixth, this would have been Goins’ night totally. But Pillar showed once again that a funk at the plate doesn’t mean you can’t give your all on the other side of the ball. As if Kevin Pillar ever failed to give his all in the field.

Protecting the 4-0 lead, Stroman was victimized right off the bat, the bat of Carlos Santana, that is. To be fair to Steve Pearce, he was never advertised as the defensive answer in left field for Toronto. A career infielder, his record in left was pretty thin coming in, but he’d passed every test to date, and had made some good plays, to boot. But Santana, hitting left against Stroman, sliced one high and deep toward the left-field corner. Pearce got a good jump on it, in fact, a great jump, as he over-ran the ball while hitting the wall. He reached back at the last minute in an awkward twist, but the ball hit the wall and bounced away for a double.

Stroman did his best to get out of it by himself. He got Francisco Lindor on a short fly to Pearce in left. He got Jason Kipnis on a groundout to Smoak at first, with Santana moving to third. Then he perhaps wisely walked Edwin. This brought Jose Ramirez to the plate with two on and two outs. No matter what, clearly Ramirez would be the last batter Stroman would face on this night.

The first pitch to Ramirez was down and in. The second one was a cutter, low and in but in the zone. Ramirez, who is as dangerous a hitter as Cleveland has, absolutely smoked it on a direct line over Pillar’s head. Pillar instantly turned in perfect line with the ball—I’m sure StatsCast’s “route efficiency” metric for his catch would be almost perfect. He raced back, appearing to be losing an impossible race with the flight of the ball.

Then, just short of the warning track, he launched, still in a direct line to the fence and with the ball. He sailed, he stretched, and the ball miraculously stuck in his outstretched glove as he landed chest down on the track.

Of course the place went crazy. The fans paid tribute with bows and salaams. Pillar back-bumped Stroman at the edge of the dugout, and was swarmed by his mates when he arrived.

If you were doing a top-ten all-time Super Kevin super play ranking, this catch, given the situation in the game and the pressure involved, would have to be top three. I leave it to the metrics geeks to sort that out. All I know is that it was a moment of pure beauty.

Sometimes, according to the deep thinkers, the past is prelude. In this case, the past was everything, even though there were some seriously tense moments still to be endured before the Jays nailed this one down.

We don’t need to spend much time on the Jays’ ups after Bauer left. Zach McAllister mopped up for Cleveland, and was quite the entertainer, wild, wooly, dangerous (just ask Bautista, who had to dive for his life in the eighth), and virtually unhittable. He walked two, struck out four, and only threw 22 pitches for six outs.

Danny Barnes took over for Stroman, and had a great seventh, retiring Chisenhall, Diaz, and Almonte on 13 pitches. Manager John Gibbons sent him back out for the eighth, and why wouldn’t he, but it just wasn’t the same.

While Buck and Tabby blathered about Barnes being a real “strike-thrower”, the pitcher was issuing a five-pitch walk to number nine hitter Roberto Perez. This brought Santana back to the plate, and this time he doubled to right, sending Perez to third and Barnes to the bench, as Gibbie brought Joe Smith in to put out the fire.

Which Smith did, but not before some very strange happenings happened at the ol’ ballyard. Smith jumped ahead of the left-handed Lindor, who fouled off two of his nasty sidearm down-and-aways, but then he tried to slip a slider by him on the inner half, and Lindor got enough of it to hit it safely into right.

Perez scored on the hit, but Lindor got hung up between first and second, while Santana held at third. It looked like the same tactic used earlier by Smoak, but it wasn’t, because of one big difference: this time there was nobody out, and with Kipnis and Encarnacion coming up, you don’t get hung up on purpose. This was a flat-out mistake, but Lindor got away with it, because once the Jays decided to concede Santana’s run, they made the one mistake they’d make in this game, and botched the rundown.

Somehow, Devon Travis sort of didn’t get out of Lindor’s way when he didn’t have the ball, and somehow, in the opinion of crew chief Vic Carapazza, he sort of impeded Lindor on the base path, though without making contact with him, so no how was Lindor going to be out on the play, but rather was awarded second base. And no how was John Gibbons going to stay in the game after that travesty, so he shouldn’t have bothered trying to be polite about it anyway. He did try, though, didn’t he? Didn’t he?

So with Lindor on second, nobody out, and the score 4-2 for us, Smith had to face Kipnis, Edwin, and Ramirez. Gulp. Isn’t this why we watch baseball? So Kipnis grounded out to Smoak at first and Lindor managed to find his way to third without bumping into anyone. And here came Edwin to the plate.

It was the best of times, the worst of times.

And how many times have we seen this quintessential matchup between a tough pitcher and the oh-so-still Edwin? And yet, this, this was all new, for he is not ours, no longer the repository of our hopes and dreams. His familiar classic stance is no longer dressed in royal Blue Jay blue, but in a darker, alien blue.

As much as we love him, we want him to lose this battle. Joe Smith is new to us, but he is ours, and we want him to prevail. It is a classic battle, one for the ages. Edwin swings over a sinker. He lays off a sinker. He swings over a sinker, and fouls one off. He lays off a sinker. 2 and 2. Then he fouls off three in a row, in the dirt, one of them off his foot; he walks around to shake it off. Finally, finally Smith throws him that killer, sweeping slider, the one that starts low in the zone and then just dives and dives, generally in the direction of Lake Ontario. That was the trick: a mighty, reaching whiff, and Smith had won the battle and sent Edwin back to the sad confines of the enemy dugout.

As much as Goins’ homer, as much as Pillar’s incredible catch, that moment was the ball game. It hardly mattered that Smith went on to fan Ramirez on a 3-2 pitch with the sinker that couldn’t fool Edwin. When the mighty parrot failed to appear, the game was done.

After Zach McAllister finished making mince meat of the Jays’ hitters in the bottom of the eighth, the rejuvenated Roberto Osuna came on in the ninth and, no drama this time, finished off Cleveland on nine pitches, fanning Chisenhall on a 1-2 pitch and getting weak grounders from Diaz and Almonte to Travis to ring down the curtain. There was, alas, on this night no Russell Martin to play the knock-knock game with Osuna.

Retribution for the dismal playoff loss last fall? Sure. Signs of hope for better days for Toronto? Absolutely.

But remember this: on Edwin’s night, he shared the stage with three young knights named Goins, Stroman, and Pillar, and some guy named Joe Smith.

Note from yer humble scribe: I would not blame anyone for assuming that I have stopped chronicling the Jays because they are struggling so badly. Rather than being lost in a miasma of misery, unable to face the grim facts, I have been unable to write because I have developed an obscure skin condition, one of the side effects of which is the (temporary, I hope) loss of feeling in the tips of my fingers. When I dispatch my “D” finger, for example, it may land on “D”, or it may land on any one of the keys around it. There ensues lots of backtracking to fix typos. Nevertheless, like Elizabeth Warren, I have decided to persist. Today’s heroic effort by the pitching staff seems a good place to start.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Jays’ management, determined not to derail Joe Biagini’s career by yo-yoing him between starting and relieving, finally saw their hands forced by circumstances, and slotted him in today to start the rubber game of this weekend’s series in Tampa Bay.

Of course Biagini was brilliant. We all knew he would be. He’s been golden from the moment he first took the mound for Toronto when he made the team out of spring training last year. So why not in his first start?

And really, what were the choices? Two fifths of the rotation on the disabled list. Marcus Stroman inexplicably ineffective and short in his last outing against the Yankees. The earnest and possibly talented Casey Lawrence not quite ready for prime time. Mat Latos giving one solid fill-in start, and then imploding beyond all belief the next time out, followed by his mysterious if not surprising departure from the roster.

So who do ya call when there’s nobody left? Just call Joe. Call they did, and there he was, chest-tapping, belly-billowing jersey wanting to be free, baggy-pantsed (his whole persona is kinda baggy, isn’t it?), off-kilter grin bemusing, the little kid who fell asleep in his trundle bed one night, and woke up the next day on a major league mound throwing to Russell Martin with Corey Dickinson standing in at the plate.

But when Joe Biagini threw the first pitch today he was all business. Oh, my, he was all business, wasn’t he?

Mind you, he wasn’t going to pitch a complete game, not fresh out of the pen. But he gave us four beautiful innings, and allowed a little hope to stir in hearts almost lost to despair.

Here’s what he did in four innings: first inning: Dickinson ground-out, Brad Miller weak opposite-field fly, Evan Longoria fanned, 13 pitches.

Second inning: Logan Morrison ground-out, star to Justin Smoak for handling a tough hop, Steven Souza, in his first appearance against Biagini since he was plunked in Toronto, screwing himself out of his shoes fanning on the Biagini curve ball, Colby Rasmus wisely deciding to admire the same pitch for strike three, so as not to embarrass himself.

Third inning: the fatal cheap run that has done in Toronto so many times this season.

Daniel Robertson grounding out on the first pitch, but Kevin Kiermaier hitting a sharp hopper to second that Devon Travis fumbles, letting Kiermaier reach. Jesus Sucre hits a topper in front of the plate that serves as a bunt. With two outs, Dickerson cashes Kiermaier with the unearned run, on the first hit allowed by Biagini. Miller grounds out to strand Dickerson.

Fourth inning: Longoria weak fly to left. Morrison wicked grounder up the middle but Ryan Goins in the shift makes a great back-handed stop and throws him out from his knees. Souza single to centre (Score: Biagini 1, Souza 1). Rasmus looks for that curve ball, flails at heater for strike three.

The line: 4 innings pitched, one unearned run, 2 hits, no walks, 4 strikeouts, 52 pitches.

Buoyed by his success, Biagini’s mates were almost perfect in his stead.

Aaron Loup, one long and typically Loup-y inning: a hit batter stranded and 27 pitches. (How do you throw 27 pitches to four batters and get three of them out?)

Ryan Tepera, two innings, one walk, four strikeouts, and 32 pitches, and I’m pretty sure Ryan Tepera has seen the last of Buffalo.

Joe Smith, one inning, one strikeout, 9 pitches, and an assist to Zeke Carrera for a nice running catch of a weak Dickerson flare. The side-armer has earned late-inning responsibility, for sure.

Roberto Osuna, a typical save. Longoria pops out on the first pitch. Morrison goes down in three—four pitches, two outs. Starts over-throwing and loses Souza on a 3-2 heater over his head. Two quick strikes to Rasmus and a cheap broke-back single to centre. Blows the rookie Robertson away on a 96 mph heater right down the pike.

So on the day, five Toronto pitchers give up one unearned run, three hits, two walks, and strike out eleven.

But hold on a minute, you rightly say. This was a ball game, not a pitching exhibition. What about the other side of the coin?

Well, Tampa righty Alex Cobb was either brilliant, or the Jays’ bats stunk again. I suspect a bit of both is the truth. Cobb was efficient and effective, if a little wild and wooly. He went eight innings and gave up two runs on four hits, and damn near won the game 1-zip thanks to Travis’ error on Kiermaier.

Let’s pause for a moment on Devon Travis. Likeable as he is, and with as much potential at the plate as he has, am I the only observer who thinks he’s not a major-league second baseman? He makes all of the routine plays, and even some great ones, but he almost never makes the crucial ones. Today is a case in point: the Kiermaier grounder was a tough but routine play, but Kiermaier’s speed was in Travis’ head. Also, twice in the last week he has fielded a sharp grounder with the infield in and played the ball to the plate with an out very possible. Both times his seventy-foot throw pulled the catcher away from the runner, allowing the runner to throw.

Can Travis become a reliable big-league second sacker? I don’t know, but with the team in a slump like this, his .15-something average is hardly justification for continuing his on-the-job training in Toronto. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when Tulo is healthy, Goins has to play second for the Jays to win the close ones.

Back to the game,the top of the Jays’ first set the tone for most of the day. Kevin Pillar, continually brilliant in the midst of all this adversity, smacked Cobb’s first pitch into left for a base hit. Then he cheekily stole the first base so far this year off Jesus Sucre while Jose Bautista took a curve ball for strike three. Then he watched at second while Russell Martin took a curve ball for strike three. Then he trotted in to get his glove after Kendrys Morales flew out to centre.

Justin Smoak hit the first pitch of the second on the screws, but right at Morrison at first. Ryan Goins worked a walk to lead off the third, but Darwin Barney hit into a DP on his first pitch. Three up, three down in the fourth after the Rays took the lead. Pearce was hit by a pitch in the fifth but died at first.

Then, Barney led off the sixth by flying out to centre, but Pillar–god bless him, eh–ripped one off Longoria’s glove at third into the Tampa bullpen for a double. The frustrated Jose Bautista just missed a hanging curve and popped out to Longoria in foul territory. This time Martin didn’t wait around to be rung up on a curve ball. He hit the first pitch he saw from Cobb so hard into left that it bounced in front of Rasmus and deflected off his glove while Pillar scored the tying run.

It hardly mattered that Morales grounded out again: Biagini was off the hook for the loss, and the lowly Jays had a chance.

It took Cobb only six pitches to maneuver the seventh, but the signs were there: both Smoak (yet again) and Pearce hit the ball hard, but they were right-at-ems again.

Then, in the eighth, it happened. After Ryan Goins grounded out to second, Darwin Barney, of all people, punished Cobb for throwing a 1-0 fast ball down and in and smoked it deep into the left field seats for his first homer of the year. Cobb went on to walk Pillar, but retired Bautista and Martin to finish off his day’s work, down 2-1 and on the hook for the loss.

Maybe too bad for Alex Cobb, but how many times has it happened to Toronto pitchers this year?

So, still mired in this horrendous batting slump, our troubled heroes will make their way back to Toronto, ready or not to face the Indians and the lost Edwin for the first time since their loss to Cleveland in last year’s ALCS.

If you’re looking for optimism, Toronto went 3-3 on the tough road trip to New York and Tampa, and if you throw in the previous weekend in Toronto against Tampa, they’re now five for their last nine.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Baseball’s a funny game, eh?

Wednesday night in New York it looked like the Jays were riding high to take the series from the league-leading Yankees, despite the havoc the Baby Bombers had wreaked on Mat Latos the night before.

Not only did they have Marcus Stroman going for them in front of his hometown crowd, but he had a 4-0 lead even before throwing a pitch, thanks to a two-out RBI single by Justin Smoak, followed by a two-out, three-run homer off the bat of Steve Pearce. Embarrassment of riches in these mean times!

But we know how that turned out, and it wasn’t pretty. So the Jays found themselves heading for an off-day in sunny Florida, prior to taking on the pesky Tampa Bay Rays inside the abominable tin can of the orange juice dome.

Worse, first up for the Rays in the weekend’s starting rotation would be Chris Archer, and that’s never a good thing.

And it certainly was not a good thing for our heroes on this night.

Archer, who presents on the mound like a cross between Spider- and Plastic Man, was, as usual, all elbows, knees, and spiky dreads, his pitch selection as eclectic and effective as his look. You’d sit on the wipe-out slider, and he’d smoke you with mid-90s on the corners. Guess at heat and you’d fall on your face chasing the breaking ball. Worst of all, I think, if I had to hit against him, would be the preternatural calm on his face as he goes about showing you who’s in charge. Most of the time, he looks like a bored high school kid at morning assembly, all the while playing with the stink bomb he’s about to release.

Tonight this went on for six innings, during which he gave up one run on three hits with no walks while striking out eleven. The three hits? Kevin Pillar led off the game with a bloop single into centre, but after Archer punched out Jose Bautista, Russell Martin grounded into a double play.

The other two hits came in the fifth, after a shaky Francisco Liriano had yielded a 3-0 lead to the Rays. Who knew that in signing Kendrys Morales Toronto had acquired a potent secret weapon against Mr. Archer? Morales’ stats going in against the lean righty were off the charts, and they only got better after tonight. Fanned leading off the second, Morales led off the fifth with a double to left. Justin Smoak crossed up the shift and singled to left to score Morales and cut the Rays’ lead to 3-1. Steve Pearce hit the ball hard to Kiermaier, but Archer struck out Ryan Goins and got Devon Travis to ground out to end the inning.

The lanky righty reasserted himself in the sixth, and could have left seven defenders on the bench because he didn’t need them. He fanned Chris Coghlan, knocked down Pillar’s hard comebacker, jumped on the ball like a cat and threw him out, and then caught Bautista looking.

So Archer came out for the seventh, his dominance absolutely restored, to be the prime figure in what we could call [Manager Kevin] Cash’s Folly. Archer issued his only walk of the game, on a 3-2 count to Russell Martin leading off, bringing guess who, Mr. Morales, to the plate once again.

Chase Whitley was ready to go in the pen. Ball four to Martin was Archer’s pitch number 102. Everybody in the ball park expected to see the hook for Archer. Everybody at home expected to see the hook for Archer. Dozens of Macedonian teen fake news creators paused over their laptops, expecting Kevin Cash to emerge from the dugout. The only person in the entire world who didn’t think Cash was going to yank Archer was Cash, and that surely included Archer himself.

So Archer’s great night ended on pitch number 107, a 3-1 fast ball down and on the inner half that jumped off Morales’ bat and headed for the seats, erasing Archer’s lead, and, for all practical purposes, his night’s work.

Then in came Whitley, to retire the side in order.

Francisco Liriano spent the entire month of April whittling his ERA down from the horrendous 135.00 that he recorded in his first start on April seventh against these same Tampa Bay Rays, when he retired only one batter while giving up five earned runs. Miraculously, by the start of tonight’s game, he had it down to 3.97. He even beat the Rays in Toronto last week, though they pushed him to 99 pitches in only five innings.

But there’s something about Liriano pitching in the Tampa Tin Can. He just couldn’t find the plate again tonight, though he managed to dodge the bullet for three innings. But after three, locked, if you will, in a scoreless tie with Archer, he had managed to strand two hits and three walks while watching his pitch count balloon to 62.

Things came to a head, and Liriano’s shaky start came to an end, after he fanned Rickie Weeks to lead off the fourth. Rookie Daniel Robertson took him deep. Derek Norris lasered one over Pillar’s head and over the fence in centre in about a nanosecond. Pillar might have caught it with a leap at the fence, but he didn’t have a chance to get back in time.

Even at this point, Liriano had a path to staying in the game. Peter Bourjos grounded out to Ryan Goins for the second out, so he was one out from walking off down 2-0, with nobody on base to boot. Then the roof fell in. Tim Beckham singled to left. He hit Kevin Kiermaier on the left hand. He walked Evan Longoria. He walked Steven Souza, forcing in Beckham with the third run. That was it for Liriano. He had thrown 96 pitches in three and two thirds innings. Only 51 of them were strikes.

Manager Gibbons brought Danny Barnes into the game, and in perhaps the key moment of the night, surrounded by Rays, facing Corey Dickinson, Barnes blew the dangerous left-hander away on a high, hard 1-2 pitch to end the uprising.

So the Jays’ bullpen took over the 3-1 deficit, and could only hope to hold on until Archer ran out of gas, or until the struggling Jays’ hitters might, improbably, figure him out.

Except for a number of, um, obvious differences, you couldn’t tell Barnes from Archer while he was in there: the big whiff of Dickerson, two and a third innings pitched, two strikeouts, and only 22 pitches. That, of course, brings us to the seventh, which marked the end of Archer, followed by the Rays retaking the lead in the home half on a cheap run that victimized Dominic Leone, who’d replaced Barnes on the hill for the Jays.

The only mistake Leone was made was giving up a leadoff single to Evan Longoria, hardly a major faux pas for any AL East pitcher. The disaster came next, when Chris Coghlan booted a sure double play ball from Souza. Gibbie opted for the matchup, calling on Aaron Loup to face Dickerson, who beat out a weak topper to short to load the bases. Loup fanned Rickie Weeks for the long-awaited first out, but with the bases loaded the rookie Robertson grounded out to Smoak, who had no chance for a play at the plate, Longoria finally scoring. Derek Norris flied out to right, but Loup left as the pitcher of record, though the unearned run meant Leone would be charged with the loss if the score stood.

But, it didn’t. Tampa’s bullpen blinked, the Jays’ didn’t, the Jays’ hitters raised some dust, and Morales delivered a second thunderous blast for the coup de gràce, and the game was in the bag for Toronto.

Chase Whitley, having settled the Jays’ hash after Morales’ blast knocked Archer out of the game, came back out for the eighth inning, now in gift of a 4-3 Tampa lead, which didn’t last much longer than Whitley not that it was all Whitley’s fault. Devon Travis led off the eighth with a drive to centre that clanked off the glove of Peter Bourjos and was generously scored a double.

Chris Coghlan then took a shot at redeeming the error he’d committed earlier by driving one deep to right centre, where Steven Souza made a near-Pillar quality running catch, with Travis smartly tagging and moving up to third.

The loud out brought Kevin Cash running for relief, and he called in Jumbo Diaz to face the real Kevin Pillar. Diaz quickly got two strikes on Pillar, but served up a slider that got too much of the plate, and the hot-hitting leadoff man ripped it past Longoria into the corner in left for a double that tied the game and took Leone off the hook.

But the surging Jays weren’t going to settle for a tie. Diaz froze Bautista for a called third strike, but walked Russell Martin, bringing Morales back to the plate with two on and two outs. Morales, who is beginning to resemble his predecessor with his flair for the dramatic, then put paid to any Tampa hopes of pulling out a late win with his second home run, and his third, fourth, and fifth RBIs in the last two innings.

In his second curious decision of the night, Kevin Cash brought in the left-handed Justin Marks to turn Justin Smoak around to his preferred right side, and Smoak made no mistake with the first pitch he saw from Marks, hitting it ten rows deep over the left-centre field fence for an 8-4 Toronto lead.

After that it hardly mattered that Marks retired Steve Pearce to end the inning and stranded a walk and a base hit to keep the Jays off the board in the ninth.

What did matter was that the Rays were done. Joe Smith struck out the side on 13 pitches in the bottom of the eighth, and Roberto Osuna set down three in the ninth in a non-save situation on only ten pitches.

Chris Archer kept the Rays in this one through the force of his brilliance, until he was asked to go one hitter too far, and that changed everything.

It also gave Toronto a very promising and much needed boost at the start of their weekend on the delightful Gulf Coast.