Long Ball Stories

One of the most remarkable developments in contemporary baseball is the incredible level of accomplishment that has already been achieved by players in their early twenties.

Looking at the American League alone, consider that among the Blue Jays Roberto Osuna is 22, Aaron Sanchez is 25, and Marcus Stroman is 26. Mike Trout, a veteran at 26, made his major-league debut at 20 in 201l. More noticeably, the sparkling Boston duo of Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts are 24, Carlos Correa of the Astros is 22. Meanwhile, Jonathan Schoop of the Orioles is 25, and hasn’t he played second for Baltimore for at least ten years?? Jose Ramirez of the Indians is 24. So is Gary Sanchez of the Yankees. Aaron Judge is a relative senior citizen in his first full year at 25.

In this context, then, it wasn’t all that surprising to watch twenty-three-year-old centre fielder Byron Buxton utterly dismantle Toronto twice to lead the visiting Minnesota Twins to a crucial (for both teams) series win over the weekend.

Reggie Jackson famously and rather arrogantly referred to himself as the “straw that stirred the drink” for the Yankees, which is probably the origin of the stirring motion that players make these days after a base hit in the middle of a rally.

When you look at Buxton’s contribution to the three Twins’ games in Toronto, it can be truly said that, at his tender age, for this weekend at least, Buxton was Minnesota’s straw. When he went well—and boy, did he go well when he went well—the Twins won; in the one game when he didn’t have an impact, the Twins lost.

On Friday night he went three for five with two bunt singles and two RBIs. In the third inning after Joe Mauer and Brian Dozier pulled off a hit-and-run to send Dozier to third he bunted safely to third to score Dozier on the safety squeeze. In the fifth inning, following a leadoff double by Mauer, he bunted him to third, but ran that into a base hit as well, and immediately stole second. In the ninth inning, with one out and Chris Gimenez on third after a double and Mauer (again) on first with a single, Buxton took the more conventional route of a line single to left that scored Gimenez for the Twins’ last run in a 6-1 win over Toronto. Incidentally, when you have Joe Mauer getting three base hits hitting second right ahead of Buxton comin of of the three-hole, you’re looking at lots of scoring opportunities. I mean a lot.

And what was all that horse manure about Mauer being washed up a couple of years ago, with injuries and all? Don’t see it now: he’s hitting like a member of Mike Trout’s graduating class, not like the fragile 34-year-old he’s supposed to be: .303 in 436 at bats this year. Are you kidding me??

But to get back to Byron Buxton, his three hits were just his contribution at the plate. In the eighth inning he robbed Rob Refsnyder with a running, leaping grab of a ball that was over his head in right centre. The catch saved two sure runs. Miguel Montero had led off with a walk, followed by Kevin Pillar hitting a hard liner right at the right fielder Max Kepler. Nori Aoki hit into a fielder’s choice for the second out, replacing Montero’s lack of speed with Aoki’s quickness. Ryan Goins lined a single to left, against the left-handed Taylor Rogers, we should note, sending Aoki to second and bringing Refsnyder to the plate. If Refsnyder’s ball clears Buxton’s glove, with two outs both runners easily score, and the game is suddenly five-three, and Refsnyder has at least a double, with the top of the order coming up.

Let’s be clear, though. As much as Buxton stood out, those “random guys in Twins’ uniforms” that I referred to in my headline contributed a great deal to what was essentially a walkover, even if the score was only 6-1. The moment when you thought Refsnyder’s drive might reach the wall was the only moment that the Jays were ever in this game after the Twins’ three-run start in the third.

For one thing, as maddening as it was to watch, they never solved Bartolo Colon, the elderly humpty-dumpty who wasn’t good enough for the lowly Atlanta Braves, but now finds himself smack dab in the middle of a pennant race. His pitching line speaks for itself, six and two thirds innings, nine hits and a walk but only one run, and no strikeouts. Everything you need to know about Bartolo Colon on this night and maybe about his whole career is encapsulated in this single image: Colon standing off the mound waiting for play to be called again after some delay or other, tossing the ball up in the air and catching it with his meat hand, like some ten-year-old kid on the playground, waiting for someone else to come along and have a catch. You can see that he finds it immensely amusing at his age and condition that he can still get major league hitters out.

For another thing, in the words of my summary of the game notes for this night, the game represented a “clinical dissection” of Toronto by a Twins’ team still very much in the hunt despite the absence of such salwarts as Miguel Sano, Robbie Grossman, and number one catcher Jason Castro.

The Twins were relentless in putting pressure on Toronto. They put their leadoff hitter on in seven of nine innings, three times with extra-base hits. Even in the first two innings, when Jay Happ managed to keep them off the board, they had leadoff singles, and in both cases the runner ended up in scoring position before the inning ended.

Ironically, in the third inning when they opened the scoring, Chris Gimenez led off by flying out to centre. But then Dozier walked, starting the sequence that resulted in Buxton plating him with his first bunt single. But then Jorge Polanco came through with a two-out drive to the gap in left centre that scored both Joe Mauer and Buxton from first. (Did I mention that Buxton can fly, as well as hit and field?)

Justin Smoak had doubled off Colon with two outs in the first. When he hit a two-out solo homer in the bottom of the third, it might have looked this could still be a ball game, but as it turned out, Smoak was the only Blue Jay able to solve Colon; the other seven hits he allowed were scattered singles.

In any case, the two-run differential only lasted two batters into the Twins’ fourth; these guys just don’t like to let their opponents off the mat. Mitch Garver hit a ball off the wall in centre that took a bad hop and eluded the fielders, allowing him to reach third, and he was immediately plated by a sacrifice fly off the bat of Max Kepler, making it 4-1.

in the fifth Mauer led off with a double and was bunted to third by Buxton as mentioned on a sacrifice attempt that turned into a base hit, and then he scored on a sacrifice fly by Eduardo Escobar, and it was 5-1.

it wasn’t like they were clobbering Jay Happ. The only decisive blow with runners in scoring position was the Polanco double in the third. For the rest, it was just chipping away, while Colon befuddled and annoyed the Toronto hitters until it was too late to mount a comeback. Rather, in the immortal words of the Randy Bachmann anthem, the Twins were just “taking care of business”.

Except for that one dicey moment in the eighth, cut off by Buxton’s acrobatics in centre, the Jays were never really in this one, and the top-off run by Minnesota in the top of the ninth, driven in by Mr. Buxton, was one last stake in the hearts of the Blue Jays.

Looking forward to Saturday afternoon’s game two of the series, the prescription was clear for Toronto: neutralize Byron Buxton, get the bats going against the Twins, and keep Minnesota’s leadoff hitters off the freakin’ bases.

So, how did we do Saturday afternoon compared to my “keys to victory”? Well, Buxton went oh fer three, we got ten runs, Minnesota put only two leadoff batters on base the whole game, and Marco Estrada pitched six innings for the win.

So why were my nails down to the bloody* cuticles by the time Roberto Osuna finally nailed down the save?

*Not swearing here, just being descriptive!

Because this Minnesota team is relentless. Marco Estrada avoided his first inning funk this time out, and after four innings he’d given up only a walk and a base hit, facing only two over the minimum.

Meanwhile, Toronto was facing Dillon Gee, who’d been somewhat of a fixture in the Mets’ rotation for a number of years until he ran into injury problems, spent 2016 in the Royals’ bullpen, and been signed and released (twice) by the Rangers this spring, eventually signing with Minnesota and going to their Triple A team. Today was his second start with the Twins after being called up to the big team; he’d gone six strong innings and recorded the win against the White Sox in his first start.

Toronto picked up a run off Gee in the second when Kendrys Morales hit a leadoff home run to right centre, and another one in the third, the only time before the fifth that Gee allowed more than one baserunner, and he did a good job of getting out of it after filling the bases with nobody out. Raffie Lopez and Zeke Carrera singled to right. Josh Donaldson surprised everyone so much laying down a sacrifice bunt that he was easily across first to load the bases. Then Gee fanned Justin Smoak, gave up a sacrifice fly to Jose Bautista, and popped up Morales to the shortstop to end the inning.

Down 2-0 and not doing much so far against Estrada, the Twins tied it up in the fifth on a two-out, two-run shot to right field by Eduardo Escobar which scored Kennys Vargas, who had led off the inning with a drive off the right-field wall that Bautista played skillfully to hold him to a single.

Two batters in to the top of the fifth showed that Gee had overstayed his welcome. Zeke Carrera led off with his second hit in three appearances against Gee, an infield single to third, and Donaldson, continuing his August tear, followed with his twenty-third homer of the season. This restored Toronto’s two-run lead, and Jays’ fan favourite and Twins’ manager Paul Molitor decided that at 74 pitches he’d seen enough from Gee and went to his bullpen.

The only false note played by the Twins this whole weekend series was the failure of the Minnesota bullpen to retire Toronto in this fifth inning.

Tyler Duffey was charged with four additional runs on three hits and a walk, and though Ryan Pressly technically didn’t give up a run in getting the last two outs, he gave up a two-out single to Lopez, his second of the game, that drove in the last two baserunners left by Duffey.

Duffey’s tenure, starting with a do-over of nobody on and nobody out after Donaldson’s home run, started innocently enough with a walk to Smoak. Bautista followed with a bloop single to left centre. Morales ripped a rope of a single through the shift into right, but with Smoak leading the way the Jays had to play one base at a time. With the bases loaded Kevin Pillar singled to left to finally bring in Smoak and move everybody up one. Ryan Goins had maybe the key at-bat of the inning. With nobody out and the bases loaded he tied into one and hit it to Buxton in the deepest part of the park, not only driving in Bautista but allowing Morales to move up to third, and Pillar to second.

Molitor brought in Ryan Pressly to face Rob Refsnyder, now with runners at second and third and one out. He retired Refsnyder on a grounder to second while the runners held with the infield in, but then Lopez came through with his clutch base hit, bumping the Toronto count for the inning to six runs, and their lead to 8-2.

Maybe suffering the effects of the very long bottom of the fifth, Estrada came out for what would be his last inning and gave up a single to Joe Mauer, who had another three-hit game. Jorge Polanco followed with a double to right, and the Twins held Mauer at third. Eddie Rosario immediately cashed in Mauer with a sacrific fly to Carrera in left. Estrada then struck out the quiescent Buxton and retired Max Kepler on a fly ball to centre.

Danny Barnes for Toronto and the combination of Pressly and Glen Perkins kept their opponents off the board in the seventh, and Toronto cruised into the Minnesota eighth enjoying its 8-3 lead, with Tim Mayza coming on to pitch for the Blue Jays.

But, like I said, these Twins are relentless.

With one out, Mauer (third hit) doubled to left centre. Mayza got the second out, punching out Jorge Polanco, but then Eddie Rosario singled to right, Mauer stopping at third again. Manager John Gibbons, taking no chances, decided to bring in Ryan Tepera to face Buxton.

Nope, it wasn’t Buxton’s night to kill us, but he did take one for the team: Tepera hit him with a pitch, loading the bases and bringing Max Kepler, possibly the most dangerous .248 hitter ever born in Berlin (Germany, that is) to the plate. Tepera, who has been so good for so long this year, made a huge mistake, leaving a 2-2 cutter right in the power zone, and Kepler pulled it out of the park for a grand slam, closing the score to 8-7. Kenny Vargas grounded out to end the inning, and the nail-biting started.

Things looked better—a lot better—after the bottom of the eighth, when Toronto picked up two more runs to restore a bit of a cushion against the Twins. Minnesota brought in John Curtiss, a young right-hander who’d made his major league debut on Friday night, rather embarrassingly having been brought in to mop up in the ninth against the already dissected Blue Jays.

Friday night he’d dismissed the Jays in order on thirteen pitches, but on Saturday not so much. He wasn’t helped by his catcher Mitch Garver, who threw the ball away when Zeke Carrera tried to steal second after a leadoff walk. So Curtiss had a runner on third with nobody out, right off the bat.

The rest was all on Curtiss, though. Donaldson doubled down the line in right, scoring Carrera. Smoak grounded out to the first baseman, moving Donaldson to third with one out. Then Curtiss wild-pitched him home with the second run of the inning, making it 10-7 Toronto. Then he walked Bautista, and that was enough for Paul Molitor, who brought in Trevor Hildenberger, a sharp-looking right-hander with a good mix of pitches, who put out the fire by fanning Morales and Pillar.

On came Roberto Osuna for the save. Cue the bated breath.* The trouble started immediately with the improbably-named Zack Granite hitting for catcher Mitch Garver. Granite golfed a pitch at his feet he never should have swung at and looped it into right field for a base hit.

*Anyone who thinks I mis-spelled “baited” can save your own breath. The phrase means that the person is holding his/her breath, and comes from “abated breath”, with the “a” poetically dropped to create alliteration. It was first used by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice, when Shylock, asked to lend money to Antonio after Antonio has abused him for being a Jew, chides Antonio, asking if, after the way Antonio has treated him, he should wait with “bated breath” to be asked for a loan. See what kinds of things you can learn here?

Back to the game, there came a moment of pure shock that left runners on second and third with nobody out, without a trace of blame accruing to Osuna. Eduardo Escobar hit a sharp grounder to the almost perfect-fielding Justin Smoak. He was two feet off the bag, and it was absolutely a 3-6-3 double-play ball. Somehow, probably, he was anticipating the play, the ball went right through the wickets and down the line for a two-base error, with Granite going to third.

Knowing the Twins, you know both runners scored. Brian Dozier singled home Granite, with Escobar checking in at third. Then came the break Osuna and the Blue Jays needed. Joe Mauer grounded into a double play, scoring Escobar but clearing the bases with two outs. Jorge Polanco grounded out to short and that was the ball game, 10-9 for the Jays.

Just in time to save my poor cuticles from further damage.

And when have you ever seen a game end up 10-9 yet both the winning pitcher and the losing pitcher were the starters? Must turn this over to Jerry Howarth for further research.

Well, it was obvious what Paul Molitor had to do for game three of the series: get Byron Buxton back in gear, of course. That’s exactly what he did, and boy, did it ever work!

This was Joe Biagini’s first start since returning to Toronto from Buffalo, where he’d been sent at the beginning of August to stretch back out as a starter, and specifically to become comfortable again pitching from a full windup. It was hard to know what to expect from him, since this whole project is somewhat of a work in progress.

As it turned out, he was lucky to get out of the first inning alive and down only 1-0. After leadoff man Brian Dozier grounded out, that old guy Joe Mauer (clear evidence that he’s slowing down: he only went two for five in this one) casually flicked a hit to left opposite the shift. Jorge Polanco, hitting third behind Mauer, doubled him to third. Toronto pulled the infield in, and it paid off: Eddie Rosario hit one to Ryan Goins at short and he threw home to retire Mauer on a tag play, with Polanco holding at second.

Maybe Biagini would work his way out of it, with two out and men on first and second. But Buxton was hitting fifth today, so he stood between Biagini and the dugout. It didn’t happen, of course, because Buxton was on his game today; he singled to centre to score Polanco and the Twins were on the board.

Eddie Rosario amost ran himself out of the inning on the play. Zeke Carrera fired to third to hold Rosario at second, but the runner had rounded the bag too far. Josh Donaldson had a shot at him going back into second, but the ball bounced away from Darwin Barney for an error on Donaldson, and Rosario ended up at third.

There was a spot more trouble for Biagini: he walked Max Kepler while Buxton stole second on him. This loaded the bases for Kenny Vargas, who fanned on curve balls to end the inning. It seemed like a lot longer than twenty pitches, and you knew that Joe Biagini wasn’t about to go six, let alone seven, innings today.

Kyle Gibson is a lanky right-hander who’s been an end-of-the-rotation fixture for Minnesota since 2014. He was on the hill for the Twins. Like his career numbers, 39-48 with an ERA of 4.73, his record for 2017, 7-10 and 5.76, reflects the journeyman nature of his career with Minnesota. He started a good deal quicker than Biagini, though, retiring Toronto on twelve pitches despite giving up a leadoff single to Carrera.

The second inning represented a reversal of the first, as Biagini retired the side while stranding a base hit by catcher Chris Gimenez. Then, the Jays made Gibson work a little harder and tied it up in the process, taking advantage of the only misplay by Buxton the whole weekend, and then loading the bases before Gibson induced a double play ball that prevented further damage.

With one out, Miguel Montero hit a liner to centre that took a turf bounce over Buxton’s head, and then came off the wall with backspin on it so that he couldn’t get a handle on it, while Montero chugged into second with a double. Nori Aoki lined a base hit into centre to score Montero and tie the score. Ryan Goins moved Aoki up to second with a ground single up the middle. Darwin Barney hit a grounder to second that went for a fielder’s choice, but the shortstop Polanco fumbled the catch for an error and everyone was safe, to load the bases for Carrera. This may have been the high point, and the key moment, of the game, Carrera having a chance to break it open with only one out. But he grounded into a double play to end the inning.

It wasn’t obvious yet, but the moment Carrera’s out was recorded at first and we moved on to the Twins’ third, the momentum shifted to the Twins, and it would never shift back.

In the third Biagini found himself right back in the deep end, though once again he seemed to have been rescued by an out at the plate, and then once again the Twins came on to score after the play at the plate. This time it took 32 pitches, the Twins ended up with a two-run lead, and not only Biagini but the Blue Jays were pretty well toast, and it would only remain for Byron Buxton to spread on the peanut butter and jam.

The Twins started with a spot of luck. Jorge Polanco hit a blooper to centre; Zeke Carrera dove for it, but it ticked off his glove and got away from him as Polanco reached second. Then Nori Aoki hustled to get a quick throw off on a single by Eddie Rosario, and held Polanco to third. Then Buxton, not contributing this time, hit a grounder to third. The Twins had the contact play on, and Polanco was out in a rundown. This helped, but not much, as Rosario and Buxton ended up at second and third. Biagini walked Max Kepler to load the bases for Kennys Vargas, who singled to left to knock in two runs.

Biagini was able to hold the damage to the two runs, but only after he fanned Escobar, walked Gimenez to reload the bases, and fanned Brian Dozier to strand the bases loaded. But at 72 pitches, what was left of Biagini, even if he still could throw strikeouts?

With the score 3-1, you could take the progress of Friday night’s game for a template; Gibson kept the Jays off the board in the bottom of the third, Buxton’s turn came around again in the fourth in time for him to hit the first of his three homers, which chased home Joe Mauer, on third with a triple, and chased Biagini from the game, even though he’d gotten two ground-ball outs after Mauer’s leadoff triple, which was actually a single that bounced over Aoki’s head and went to the wall. It was now 5-1, and the only hope was for Toronto to start doing some damage against Gibson.

They got one back in the bottom of the fourth from a surprising source. After Montero flew out to centre, Aoki drilled one to right for his fifth homer of the season to make it 5-2. Gibson must have been a little annoyed at serving up a gopher ball to Aoki (shoudn’t have been: Aoki swings hard when he gets one he likes, and the ball really jumps off his bat). Gibson hunkered down and fanned Goins and Barney to end the inning.

The fifth and sixth innings went by scoreless, the score holding at 5-2. Aaron Loup who’d finished the fourth inning for Biagini struck out the side in the fifth, giving him four in a row after he’d fanned Kepler to finish the fourth. Matt Dermody finished off a clean sixth by fanning Polanco with a big, beautiful sweeping curve ball.

Meanwhile, Gibson retired six in a row, eight in total after the Aoki homer, through the fifth and sixth, ending with fanning both Morales and Montero.

Dermody stayed on for the seventh for the Jays, which gave him the distinct pleasure of giving up Buxton’s second homer of the game. Too bad the homer spoiled his work. Having struck out Rosario in the sixth, he struck out the side in the seventh after the Buxton home run, only giving up a two-out base hit to Escobar, and that on the tenth pitch of a tough battle.

It’s interesting to note Toronto logged three and a third innings out of the bullpen to this point, giving up one run and two hits while striking out eight of ten batters, using two left-handed relievers. I’m not sure if a Toronto bullpen has ever been able to pull off something like this.

It wasn’t enough, though, to make up for the Twins’ built-up lead, that reached its final form in the top of the ninth when you-know-who—initials, BB—jacked his third home run of the game to left as the leadoff batter against Tim Mayza, another left-hander, who took over from Dominic Leone, who’d pitched the eighth. Besides being his third homer, it was his fourth hit and his fifth RBI. He never got to six geese a-laying, though.

After the Buxton shot, Mayza in turn struck out the side. In all, quite amazingly, Toronto pitchers struck out 17 batters in a game that the team lost 7-2. Too bad all that hurling firepower was wasted on an anemic offensive effort, not to mention the scratchy aggressiveness of the Twins’ offense.

So, as I said from the start, Toronto won one game in the series, Byron Buxton won two, and the Twins rode out of town still well in the mix for a Wild Card spot, while the Jays slunk home for the night to lick their wounds and think about the season that might have been while waiting for the high-flying Boston Red Sox to arrive Monday for another three-game set in the TV Dome.

One of the great things about baseball is that you can have exciting, tense games in a wonderful old park like Wrigley Field, and you can have tense, exciting games in a clangy, tin-can abomination like the Orange Juice Dome in Tampa Bay.

One of the lousy things about baseball is your team can be competitive in tense, exciting games no matter the venue, yet lose almost all of them, as in the sweep of the Blue Jays by the Cubs in Chicago last weekend being followed by a two out of three loss to the Rays in Florida during the week.

But one of the great things about baseball is that sometimes the play between two teams, teams that have a particular rivalry, can be so sharp, so exciting, that a series can have the atmosphere of the playoffs, even though one team is iffy and the other likely out of playoff contention.

The first game of the series on Tuesday featured a return matchup between the mismatched Chrises, the veteran front-liner Archer for Tampa Bay and the rookie Rowley for Toronto, who had prevailed over Archer five days earlier in Toronto

The game started with a rush and a shock. Nori Aoki, inserted in the leadoff position for the Blue Jays, as he had been the last time they’d faced Archer, laid off a high and outside fast ball on the first pitch of the game, but when Archer threw the same pitch in the strike zone, Aoki whipped that short stroke of his at the ball and drove it hard, out of the park to right centre, for a 1-0 Toronto lead. Archer retired the side after that, with a couple of strikeouts, but what a start.

In return, Rowley hung a 1-1 breaking curve ball right in the wheelhouse of Lucas Duda in the bottom of the first and the game was tied.

After Archer disposed of the Jays on ten pitches in the bottom of the second, just to clarify any lingering nonsense about this being another “pitching duel” here, Tampa piled on Rowley for three more runs. By the end of the inning it was pretty clear that the bloom was off the rose for Chris Rowley, following two effective, if short, starts in a row.

With one out, Corey Dickinson unloaded on Rowley with a line shot that put the Rays in the lead, which they would never relinquish. Two left-handed power hitters, two solo home runs, okay, you can sort of deal with that. But when Wilson Ramos, hitting right, singled, and Brad Miller walked, you had to start crossing your fingers, like, really hard. When Adeiny Hechavarria popped out to short on the infield fly rule you had some hope.

But unlike last week in Toronto, the always-dangerous Kevin Kiermaier, especially against Toronto, was back in the lineup for Tampa. Kiermaier delivered a two-out triple to centre that chased Ramos and Miller home and pushed Archer’s cushion to 4-1.

From this point on, the whole question would be whether the Blue Jays could keep Tampa Bay in their sights until Archer finished up, and whether Toronto could mount a comeback at the end of the game against the Tampa bullpen.

But Toronto took a significant blow, right away in the top of the third. After Kevin Pillar grounded out to short for the first out, he was trotting behind the plate back to the dugout; without turning his head or stopping, he said something—he later claimed that all he said was that the first pitch to him had been “terrible”—and plate umpire Chad Fairchild immediately ejected him, gesturing at Pillar’s retreating figure. Pillar was in disbelief; it was his first ever ejection in the majors. When the Jays came out for the bottom of the third, Zeke Carrera was assigned to patrol centre in Pillar’s stead.

The lead held through the fourth inning, but when it was over so was Rowley’s night. Archer retired the Jays in order with two strikeouts. Then Rowley gave up a deep fly ball to centre to Wilson Ramos, and walked Brad Miller on four pitches before giving up a bloop single to centre to Adeiny Hechavarria.

That was enough for manager John Gibbons, who came out with the same hasty hook he used on Nick Tepesch the other day in Chicago to pull Rowley at almost the same point, 3.1 innings pitched, 4 runs, 4 hits, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts but only 62 pitches. Gibbie wanted the favourable matchup of bringing lefty Matt Dermody in to match up with Kevin Kiermaier, who had already tripled off Rowley for two runs in the second inning.

The strategy worked. Kiermaier hit a fly ball to left on which Miller was able to advance to third, but Duda lined out to Justin Smoak at first for the third out.

Toronto rallied in the top of the fifth to cut the Tampa lead to one on Archer. The little rising featured a clutch hit by Ryan Goins, and a sacrifice fly, this time by Nori Aoki, another occasion when the “little guys” have been able to step into the gap created by the middle-of-the-order power outage that continues.

It started with one out, just like the Cubs’ Sunday extra-inning playbook: Archer fanned Miguel Montero on a wild pitch that enabled Montero to reach first. Zeke Carrera hit a liner to left that Steven Souza took an ill-advised dive on, and missed. Carrera ended up with a double, Montero moving to third. Then Ryan Goins hit a solid base hit up the middle to score Montero, but Kiermaier charged it really well, and Carrera had to stop at third after making sure the ball went through. He was able to show his speed though when he and coach Luis Rivera challenged Corey Dickinson’s suspect arm to score on a shallow sacrifice fly by Aoki, who collected his second RBI of the game. Goins moved up to second on the throw, but was stranded there when Josh Donaldson was rather irately caught looking.

This was a game of day late and a dollar short for our guys.

Again like the Cubs, Tampa manufactured a run in the bottom of the fifth by means of one decent hit, a ball hit to the left-centre alley by Longoria that looked like it had bounced out and back in. It was bobbled in centre by Carrera, who had replaced the ejected Pillar. This allowed Longoria to get to third, where he remained after the video review confirmed that the ball was live when it bounced back. A cheap infield hit to Bautista at third by Ramos scored him, after he had held while Logan Morrison and Corey Dickinson made outs, and Steven Souza received an intentional walk. Gibbie replaced Dermody with Dom Leone, who gave up the bouncer to Ramos, and then brought the inning to an end by getting Brad Miller to fly out to left.

Archer walked Bautista in the sixth but fanned Smoak and Morales and got Pearce to sky out to left. The Tampa hitters came back and added another insurance run in the bottom of the sixth, restoring their original three-run lead. Day late, dollar short.

Leone gave up singles to Hechavarria and Kiermaier, but Duda hit a line drive right to Smoak at the bag at first for an easy double play. But with two outs and Hechavarria still on, it was Longoria who delivered again, a triple to left centre that scored Hechavarria. Tim Mayza came in and got Logan Morrison to fly out to left; it was now 6-3, and up to the Rays’ bullpen to protect the lead for Archer, who was finished at six innings and 104 pitches, but another ten strikeouts against Toronto.

After the sixth the Jays’ bullpen was more effective than the Rays’. Mayza carried on in the seventh and gave up two singles, one of them a Tampa Dome roof special, a popup lost by Barney just beyond second, but escaped without a blemish, and T.J. House made his Blue Jays’ debut with a very quick nine-pitch eighth.

Meanwhile, the Rays’ new lefty Dan Jennings threw a clean seventh inning, but Tommy Hunter gave up a solo homer to Donaldson in the eighth, inching Toronto closer at 6-4 as we headed for the ninth inning.

Alex Colome, the Tampa closer, took the mound for the save, and he got it, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was knee-knocking time for both teams.

Kendrys Morales led off with a single to centre. It might not have been a decisive move, but John Gibbons, who still had Rob Refsnyder on the bench, didn’t run for the DH, so when Steve Pearce followed with a double to left centre Morales only checked in at third. Montero plated Morales with a sacrifice fly to centre, and Pearce advanced to third on the catch and throw. Now Refsnyder appeared, to run for Pearce.

Maybe this decision didn’t matter, but it might have if Pearce had hit the ball on the ground, instead of going for extra bases. Also, with nobody out, a run in and the tying run on second, maybe Colome pitches Montero differently, or Montero takes a different approach.

This brought Barney to the plate, who had hit for Carrera against the left-hander in the seventh. Barney grounded out to second with the runner holding at third. But consider yet another consequence of Pillar receiving the ridiculously quick hook in the third: Barney was in Pillar’s spot in the order, and that could have been Pillar at the plate with the tying run on third and one out. No guarantees, of course, but you never know. Goins ended the suspense by hitting the ball smartly, but right to Souza in right to end the game.

It was close all right, that close: the tying run on third with one out in the ninth. But Toronto couldn’t bring him home, and that was the ball game.

It was a chastened and determined lot of Blue Jays who turned out on Wednesday night for game two of the Tin Can Series in Tampa Bay, now having lost four in a row on the road, at a time when every game had to be won, or there would be no further point to the season, save for playing the role of spoiler.

The Jays’ hitters came out loaded for bear in the middle game of the series, and it would have been a tough go no matter who the starting pitcher was. The lot for Tampa Bay fell to Austin Pruitt, a rookie who has been up and down in the minors this year, though mostly up, and has appeared in relief against Toronto three times this year, two of which were quite effective. He came into the game with a positive win/loss record of 6-4, but a tellingly high ERA of 5.37.

It was Pruitt’s twenty-fifth appearance and eighth start for the Rays, and he did not get off on the right foot; Steave Pearce whacked a 1-2 fast ball up and out over the plate for an opposite-field double to start the game. Josh Donaldson followed by golfing a 2-2 fast ball on the outside corner over the fence in left centre, and the Jays were on the board. After getting Justin Smoak to fly out to centre field and fanning Jose Bautista, Kendrys Morales hit a shot to left that came off the wall so hard that he only got a single out of it, but Kevin Pillar flew out to right to end the inning.

After Marcus Stroman disposed of the Rays on twelve pitches—groundout, strikeout, fly ball—Toronto went back to work with the lumber. Ryan Goins led off by falling into a count that he likes, 1-2 that is, and then got a pitch to his liking, even if it was up in his eyes, and pulled it over the right-field fence. 3-0 Jays. Darwin Barney

flew out to Kevin Kiermaier in centre. Raffie Lopez clobbered a pitch on the outside corner into the left-field seats. 4-0 Jays. Steve Pearce back-to-backed with Lopez with a long drive down the left-field line. 5-0 Jays.

So, end of Pruitt? Not quite yet. End of Rays for tonight? No, sir. End of Toronto’s long-range artillery attack? Not quite.

Despite the crazy start, crazy-good if you’re a Toronto fan, crazy-bad if you’re a Tampa fan, this game ended up being as close and exciting as the first game of the series, thanks to the fact that the Rays battled back and treated Marcus Stroman with considerable disrespect.

Oh, Stroman still had it in the second, getting Steven Souza to ground into a double play erasing a leadoff walk to Logan Morrison.

But after Pruitt pitched a 1-2-3 third, thanks to a brilliant play by Adeiny Hechavarria at short, who went into the hole to flag down a shot by Kevin Pillar that was past him for the third out, the Tampa comeback started in the bottom of the third when with two outs Kiermaier hit a blast to centre that scored catcher Wilson Ramos, on base with another blankety-blank infield hit to third, ahead of him to make it 5-2 Toronto.

Pruitt’s start came to an end in the fourth inning with two outs and Darwin Barney on first with a single; manager Kevin Cash brought in Chase Whitley to face Steve Pearce. After wild-pitching Barney to second, Whitley retired Pearce on a hard liner to right. Cash seemed to be taking a page out of John Gibbon’s playbook with the rather abrupt removal of his starter at that precise point. It seems that the monitoring of how many times the order has been faced has become a major factor for managers. Of course, Pearce was two for two with six total bases against Pruitt, so that might have had a little to do with it as well. Ya think?

Stroman quickly got two outs in the bottom of the fourth before the Tampa hitters started measuring him again. Steven Souza got every bit of a hanging 0-1 curve ball and hammered it out to left, followed by singles to right by Corey Dickinson and Ramos, who actually reached the outfield this time. Brad Miller closed out the inning with a short fly to left, but the Rays had inched a little closer.

The bombs continued to fly in the fifth inning as the teams traded solo homers, Justin Smoak to centre for Toronto and Kiermaier’s second, the wrong way to left for Tampa, so the two-run difference still stood. Whitley needed some help from Hechavarria after the Smoak homer to get out of the inning. Kendrys Morales had followed Smoak with a base hit into the teeth of the shift. Kevin Pillar followed with a grounder that deflected off Longoria’s glove and took a late, high bounce. Hechavarria leapt for it, came down with his momentum taking him backward away from second, and still managed a one-hop throw to force the chugging Morales for the third out.

No one seems to comment on this any more (maybe Jerry Howarth on the radio?) but it used to be proverbial that a player who made a great play in the field would be first up to bat next inning. It just always seemed to happen, and still does, but hardly anyone notices. So Hechavarria led off the bottom of the fifth for Tampa, but, sadly for him, struck out on a checked swing. Kiermaier’s homer to left followed, which cut the Toronto lead to 6-4.

The Jays wasted a chance to extend their lead in the sixth when they got two runners on with one out, but Kevin Cash pulled Whitley and brought in Andrew Kittredge, who got a fielder’s choice and a strikeout to strand the base runners.

The Rays cut the lead to one in the bottom of the sixth, and got Stroman out of the game in the bargain. With one out he gave up an infield hit to Souza and a single to centre by Dickerson, and that was it for this night. At five and a third innings, five runs and eight hits, it was his least effective performance since a start in Oakland on July twentieth-seventh when he went four and two thirds and gave up three runs on six hits. Danny Barnes got the second out with a popup, but gave up an opposite-field hit to Brad Miller that scored Souza and cut the Toronto lead to one.

Kittredge maneuvered a quick top of the seventh, giving up a one-out single to Jose Bautista, but then throwing a double-play ball to Kendrys Morales. The Rays came back at Barnes in their half of the inning, taking advantage of a leadoff walk to Kiermaier by Barnes, a stolen base, a throwing error by catcher Raffie Lopez, all with nobody out, to set up the tying run, with Evan Longoria cashing Kiermaier on an infield single to short off Ryan Tepera, who’d relieved Barnes after he failed to retire a batter. Tepera in turn was lucky to get out of the inning, walking Dickerson with two outs to load the bases before getting Wilson Ramos to ground out to third.

With the game tied and both starters now off the record, Tommy Hunter took the mound to try to maintain the tie until the Rays could scratch out another run or two. Well, that only lasted until Hunter’s sixth pitch to Kevin Pillar, who attacked another hanging curve with abandon and broke Toronto’s three-inning homer with a blast to left that put the Jays up by one. How’s this for an odd offensive night for Toronto: they scored seven runs on six home runs, five solo jobs and Josh Donaldson’s two-run shot in the first.

Aaron Loup and Roberto Osuna finally were able to stop the bleeding against Tampa, shutting them down in the eighth and ninth to protect the one-run lead. Loup got the first two outs in the eighth, then gave up an opposite field hit to Kiermaier, who just never gives up, does he? John Gibbons made the unusual move to bring in Roberto Osuna in the eighth to try for a four-out save. He got the first one, a groundout to first by Cesar Puello, hitting for Duda, on two pitches.

No chance for Toronto to add an insurance run in the top of the ninth as Steve Cishek came in and retired the side on 14 pitches with two strikeouts. Unfortunately for the Rays Osuna was even more efficient than Cishek. He retired Longoria on a fly ball to centre on the first pitch, caught Logan Morrison looking, which didn’t make Morrison too happy with the plate umpire, Lance Barrett, and then Steven Souza who grounded out to shortstop. So Osuna closed out the four-out save on only 15 pitches, for save number 33 in 41 opportunities.

Did I say the games in this series were close? I also said that the Jays were a day late and a dollar short Tuesday night. Wednesday night the situation was reversed, and it was the Rays who were a day late and a dollar short, not to mention a little shell-shocked by the long artillery Toronto arrayed against them.

As much as I hated the simplistic, Reagan-era crypto-fascism of Forrest Gump, there’s still something useful and true about the movie’s sappy tag line about life being like a box of chocolates, at least when you apply it to baseball. One night a team will hit six home runs, the next night it can’t scratch a run across the plate to save its skin.

And so it was Thursday night when the Jays and the Rays met up for the third and deciding game of the Tin Can Series in Tampa Bay. After all of Wednesday night’s thunder, the Jays’ hitters were able to score absolutely zero runs against a Tampa starter on a short leash and the four relievers who followed him to the mound. So when the Rays squeezed out a run in the second and Corey Dickerson hit a solo home run in the eighth, it was one more than Tampa needed to take the deciding game of the series by a 2-0 score, leaving Toronto limping home with a 1-5 record on the road trip to Chicago and Tampa Bay, and pretty much holding an empty bag of chances for the second Wild Card spot in the playoffs.

There was no way of predicting what the pitching matchup would be like. For the second time in the last two seasons Toronto would be facing Alex Cobb in his first appearance after having been on the disabled list. As I recall it, things did not go well for the Blue Jays the first time we danced this dance, last September when Cobb was making, finally, his first start of 2016.

On the other hand, facing the Rays would be the latest in what seems like an unending string of rotational fill-ins for Toronto, thirty-one-year old Tom Koehler, who spent his entire previous career with the Miami Marlins, which for the Toronto fan is akin to having spent his whole career in Siberia, only warmer.

When you dig into it a little bit, the Koehler story is interesting. Despite the fact that I’d never heard of him, turns out he had 33 starts for Miami last year, highest on the team, and went 9-13 with a 4.33 ERA, not bad for a team that went 79-82. Also turns out it was his third season with more than 30 starts for Miami. He fell from grace with the Marlins this year, though, compiling a 1-5 record and a 7.92 ERA in 12 starts. In fact, he fell so far from grace with Miami that they were willing to trade him to Toronto on August nineteenth for a minor league pitcher, Osman Guttierez, who at the time of the trade was sporting a 4-ll record and a 7.85 ERA with the Lansing Lugnuts in high A ball, in his fifth season with the team. Oh, and Miami was so eager to dump Koehler that they sent some cash to Toronto, to help cover off his 5.75 million dollar 2017 salary. Baseball’s a strange business, eh?

The Jays basically acquired him for the rotation at Buffalo and for added depth, but as we’ve seen this year, if you’re starting at Buffalo you’re only a heart beat away . . .

Funny thing is, Cobb pitched a shutout for four and a third innings against the Jays Thursday night, but reached a pitch count of 94, probably way more than enough for his first time back. Meanwhile, Koehler, mixing mid-nineties velocity with a variety of breaking balls, certainly pitched well enough for a win, though he took the loss. He went five full innings, giving up one run on four hits and three walks and two hit batters while striking out seven on 98 pitches.

The one run came in the second, when Tampa scored after loading the bases on a base hit, one of the three walks, and the first hit batter, and it resulted from a sacrifice fly off the bat of second baseman Daniel Robertson.

Koehler allowed a single base runner in each of the first, third, and fourth innings, and escaped another bases-loaded jam unscathed in his last inning, the fifth, resulting from a leadoff double, a walk, and the second hit batter. So it was not like he came in and blew the Rays away, but he did come in and pitch like a veteran, somebody who knows how to work his way around the odd baserunner or three. Like Jack Morris always said, bend, don’t break.

In the meantime, there must have been some skullduggery on the part of the home team before the game. It seemed like the good Toronto bats had all been replaced with the Tupperware variety.

Steve Pearce got a hit in the first. Darwin Barney and Pearce again got one-out hits in the third and moved up when Cobb threw a wild pitch, but then caught Josh Donaldson looking and got Justin Smoak to ground out to second.

In the fifth Steve Cishek took over from Cobb with one out and Miguel Montero on second after a walk and Ryan Goins on first with a single. It was at this point, regardless of the Tampa pitchers throwing a shutout, that this game became the Kevin Kiermaier show. First, with Cishek in, one out, and the two runners on, Pearce, already two for two, pole-axed one to right centre field that would have easily scored both runners, Goins being the trailer.

But Kiermaier, racing across from centre, closed fast on the ball, stretched out his glove hand while still in full stride, and just caught the ball as it was almost past him. Two outs, runners retreat.

But now, as much as Kevin Kiermaier wanted to stay on centre stage, the focus has to change for a moment to Josh Donaldson, third base umpire Lance Barrett, and the video review team in New York, because an overturned call on the field was as much the key to this game as Kiermaier’s heroics.

Donaldson ripped one past Longoria at third and down into the left-field corner. Lance Barrett signalled “fair ball”. Donaldson ended up at second and both runners scampered home for a 2-1 Toronto lead. We thought. But Longoria had immediately told the dugout that the ball was foul and that the Rays should ask for a review. They did, the call was overturned, the runs taken away, and the runners sent back to first and second. Donaldson then drew a walk, but somehow it wasn’t the same.

Now it was Justin Smoak’s turn. He hit a teasing, looping ball over the infield that no infielder would get. With two outs the runners were off, and with the hang time of the hit, again they’d probably both score. But here came Kiermaier, flying in and to his left, reaching and leaving his feet at the same time, and getting his glove under the ball for the third out, just before he hit the turf. He saved the same two runs twice in the inning, while his team was clinging to a 1-0 lead.

A quick note about the “make a great play then lead off” cliché: Kiermaier led off the bottom of the fifth. He flew out to—guess where—centre field, put out by his partner in crime, Kevin Pillar.

Since Kiermaier’s theft of the game narrative brohgt us back to the fifth inning, it’s worth lingering for a minute on Koehler’s last inning of work. After the Kiermaier fly ball, he struck out Lucas Duda, freezing him with a fast ball, down and on the inner half. With two outs, Evan Longoria hit one to right field that went for a double when Jose Bautista took a bad route to the ball, and might have otherwise flagged it down. That ball was hit on Koehler’s eighty-sixth pitch; if it had been caught, Koehler might have had another inning in him.

But as it was, the double was followed by a walk and another hit batter to load the bases before Dickerson lined out to left to end the inning and Koehler’s start, now at 98 pitches.

The score stayed at 1-0 for Tampa through the sixth and seventh. Brad Boxberger held the Jays at bay for an inning and two thirds, giving way for Sergio Romo to get the last out after giving up an infield single to Barney with two outs in the seventh.

Continuing his impressive work, Dominic Leone struck out the side in the seventh inning, and the young call-up lefty Tim Mayza struck out two in the eighth, Duda was the only Tampa hitter to put the ball in play, off Mayza, and he hit a liner toward left that Donaldson, playing at shortstop in the shift, made a great leaping grab on.

Romo stayed on for the eighth and retired the side in the order, bringing Mayza back to the mound to face the left-handed Logan Morrison, whom he fanned, for three strikeouts in four batters. Manager John Gibbons brought Danny Barnes on to face Steven Souza, whom he fanned for seven strikeouts out of eight batters by the Toronto bullpen.

But all good things come to an end. Gibbons left Barnes out there to face the left-handed power of Corey Dickerson, comfortable in the knowledge that Barnes has had really good numbers against lefties. But this time it went awry as Dickerson powdered one over the centre-field fence to make it just that much harder for Toronto to come back in the top of the ninth.

Alex Colomé came on in the ninth looking for his thirty-eighth save in forty-three tries, and was good for it, despite giving up a leadoff single to Kendrys Morales. Kevin Pillar flied out to right, and then the Tampa closer caught Miguel Montero looking and fanned Ryan Goins to finish off the job.

There was a lot of anticipation surrounding Toronto’s first visit since 2005 to the Chicago Cubs for interleague play this weekend. The Blue Jays had just wrung three games out of four from their perennial nemeses the Tampa Bay Rays. They were going to spend a weekend in Chi-Town, one of the best cities on the circuit. There promised to be lots of Jays’ fans in attendance; the series had sold out for individual ticket sales in only thirty minutes, and you could anticipate that it was the Blue Legions of Toronto supporters doing most of the buying.

And, of course, they were going to play the world champion Cubbies on their history-laden home grounds, the fabled Wrigley Field.

Unfortunately, anticipation does not always result in fulfillment. Sure, the Toronto fans were there, in droves. Sure, the weather was spot-on perfect, especially for three straight day games (Friday afternoon games? only at Wrigley!) And sure, the games were close and exciting.

But reality bit: when the first Blue Jays lost their way in the cavernous tunnels between clubhouse and field; when someone jumped up in excitement and clunked his head on the low-slung dugout roof; when Kevin Pillar bravely charged face-first into the ivy in centre field, only to be reminded, not once, but twice, that there really is a brick wall under all that green. And, finally, when the Blue Jays learned to their bitter disappointmen that not only was the ballpark festooned with reminders of the Cubs’ brilliant season in 2016, but that it was also arrayed with clusters and clusters of four-leaf clovers, all working their good-luck magic for the home team.

Having sashayed into Chicago with their hearts light and gay on a Friday morning full of bright possibilities, our heroes slunk out of town on Sunday night with the taste of ashes and bitter defeat in their mouths, and nothing to look forward to except a three-game set with those blankey-blank Rays in their horrendous tin can of a Tampa Bay ball yard cum airplane hangar.

The first game of the series looked like a good matchup, between Jake Arrieta and Jay Happ. Arrieta, though not as dominating this season as in 2016 and earlier, with an ERA running at 3.73, is still the best the Cubs have to offer. The Jays countered with Jay Happ, who has been mostly consistent and reliable since his stint on the disabled list earlier in the year. And, I might add, whose ERA was actually running ten points under that of Arrieta.

And Happ had the best of it in the first inning. Arrieta had started quickly in the top of the first, fouling out Jose Bautista, and flying out Josh Donaldson. But the newly-reliable and steadfast Justin Smoak stroked a double to right, and was brought home when Steve Pearce hit a rare two-out RBI single to right, crossing up the shift and giving Toronto a 1-0 lead before Miguel Montero grounded out to end the inning.

Other than serving them up from the port side, Jay Happ pitched more like Jake Arrieta in the bottom of the first. He struck out the centre fielder Albert Almora on high heat. He struck out All-Star third baseman Kris Bryant with some sharp curve balls. He got first baseman and All-Star Anthony Rizzo to ground out to Ryan Goins behind second in the shift for the third out.

So far, so good.

But after Arrieta quickly disposed of the Jays in order in the second, Happ came back out to face the Cubs; with a sprinkling of fairy dust or something, home team magic happened, and without hardly doing anything impressive, the Cubbies had a 3-1 lead.

Happ walked the leadoff batter, Ben Zobrist, who’s always been right in the thick of it when playing the Blue Jays. Second baseman Ian Happ, a rookie switch-hitting power hitter, and no relation to Jay Happ, was fanned by his namesake, who made him chase a breaking ball.

This brought the catcher, Victor Caratini, another and very newly-arrived rookie and an unknown quantity, to the plate. Caratini quickly made himself known by doubling to right, sending Zobrist to third. Remember this hit. Jason Heyward came up and hit a bouncer to the right side. Zobrist broke from third on contact; Justin Smoak had to range far to his right to flag down the ball. There was no play at the plate, and none at first either, because Happ was slow leaving the mound and never got to first to cover the bag.

Caratini of course moved to third. With runners on the corners, Javi Baez blooped a little popup to short right near the line that only Jose Bautista had a chance on, and he had to pull up, so Caratini scored. Next up was Albert Almora, who hit another bloop, or more accurately a flare, that just sailed over Darwin Barney’s desperately reaching glove. Heyward scored the third run from second, and Baez, running aggressively from first, headed for the plate himself when he saw that Almora had got himself trapped into a rundown between first and second. Ryan Goins was able to abandon the rundown effort and fire to the plate in time to nab Baez for the third out.

So, three runs on four hits: a respectable double, an infield bouncer on which Happ made a mental error, an elusive pop fly down the right-field line, and a little flare over the second baseman. It was the attack of the gnats, but when gnats coordinate their efforts, they can mount quite a campaign. 3-1 for the gnats after two. There had to be a lot of muttering on the Toronto bench after that inning. Bad enough to have to hit against Arrieta: now he was pitching with a fluky lead.

Both teams had chances in the third and fourth innings, but neither was able to break through against the veteran starters. The best chance for either side was in the Toronto fourth when, with two outs and Smoak and Montero on base with singles, Goins hit one deep to centre that was hauled down by the Cub centre-fielder Albert Almora.

Moving ahead to the fifth, Arrieta retired the side in order, but Toronto’s hopes of keeping the score close went out the window when the first three Cubs got base hits in the bottom of the inning to chalk up two more runs, Rizzo’s single to centre scoring Almora, on with a single, and Bryant, who had doubled him to third. It took Jay Happ 29 pitches to finish the inning, taking him to 103, so the Jays would have to go to the bullpen for the sixth, and hope they could make a dint in the armour of Arrieta, who was gathering strength.

The lead held through the sixth and seventh, though a leadoff double by Kevin Pillar, who moved to third when Ryan Goins grounded out to second, and a subsequent walk to Zeke Carrera in the seventh brought Arrieta’s outing to an end, and manager Joe Maddon brought in Carl Edwards to hold Toronto off the board, which he did with the help of another unsuccessful contact play by Toronto. Mutter, mutter . . .

Meanwhile Aaron Loup in the sixth and Tim Mayza in the seventh held off the Cubs, so we entered the eighth with the score still 5-1. It was an eighth inning that raised and then crushed our hopes, all within the space of six outs.

Pedro Strop (pronounced Strope), a hard-throwing veteran right-hander who’s given the Cubs a lot of innings in the last couple of years, came in for the eighth, and just like that his hard pitches were turned into two hard-hit outs, a Donaldson liner to right and a Smoak grounder to second in the shift. Then Steve Pearce found the key: don’t hit it so hard. He dropped a Texas Leaguer into right, followed by a single to centre by Miguel Montero. Still with two outs, mind you, Kevin Pillar doubled home Pearce, Montero stopping at third.

This brought up Mr. Clutch with the runners at second and third and, yes, the two outs. And of course it was a 1-2 count when Ryan Goins singled through the shift to right to knock in both Pillar and Montero, and suddenly it was 5-4 and looking a lot more interesting, even though Goins was stranded at first when Zeke Carrera hit it deep to centre, but it stayed in the park for Almora.

Tim Mayza stayed on to face the Cubs in the bottom of the eighth. The catcher Caratini led off with his third base hit but Jason Heyward erased him with what was initially ruled a double play. But the Cubs asked for a review, and the call at first was overturned. Heyward was on with a fielder’s choice, available to ride home on Baez’ clutch home run to left that for all practical purposes clinched the game for the Cubs.

Leaving aside the question of whether calls on the field should be overturned, it has to affect a pitcher to think he’s thrown a double play ball and then find out that he hasn’t. Not to mention the fact that the lead was 7-4 now, and not 6-4.

There remained one last signature Wrigley moment before the game moved on to the ninth. After the Baez homer, Mayza walked Jon Jay, who was hitting for the pitcher. Manager Gibbons brought Ryan Tepera in to try to finish off the inning. The first batter he faced, Almora, spiked one to dead centre field. Kevin Pillar in his usual fearless style raced back for the wall, reached up, secured the catch, and then smashed face front into the greenery. The ivy gave. The bricks didn’t, and Pillar tried his best not to show how shaken up he was by the collision. Kris Bryant hit an anticlimactic little fly to right to end the inning.

The Cubs’ closer, Toronto’s old friend from his days in the American League with Tampa Bay and Kansas City, Wade Davis, came in to finish things off, and he retired the side in order, but Baez had one more chance to flash his brilliance. With one out and Toronto needing base runners, Jose Bautista pounded a hard grounder between short and third that was a sure base hit, until Baez, on the backhand, flagged it down when it was past him, already into the outfield, and managed to make a strong throw to first for the out.

So the inning of the luck of the Cubbies that produced three runs on just about nothing, was the difference in this first game of Toronto’s Great Wrigley Adventure.

The next afternoon’s matchup was Nick Tepesch and Jose Quintana, and not many people liked our chances in this one, including me.

Quintana, of course, is Chicago’s prized cross-town acquisition from the south side White Sox; he throws from the south side too, and he came to the Cubs with a career record of 180 appearances and 943 strikeouts in just over 1100 innings. Tepesch, on the other hand, had appeared in 47 games and struck out 144 in 238 plus innings. Quintana is expected to make a major contribution to the Cubs’ pennant drive. Tepesh, he was hoping to pitch well enough just to get another start with Toronto.

But you know what? After four innings the score was tied 2-2. Tepesch was gone, mind you, pullled by Manager John Gibbons after three and two thirds, in order to bring Danny Barnes in to finish off a Chicago threat. But when you line up Tepesch’s record for his start with Jose Quintana’s record for the same three and two thirds innings, this is what you get: Tepesch: 2 runs, 5 hits, 3 walks, 3 strikeouts; Quintana: 2 runs, 4 hits, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts. Interesting, no?

The Cubs struck first in the first inning, when Tepesch started with a streak of wildness, walking two and hitting one to load the bases for Anthony Rizzo’s base hit that produced a run before catcher Alex Avila grounded into a double play.

The Jays threatened in the second with runners on second and third with two outs, but ran into the old downer of National League rules with the pitcher hitting. Steve Pearce led off with a double, and then Kris Bryant saved a likely big inning with a great play on a liner by Kevin Pillar. He leapt for the ball, caught it, it popped out of his glove, and he grabbed it with his bare hand for the out. Then on the next batter Bryant turned around and made a bad throw to first allowing Darwin Barney to reach and Pearce to advance to third. Barney stole second while Raffie Lopez struck out.

This brought Rob Refsnyder to the plate, but the inning, and the threat, were already over: Joe Madden ordered Refsnyder walked, so that Quintana could fan Tepesch to end the inning. The Cubs still had the lead.

Ironically, National League ball bit the Cubs in their bear bums in the bottom of the inning. After Jason Heyward reached on still another bloop single to centre Javi Baez struck out, bringing Quintana to the plate. Even with one out, standard NL strategy is to have the pitcher bunt unless he’s a slugger, which Quintana ain’t. But the Chicago pitcher messed up the bunt, popping into a double play started by Tepesch who alertly got it over to first in time to double off Heyward.

After a quiet third inning in which both pitchers stranded a base runner, the Jays took a brief lead in the top of the fourth, as the bottom of the order touched up Quintana for three straight hits. The key to the inning for the Jays was Barney’s ground rule double to left, which moved Kevin Pillar, on with a leadoff single, around to third. Both were driven in by the backup catcher, Raffie Lopez, who moved to second on the throw to the plate, again showing some extra quickness you don’t normally see in a catcher.

Lopez had to hold at second when Refsnyder grounded out to short, and then Quintana fanned Tepesch—the pitcher coming to the plate at a key moment again—and blew away Bautista with high heat to strand Lopez at second.

The Toronto lead lasted only as long as it took for Tepesch to throw his fourth pitch to leadoff hitter Ian Happ in the bottom of the fourth. It disappeared over the fence in left with the homer that Happ deposited there. Tepesch didn’t last the inning, though there was only one more base hit, Alex Avila singling after Happ’s dinger.

Somehow I feel that Tepesch was a bit mistrusted by John Gibbons here. I don’t think any regular rotation member would have been pulled at that point. Here’s the setup: with Avila on first, Heyward hit a ball to Smoak at first, who went to Barney at second for the force on Avila. Barney rushed his throw back to first, conscious of Heyward’s speed, and threw it away, with Heyward advancing to second on the error. With Quintana on deck, Gibbons followed standard National League strategy and walked Baez to bring the pitcher to the plate with one out, keeping in mind that Quintana had already botched one bunt attempt in the second.

This time Quintana succeeded in getting the bunt down, and Tepesch had runners on second and third with two outs and Jon Jay coming to the plate for the third time, after he had walked in the first and been struck out by Tepesch in the third. This was the point when Gibbie hooked Tepesch, bringing in Danny Barnes, replacing one right-handed pitcher with another to face the left-handed Jay, whom Barnes promptly caught looking on a 3-2 fast ball on the inside corner.

One last short comment: with the score tied and Tepesch at 67 pitches, he deserved the right to stay in the game and face Jay, and maybe have a chance to go on and record a win. I’d call Gibbie out as a bit gutless here.

Skip ahead to the bottom of the sixth, after Quintana had retired six in a row and gone to 102 pitches, and Barnes had stayed on to throw a clean fifth for the Jays. Barnes came out for a second full inning in the sixth, and he was burned for the Cubs’ lead run by another typical example of Chicago “offence” if you want to call it that:

Barnes walked the leadoff batter, Happ, leadoff walks being catnip to these Cubbies. Avila grounded out to first, moving Happ to second. Heyward fanned, freeing Happ to take off on the crack of Baez’ bat, so he was able to score on Baez’ deep infield single behind second. With the damage done, Barnes was out, and Matt Dermody came in to retire Ben Zobrist, hitting for Quintana, on a grounder to third. Cubs 3, Jays 2. Underwhelming, but whatever floats your boat.

For all their great stars and impressive stats, it looks to me like the two biggest offensive weapons wielded by the Cubs are staying out of the double play and hitting bloopers and bleeders that fall in at just the right time.

After Felix Pina took over for Quintana and struck out the side in the top of the seventh, Dermody came back out and gave up a one-out base hit to Albert Almora. John Maddon started the runner when Kris Bryant grounded one to Donaldson at third, and Donaldson had to go to first. Anthony Rizzo contributed the bloop, a little looper that evaded Barney’s reach and fell safely in short right while Almora scampered around to score the insurance run.

With Hector Rondon on the mound in the top of the eighth the Jays took advantage of an error by Kris Bryant to close the gap to one, but it was all they would get. With two outs, Steve Pearce hit a little dribbler to Bryant that was obviously going to be a base hit, but Bryant let fly in a vain attempt to throw out Pearce. When the throw went awry Pearce ended up on second. Kevin Pillar cashed him with the two-out base hit through the left side. Toronto’s hopes died with Pillar at first when Kendrys Morales, hitting for Barney, grounded out to first.

Dermody got the first two outs for the Jays in the bottom of the eighth, and then Dominic Leone got the final out as the game headed for the top of the ninth and Toronto’s last chance.

Closer Wade Davis finished things off for the Cubs, but he was fortunate to have the dazzling Javi Baez behind him, for the second day in a row. After Nori Aoki grounded out, Ryan Goins hit one that was clearly going for a base hit, deflecting off Kris Bryant’s glove, but there was Baez behind him, deep in the hole, to field the ball and gun out Goins. Montero’s fly ball to Almonte in centre was almost an afterthought after the Baez play, and the fearsome Cub dinkers had corralled another win at the expense of the Toronto Blue Jays.

On Sunday, the stadium still peppered with Blue Jay blue, Toronto was playing to avoid the embarrassment of a sweep in Chicago in front of all those travelling fans.

It was bad enough that the day would end in a Cubs’ sweep on the weekend, but this one was the must hurtful loss of all.

The pitching matchup was a strong and intriguing one. Toronto had Marco Estrada going to the hill, in his continued quest to recover from his terrible start this season. He was motivated by numerous goals: first was to reestablish his reputation as one of the most effective starters in the American League in recent years. Then of course he wanted to contribute to stopping his team’s bleeding against the Cubs. Last, I think, would be future considerations: he needed to continue his improvement/rehabilitation in order to increase his value on the free agent market for next year, probably for the sake of getting the best possible deal for returning to Toronto. Maybe off the radar at this point would be the thought that he might be of sufficient value to a contending team to wrest a prospect or two for Toronto, without ruining his prospects of returning to the Jays next year. I’d be happy to see him get to pitch in significant games, just so long as the team reels him back in for next year.

On the hill for Chicago was the lanky young right-hander Kyle Hendricks, he of the 16-8, 2.13 ERA last year, who also made five starts in the post-season, splitting 2 decisions but pitching to an ERA of 1.42.

The two starters went pitch for pitch in the first two innings, Estrada retiring six in a row, and Hendricks six out of seven, allowing only Miguel Montero’s one-out double in the second. In the top of the third Hendricks walked Zeke Carrera with two outs but threw three straight called strikes to Estrada to end the inning.

The Cubs pulled some of their damned pixie dust out of their equipment bags in the bottom of the third and manufactured three cheap runs against Estrada, who only gave up one solid hit, but it happened to be a bases-clearing double by Albert Almora that netted them the three-spot.

The catcher Rene Rivera bounced one back toward the pitcher. It deflected off Estrada to Jose Bautista, playing third in this one, but too late to catch Rivera at first. Then Estrada hit Jon Jay with a pitch, admittedly not helpful. This brought up Hendricks in the perfect situation for the pitcher hitting, runners on first and second, just begging to be bunted over, still nobody out. Hendricks laid down a bunt so perfect that he legged it out for a base hit.

With the lineup turned over Almora came to the plate with the bases loaded and nobody out. With Bautista playing even with the bag, Almora scorched a grounder between him and the bag. Bautista dove, but too late. The ball went into the corner where Aoki had to run it down against the wall. Rivera scored. Jay scored. And here came Hendricks, running like a gazelle, not a pitcher, flying around from first to beat the throw at the plate for the third Chicago run.

Two mistakes from Estrada, hitting Jay and leaving one up to Almora, turn into three runs, not one. That’s just Cubs’ baseball, I guess. Estrada went on to throw three easy ground balls, Almora moving up to third on the first one, but not able to score on the second one, and dying at third on the third one.

Not about to roll over and play dead, the Jays got one back right away in the fourth when Justin Smoak, of all people, ran through a Luis Rivera stop sign at third to score on Bautista’s single to left. Smoak had reached second leading off by slicing a double into the left-field corner. Toronto got another one back in the fifth when they cashed an Aoki leadoff double, after the little outfielder contributed some daring base-running to the cause. Batting behind Aoki, Estrada hit a bouncer to short. Aoki broke for third, and Javi Baez tried to throw him out, but Aoki beat the tag. From there he scored when Zeke Carrera hit into a double play. After four and a half innings it was 3-2 Chicago.

In the meantime, Estrada had pitched a clean fourth inning to run his string to six straight retired, and added two more in the bottom of the fifth before a single by Almora and a double by Kyle Schwarber put runners on second and third for Ben Zobrist, who flew out to centre to end the inning.

The sixth inning was the end of the line for both starters, and by the time the inning was over, the score was knotted so that neither would be able to record a win. After retiring Bautista on a fly ball to centre in the top of the inning, Hendricks threw a batting-practice fast ball, below 90 over the outside part of the plate, just to get a strike up on Miguel Montero, who spoiled his plan by getting all of that first pitch cripple, hitting it out to left centre where it was pitched, and the Jays were even with the Cubs at 3-3.

Hendricks breezed the last two batters to finish with a quality start of six innings, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits with two walks and 6 strikeouts on 90 pitches. Estrada then pitched around a leadoff walk to Rizzo, and would be replaced by a pinch-hitter in the seventh, to finish with a comparable line of 6 innings pitched, 3 runs, 5 hits, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts and a hit batter who came around to score, on 96 pitches.

Neither team scored in the seventh. The lefty Brian Duensing started the inning to match with Aoki and Carrera. He retired Aoki on a ground ball, but walked Steve Pearce hitting for Estrada. When Kendrys Morales was announced for Carrera, Joe Maddon went to the right-handed Carl Edwards to keep Morales hitting from the left side. Edwards fanned Morales and flied out Donaldson for the third out. The net result was that Maddon burned two relievers and John Gibbons burned two right-handed pinch-hitters, leaving only Rob Refsnyder left on the bench besides Raffie Lopez, the left-handed-hitting backup catcher.

Dominic Leone was first in for Toronto after Estrada, and he pitched a clean inning, albeit aided and abetted by Kevin Pillar’s second frightening encounter with the bricks of Wrigley. With one out Kris Bryant smacked one to deep centre on Pillar’s backhand side, and despite having already smashed into the bricks on Friday night, Pillar raced right into the wall to make the catch, bouncing off the bricks as he raised his glove with the ball in it like a punch-drunk sailor. I fear for his life sometimes, but at Leone and the rest of the team sure appreciated the effort.

With the eighth inning the dance of the relievers proceeded apace. Pedro Strop retired the Jays in order and struck out two. Aaron Loup started the Cubs’ eighth and retired the lefty Schwarber, gave up a single to the switch-hitting Zobrist and fanned the lefty Rizzo, before giving way to Ryan Tepera, who retired Baez on a grounder to first.

As is the fashion these days, the home team in a tie game went to its closer in the ninth, Wade Davis, who walked two but kept Toronto off the scoreboard. Whether the strategy of using the closer for a hold before winning the game in the bottom of the ninth worked would have to wait for the Cubs to come to bat.

Sorry, Joe Maddon, but no go. The Jays’ setup man, Ryan Tepera, who’d closed out the eighth, stayed on for the ninth. Like Davis he walked two, the first two he faced, but managed to keep Chicago from walking it off, making the key play himself when he turned a sacrifice bunt attempt by Jon Jay into a force out at third for the first out. Then he fanned Bryant and the pinch-hitter Ian Happ in dramatic fashion to send the game to the tenth inning.

In the Jays’ top of the tenth inning it looked like the dusting pixies had changed dugouts and offered their favours to the visitors for once. We might have thought they’d been won over, but they were just messing with us, and never really abandoned their Cubbies. Just a dirty trick, that’s all.

Josh Donaldson led off against Koji Uehara with an infield hit to short. Javi Baez ran the ball down in the hole, but it popped out of his glove, and he couldn’t make a throw. After Justin Smoak flew out to centre, a weird thing happened. A really weird thing. Donaldson advanced to second when newly-inserted catcher Alex Avila, a trade deadline acquisition by the Cubs from Detroit, made a throwing error throwing the ball back to the pitcher.

Now, this wasn’t just a throwing error. Avila spiked the ball into the ground halfway to the mound, on the third-base side. He looked exactly like a first-year T-Baller trying to throw the ball bavk to the infield.

With a base open they walked Jose Bautista, and then Darwin Barney, hitting for Ryan Tepera (with National League rules and double switches all over the place, by this point the lineups were a mess) flew out to short centre. But Kevin Pillar singled to right with two outs to score Donaldson from second and move Bautista to third. Meanwhile, Pillar moved up on the throw to the plate.

The Cubs brought in lefty Justin Wilson to pitch to Ryan Goins and Nori Aoki, but he walked both of them to force in a second run, and Toronto had a two-run lead to hand over to Roberto Osuna who would come in for the save.

Or not. Those damn Pixies flew right back over to the Chicago side!

The memory of the end of this game will ever be entwined with the image of Raffy Lopez, a mostly career minor-league catcher asked to carry the load as the result of the slaughter of the Toronto catching staff, standing forlorn between home and third, staring at Ben Zobrist on third while Javi Baez, a strikeout victim, scampered safely to first.

That image encapsulates everything that went wrong for the Blue Jays in the bottom of the tenth inning of this horrible Sunday afternoon in Chicago. And what went wrong with the Blue Jays determined the outcome. The Cubs only had to sit back and reap the benefits of the craziness visited upon the Toronto team.

Oh, you say, Chicago scored the walkoff on a legitimate base hit with the bases loaded by Alex Avila? Well, let me tell you: Avila never comes to the plate except for all of the craziness that happened before.

There were two major factors that determined what happened: Roberto Osuna had wicked, nasty stuff, nearly unhittable. And Raffy Lopez could not handle it, not that the alternative, Miguel Montero, would necessarily have done any better.

The leadoff hitter, Kyle Schwarber, struck out on a crazy away and in the dirt slider that went to the backstop, allowing Schwarber to reach. (Would have been the first out.) Ben Zobrist singled to right, sending Schwarber to third. (Alternative world: Zobrist on first.) With Anthony Rizzo at the plate, Osuna threw a wild changeup in the dirt, allowing Schwarber, who shouldn’t have been there, to score, while Zobrist advanced to second. (Alternative world: Zobrist on second, still 5-3.) It was now 5-4. Rizzo grounded out to second while Zobrist moved to third, in what should have been the second out (or a double play, if Zobrist hadn’t advanced on the wild pitch). (Alternative world one: Zobrist to third with two outs, still 5-3.) (Alternative world two: game is over on double play.)

With Zobrist on third, Javi Baez fanned (Alternative world: the third out, with the score 5-3) on another crazy wild slider in the dirt. This time Lopez kept the ball in front of him, and blocked it toward third. He raced over, picked it up, looked Zobrist back to third, looked at first, and froze. Osuna was yelling at him to throw it to first, but he froze. Who could blame him? It would have been close at first, Zobrist might have broken for the plate, he might have thrown it away, better to eat it, if he was able to reason at all in that split second.

Baez stole second. Osuna, still wild, hit Jason Heyward to load the bases, and Avila did his thing, singiing home Zobrist and Baez with the tying and winning runs.

Did I say pixie dust? The pixies, plus the fairies, the gremlins, and the leprechauns, must have been throwing bricks, not dust, and the bricks all landed on the poor Blue Jays, forcing them to crawl off the fabled field, swept in the series and, surely, swept from playoff contention.

And what was next on the agenda for our suffering heroes? Only a visit to the frozen-juice can home of their worst nemeses, the Tampa Bay Rays.

Could it get any worse? Please, god, no.

Get this: at the start of today’s action, eight teams were within three games of the second wild card slot in the American League. The bottom three of those teams, the Orioles, the Rays, and the Blue Jays, trailed the leading Angels by three games. And the record of the Angels? 62-59. Thus the Trash Heap Derby.

The funny thing is, every single game for every one of these eight teams counts mightily, with the result that games between “contending” teams in this race for mediocrity might hold more import—and more excitement—than the playoffs themselves.

Witness tonight’s series-ender in Toronto of the four-game set between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays. It had a little bit of everything, starting with a pitching matchup that was a battle of the Chrises, though it might have looked a bit like a mismatch rather than a matchup. Like, Chris Rowley, with one major league start (and one major league win) against Chris Archer? Really? Give me a break!

And yet, when Chris Rowley was pulled by manager John Gibbons after one batter in the top of the sixth, he left with a 3-1 lead over Archer, the anchor of the Tampa rotation and one of the best starters in the league. (The one batter was Wilson Ramos, whom Rowley walked, and who would come around to score, cutting the lead to 3-2 and leaving Rowley with a line of five innings plus one batter, 2 runs, 4 hits, 5 walks, 3 strikeouts and 90 pitches.)

Archer? He went seven innings, and gave up 3 runs on 5 hits, walking none and striking out ten on 105 pitches. Sure, by the numbers Archer’s was the stronger performance, but Rowley left the game with the lead and a chance to claim the win, and Archer left the game on the hook for the loss.

It was interesting that there was so much singular drama packed into the first three innings of the the game, and even more interesting that the Toronto Chris did a better job of dodging the bullets than the Tampa Chris.

Rowley started the game with an easy ground out to second by Brad Miller, but then pulled out his trusty shovel and started to dig his own grave. He walked Evan Longoria, wild-pitched him to second, and walked Lucas Duda. Then Justin Smoak pulled off a great, running over-the-shoulder catch of a long foul pop up by Steven Souza for the second out; Rowley took a deep breath and got Logan Morrison to ground out to second for the third out.

Then, with Nori Aoki leading off for the first time for the Blue Jays, Chris Archer had to hustle to barely throw him out at first on a squibber in front of the plate. Good thing he did, because that made the Josh Donaldson jack to left only worth one run instead of two. Though they didn’t score again in the first, there was a little more in store for Archer after he fanned Smoak. Kendrys Morales came to the plate carrying an impressive record of 15 for 25—that’s .600, folks—against Archer. He immediately boosted it to 16 for 26 by ripping a double to the wall in right centre, but Steve Pearce popped up to Duda at first for the third out.

And that’s only the first inning.

Rowley ran into more trouble in the second, and needed a good bit of hubris from Tampa catcher Wilson Ramos and a great infield play to the plate to keep the Rays off the board. Leading off, Ramos smashed an 0-1 pitch to left and casually watched it sail over the fence as he dogged it to first. By the time he realized it hadn’t actually cleared the wall and was back in Pearce’s hands, he had no choice but to hold up with a single.

So, after Corey Dickinson fouled out to Smoak, when Adeiny Hechavaria ripped a double down the line, Ramos had to stop at third; his nonchalance had cost his team a run. The Jays pulled their infield in, which never works, except this time it did, thanks to a quick grab of a Mallex Smith grounder and a strong throw to the plate by shortstop Ryan Goins.

I don’t like playing the infield in, but I don’t like the contact play even more, especially when the runner at third is driving a lead sled, like Ramos. No matter, Brad Miller flied out to left, and Rowley’s lead was intact.

Good thing, too, because Chris Archer settled down in the bottom of the second and retired three south-sider Jays, Zeke Carrera, Miguel Montero, and Goins, on thirteen pitches with two strikeouts.

Rowley settled as well and put some of the drama behind him in the third, walking Duda with one out but stranding him by fanning Souza and grounding out Morrison.

In the bottom of the third, Archer struck out the side, but also helped hand Toronto a second run when Ramos couldn’t handle his stuff. Darwin Barney led off, and Archer struck him out with a nasty breaking ball in the dirt, so nasty that Ramos couldn’t corral it, and Barney made it to first. Then Aoki and Barney—the smallest guys on the field, played a littled small ball and pulled off a neat hit and run, with Barney going around to third on Aoki’s ground single to right through the hole that second baseman Brad Miller had just vacated to cover the bag. Archer dug down and caught Donaldson looking, but Smoak stroked a single to right to score Barney. Archer fanned his nemesis Morales, and escaped with his neck intact when Steve Pearce ended the inning by hitting one right on the button but right at Souza for the third out.

So far so good for the Jays, and for Chris Rowley, who was proving himself a better escape artist than Chris Archer.

But you can’t escape forever, not in the big leagues, oh, no. Now with a two-run lead, Rowley quickly retired Ramos and Dickinson, but walked Hechavarria. The only thing worse than a leadoff walk is a two-out walk. It almost always bites you in the butt, like when Mallex Smith tripled into the gap in right centre to drive Hechavarria in with the first Tampa run. Rowley retired Miller on an easy little fly to centre, but it was now 2-1.

Chris Archer glided through his fourth on nine pitches, two strikeouts and a grounder to first, but his first punchout, of Miguel Montero on one of his trademark sliders in the dirt, was his thousandth of his major league career, so the ball was taken out for Archer’s trophy case.

Chris Rowley retired the Rays on two strikeouts and a popup in the top of the fifth, but even that involved a bit of fun and strangeness. On the first pitch of the inning, Evan Longoria singled to centre and thus became the Rays’ Designated Table Tennis Ball.* Rowley is nothing if not efficient: Lucas Duda popped out to Smoak on the second pitch of the inning. But then he got into a deep count with Steven Souza before he struck him out with a low off-speed pitch.

The ball got away from Miguel Montero; Souza was automatically out because first base was occupied (that’s the rule: the catcher doesn’t have to control a third strike or throw down when first base is occupied and there are less than two outs). With the ball loose, Longoria broke for second and slid in without a throw, but wait: he was sent back to first, because Souza had clunked Montero in the head with his bat on his strikeout swing. The ruling here was that since Montero was interfered with by Souza’s bat, he couldn’t catch the ball or make a throw, so Longoria’s advancement was reversed. Then Chris Rowley balked and back he went to second—Designated Table Tennis Ball!

*Table Tennis, not Ping Pong! I play regularly with players a lot better than me: Ping Pong is a basement game, Table Tennis is a sport .

It was all for naught when Rowley struck out Logan Morrison on a 2-2 pitch to end the inning (don’t forget that Souza’s strikeout was the second out). Longoria was stranded at second. Or was it first? Third?

Archer must have been eager to get back out there after all this, as he retired Barney and Aoki quickly on six pitches, bringing Donaldson to the plate, the same Donaldson who had never homered off Archer before, and who proceeded to give Toronto a 3-1 lead with another blast to centre on the first pitch from Archer.

With Rowley out of the game after walking Ramos to lead off the sixth, Aaron Loup came in and for one of the few times in recent weeks he brought his gas can instead of his fireman’s hose: he quickly gave up singles to Dickerson and Hechevarria, and checked out, leaving Danny Barnes the unenviable task of coming in with the bases loaded and nobody out, a pickle he almost wiggled out of. (“Pickle” is a funny word in baseball, used to describe both a pitcher in trouble and a baserunner in trouble in a rundown. But why “in a pickle”?)

Barnes retired Trevor Plouffe, hitting for Smith, on the infield fly rule for the first out, and then almost got a double-play ball from Brad Miller, who is very quick. Miller bounced one between Smoak and Barnes. The sure-handed Smoak flagged it down and decided that his best chance was at second, rather than risking the throw home; no one was covering first. Miller was safe on the fielder’s choice and Ramos scored to make it 3-2. Barnes walked Longoria to load the bases again and keep it interesting, but then Duda grounded into the shift as Goins gunned him out from behind second to end the inning.

The noose was getting tighter, though, as we went to the bottom of the sixth, with Archer still on the hill at only 79 pitches. Twelve pitches, a couple of ground outs and another strikeout, and Archer was through to the seventh at 91 pitches, and it was definitely nail-biting time.

Barnes started the seventh against Souza and popped him up to Smoak. Then John Gibbons called on the lefty callup Tim Mayza to pitch to the two lefties among the next three batters. Mayza kind of mixed things up, though, by yielding a single to the lefty Morrison, fanning the righty Ramos, and then, while Morrison stole second for naught, fanning Dickerson. Archer must have gotten some extra gas in the tank from Donaldson’s homer in the fifth. He’d retired four in a row since, and his seventh inning

extended the string to seven, putting down Montero, Goins (his tenth strikeout), and Barney, to finish seven strong innings, if you don’t count Josh Donaldson. .

Dominic Leone came in for the eighth, tasked with defending Rowley’s slim lead. He tried, but couldn’t hold on, over 23 pitches and seven batters, as the Rays eked out the tying run; you just knew it had to happen, seeing how the Jays’ season has gone.

Leone got the first out, a squibber in front of the plate by Hechavarria that Montero played down to first. Then Peter Bourjos, in to play centre after Plouffe hit for Smith, singled to left, and stole second while Leone was fanning Miller for the second out, but veteran Jay-killer Evan Longoria, roused from his ominous quiet in this series, hit a drive to dead centre field. Zeke Carrera, playing in centre for Kevin Pillar, went straight back to the fence, leapt at the wall, and came down with the ball, but didn’t hold it long enough; as the ball popped free at Carrera’s feet, Longoria cruised into second with a double while Bourjos scored to tie it up.

Tampa wasn’t finished, however, and it took a great play by Darwin Barney to keep the score tied at three. With first base open, Duda was walked intentionally, bringing Souza to the plate. Souza bounced one up the middle that would have easily scored Longoria from second, but Barney dove for the ball, kept it on the infield for a Souza base hit, but his throw to the plate kept Longoria at third, where he was stranded when Logan Morrison grounded out to, you got it, Barney, at second.

With Archer finally finished, Kevin Cash called on Tommy Hunter to pitch the eighth. Better he should have left a tired Archer in, who might have done better than a fresh Hunter. (I just noticed the names: Archer, Hunter, where does it end?)

Actually, it ends with Smoaker, because it turned out that Hunter was Justin Smoak’s meat. Nori Aoki flew out to left, Josh Donaldson walked, and Smoak powdered a 2-0 pitch to the right-centre power alley that wasn’t coming back, and Toronto had a two-run lead with only three outs to get. Hunter finished the inning, but there was no getting that pitch back that he threw to Smoak.

Roberto Osuna came in for the save, and our hearts jumped into our throats again when Wilson Ramos lined a single to right on an 0-1 pitch. But on the very next pitch, Corey Dickingson grounded into a double play started by Ryan Goins, and the pressure was off with two outs and nobody on. Osuna went to a full count on Adeiny Hechavarria before he grounded out to second to end the game.

Here was a game that meant everything to both teams, held interest for the whole game, included enough strange and interesting plays to put a red star, not next to the great play, but next to the great game. Best of all, the good guys won the game and the series against the team they have the toughest time beating. Who needs the playoffs when you get a game like this?

Well, as a matter of fact . . .

When I was in Catholic high school a long time ago in Detroit, we heard that at some of the schools the nuns who chaperoned the dances used to carry yardsticks: they had to be able to slide the yardstick between the boy and the girl during slow dances or there was trouble. At my school, where the nuns were mostly old and perpetually grumpy, they didn’t need to carry yardsticks; they were sufficiently armed with a glare that cut you to the core.

If tonight’s game between the Blue Jays and the Rays was a slow dance in days of yore, you’d have needed Saran Wrap to measure the distance between the two teams, the game was that close. Hm-m-m Saran Wrap, slow dancing, back when you were young, kinda sets you to thinking, doesn’t it?

Anyway, this one might as well have been a playoff game, because it had every element of excitement, from gritty starts by Marcus Stroman, in this case the elder veteran, and young Jake Faria for Tampa Bay, to a fluke double, to a clutch homer, to a sketchy strike zone leading to a sketchy ejection (John Gibbons, who else?), to a stomped-on shortstop, to some great moments of relief pitching, to a diving stop that saved the game, it was all there, and what an entertaining night it was!

And what about a game three of this series that was decided by one run; the cumulative winning margin for one win so far by Tampa Bay and two for Toronto has been four runs, exactly one run over the minimum.

Stroman went six and a third innings, gave up two runs on six hits with three walks and seven strikeouts on 108 pitches. Faria went five and a third, gave up three runs on six hits with two walks and three strikeouts on 98 pitches. And if Corey Dickerson hadn’t lost Steve Pearce’s line drive in the lights leading off the sixth, which was followed by Kevin Pillar’s grounder moving him to third, Faria might have matched—or exceeded—the innings logged by Stroman in his start.

Both teams mounted challenges in the early innings, but the starters kept the slate clean until the Toronto third. Stroman retired the side in order in the first, the only clean inning he had all night. Faria gave up a one-out base hit to Josh Donaldson in the bottom of the inning, but threw a double-play ball to Justin Smoak. In the second inning Stroman caught Peter Bourjos looking for the third out with Dickerson on first after a two-out infield single by that bad-hopped viciously off the shoulder of Ryan Goins. Faria had to retire Goins on a grounder to first to close out the Jays second after Kevin Pillar hit a two-out double down the left-field line.

In the third inning Stroman had to face his toughest challenge thus far in the game, and was fortunate that it came with two outs. Brad Miller hit an opposite-field single to left, and Lucas Duda followed with a double to right, but Jose Bautista played it in quickly enough that Miller had to hold at third, and then both were stranded when Evan Longoria lined out to Bautista.

Faria wasn’t quite so lucky in the bottom of the third, as a classic “turf bounce” produced the first run of the game for Toronto. With one out for the Jays, Raffie Lopez drew Faria’s first walk of the day, which turned the lineup over and brought Bautista to the plate for his second appearance against the Tampa starter, who had fanned him to lead off the game for Toronto. This time Bautista hammered an 0-2 pitch into right centre that Mallex Smith, playing right, raced over to try to cut off before it got to the wall. Unfortunately for him he didn’t anticipate the bounce, got too close, and it sailed over his head. The catcher Lopez was able to get all the way around to score the first run. I have to say that he might well not have made it without the high bounce, but coming around third he looked pretty darned fast for a catcher.

Perhaps rattled, or maybe just mad, Faria proceeded to plunk Josh Donaldson hard in the back, earning him a stern look from the combative Toronto third baseman, but no further action ensued. Then he settled down and retired Justin Smoak on an infield fly rule popup to third, and fanned Kendrys Morales to avoid further damage.

After Marcus Stroman stranded a two-out “hustle double”* by Dickerson with two outs in the fourth, Faria gave up his second run to Steve Pearce leading off for the Jays, who went with the first pitch, a high fast ball on the outside corner, and muscled it out to right centre. After Pearce’s shot, Faria quickly retired the side on ten pitches, but it was now 2-0 for Toronto.

*Some commentators use this term to define a ball hit into “no-man’s land”, short or medium deep right or left centre field, or a liner down the foul line. The defining nature of the hit is that the ball has no chance to get to the wall, and the hitter perceives that the fielder has a long run to get to it, and he has a chance to beat a throw to second. It’s as much a question of good, aggressive base-running as it is of solid hitting.

The Rays got one run back in the fifth despite the fact that Stroman threw three ground ball outs, all to second base. Mallex Smith atoned for his first-inning fielding gaffe by hitting an opposite-field double to right leading off the inning. The first grounder to second moved Smith to third. The second scored him. The third ended the inning.

In the bottom of the fifth the Jays got something going with two outs—there’s been a lot of that going around—when Donaldson singled to left and Smoak walked. Morales hit the ball hard on the ground, but right to the second baseman Miller, way out in right field, in the old softball “rover” position. Threat over.

Stroman pitched around a walk to Logan Morrison in the top of the sixth to take him to 91 pitches, which gave him a fair chance at going at least seven, and Ryan Goins gave him added hope in the bottom of the sixth by driving in another run to expand the lead to 3-1. We’ve already mentioned that the tainted Pearce double to left and the Pillar groundout moving him to third ended the night for Faria. Manager Kevin Cash called on his prized new lefty, Dan Jennings, to face Goins.

In short order, very short order, Goins added to his clutch RBI reputation, got gunned down at second on a failed hit-and-run that turned into a strikeout-throw out, got stomped on the left forearm, and had to leave the game.

Only down by one, the Rays had the infield drawn in. Jennings’ first pitch to Goins was high on the outside corner. Shortened up on the bat, Goins slapped the ball past Jennings and between the tightened infielders into centre, and Pearce trotted home with an important third run. Then, with Darwin Barney at the plate in a 2-2 count, the Jays put on the hit-and-run, but Barney fanned and the catcher Sucre fired down to second in time to get Goins to end the inning. But damage was done: Goins slid in head first, with his left hand reaching for the bag. The throw was slightly off-line towards first, and second baseman Daniel Robertson had to cross the bag toward the sliding Goins to make the catch and apply the tag.

Unfortunately and unintentionally, Robertson’s left foot landed squarely on Goins’ bare left forearm, leaving him in pain with a nasty red contusion developing immediately. The inning was over, and Goins would be out of the game, Rob Refsnyder coming in to play second and Barney sliding over to short.

Marcus Stroman ran into his wall in the top of the seventh, despite striking out Peter Bourjos leading off. If anything, manager John Gibbons went too far with him: he walked Mallex Smith, gave up a single to “Sweet Jesus” Sucre that sent Smith racing around to third, and walked Brad Miller to load the bases before Gibbie came out with the hook, calling on Aaron Loup to face Lucas Duda, who was replaced at the plate by Steven Souza. Loup walked Souza to force in a run after a terrible call on a 2-2 pitch that should have struck him out. Gibbie thought so, vociferously, as he came out to remove Loup and bring in Dominic Leone. Loup went to the bench and Gibbie to the clubhouse, sent off by plate umpire Lance Barksdale.

With the lead down to one and the game on the line, Leone did a magnificent job, freezing the veteran Longoria and popping up Logan Morrison to get out of the jam. Longoria was furious about the call from Barksdale on a 2-2 pitch, and the pitch graph shows that he had justice on his side, but Barksdale was wearing the funny cap and the big shoulders of his trade, so there was no reversing the tide of history.

The Jays never threatened again. Jennings got the big K he’d needed the inning before, but fanning Raffie Lopez in the bottom of the seventh was not what Kevin Cash had in mind when he brought him in. Nevertheless, Jennings turned over a one-out, nobody on seventh to Sergio Romo, who retired five in a row over the seventh and the eighth to keep Toronto from threatening.

Ryan Tepera once again was perfect in the Tampa eighth, getting two ground balls and a strikeout on fifteen pitches.

Roberto Osuna followed with his thirty-first save, grateful for a big fielding assist by Darwin Barney, who took a dive and maybe saved the win for Toronto. The speedster Mallex Smith led off with a ground ball single up the middle. Adeiny Hechaverria hit the same grounder up the middle: if it got through, it would be first and third with nobody out, blazing speed at third and decent speed at first. But Barney, moved over from second to short after Goins went out, put everything into it, flagged down the ball skidding on one knee, spun and threw to second without having the time to set up for the throw. Refsnyder made it to the bag, and the throw just beat Mallex sliding in for the forceout.

After that, Osuna took over. Miller bounced one back to him and he turned and made the throw to second to force Hechaverria. Steven Souza took a called third strike, and the game was in the bag.

The series is now 2-1 for us, with just tomorrow afternoon to go before we head for the fabled Wrigley Field for the weekend. It would be a lot nicer to head out of town 7-3 on the homestand than 6-4, now wouldn’t it? The only thing in the way is the little matter of Chris Rowley making his second major league start against Chris Archer. What, me worry?

Okay, let me get this off my chest right away: the Toronto infield doesn’t work with Darwin Barney at shortstop and Rob Refsnyder at second.

A fifth-inning mishandling of what should have been a double play cost Marco Estrada extra outs and extra pitches, and led inexorably to two tainted Tampa Bay runs that turned out to be the difference in the ball game tonight.

Don’t get me wrong here. This isn’t a knock on either player. Barney of course has a Gold Glove in his back pocket from his time with the Cubs, but it was won at second base, not shortstop. He’s got the quickness, the arm, and the range to play shortstop, but I’m not sure if he’s got enough games under his belt there to tend to his own knitting plus carry along/make up for the shortcomings of Refsnyder, who’s basically just learning the position, and has been thrust into a spot that to be fair maybe he’s not ready for.

If you look at Refsnyder’s fielding record you can see the problem. He appeared in 58 games for the Yankees last year, but in only eight did he spend some time at second base. He had sixteen chances and made two errors. Before the Jays picked him up, he had time at second in only two of the twenty games in which he appeared this year, taking two chances and making one error..

It wasn’t like what happened in the fifth inning spoiled a no-hitter or anything like that. The Rays went into the inning up 4-1, courtesy of a two-run home run by Lucas Duda off Marco Estrada in the third inning, a Wilson Ramos solo homer in the fourth, followed by a Corey Dickinson RBI single that drove in Adeiny Hechaverria, on second with a fluke bloop double to right. And the two walks that forced in the runs in the sixth weren’t Estrada’s only walks in his short outing; he’d already walked one in the second and one in the third that didn’t enter into the scoring.

But of course when you look at the final score of Tampa 6, Toronto 4, it stands out glaringly that the runs that came across in the fifth inning were the decisive runs in the game, and that’s why we have to focus on the botched double play that kept Estrada on the mound too long, and led to the forced-in runs that extended the Rays’ lead to 6-1 before Donaldson’s blast in the bottom of the fifth cut it to 6-4.

Since he’d already given up the seven hits and four runs, it wasn’t too much of a surprise that Logan Morrison and Steven Souza led off the fifth with base hits, leaving Estrada dangling by a thread. But it looked like the thread would be enough to save him when Mallex Smith lined softly to Refsnyder at second while Morrison took one step too many toward third. Barney was on the bag, Morrison was a dead duck, and Refsnyder ten feet from Barney with the ball. But he double-clutched before letting it go, and Barney, his momentum toward Refsnyder and coming off the bag, had closed the distance to Refsnyder and the throw handcuffed him. He succeeded in holding on to it briefly before it got away from him as he left the base and Morrison finally tiptoed back in.

The initial ruling by base umpire Eric Cooper was that Barney had control of the ball long enough while on the bag to record the out on Morrison, but the Rays asked for a review, and the review overturned the call and restored Morrison to second, with Souza still on first. The next terrible thing that happened was that Ramos lofted an easy fly to medium centre, with the runners on and holding. But uncharacteristically Kevin Pillar lost it in the twilight sky and it dropped for a single to load the bases. Estrada then went on to walk Hechaverria and Daniel Robertson to force in the two runs and end Estrada’s day.

Now, let’s replay the inning and look at the possible alternative results.

If they make the double play, and Pillar doesn’t lose the ball, the inning would have been over with Souza on first and Estrada, even though not at his best, would have pitched on, with a pitch count in the mid-70s.

It’s a more theoretical question if they make the double play and Pillar still loses the ball. Then it would have been Souza on second and Ramos on first. With the two walks that followed, only one would have scored, and Matt Dermody, who came in for Estrada, would have left the second run at third with the Dickerson short fly to left and the Duda comebacker. A scorer’s note here: both runs were earned because no error was given on the missed double play; the scorer cannot assume a double play, and if one out is recorded and no runner advances an extra base, no error can be ascribed to a fielder.

But the question that has to be considered and is harder to answer definitively is, how does Estrada pitch to Hechaverria and Robertson if he’s got the two outs and two on: in other words, what was the effect on his composure of the messed-up twin-killing?

A final word on this: nobody can blame Rob Refsnyder for this situation. He just doesn’t have the innings at second to be sure of himself there. As a converted outfielder, the thing that I think would be most difficult would be that the player is inserted into the close and tense maelstrom of infield play with runners on base, a far different environment from patrolling the outfield. Conclusion: Rob Refsnyder might be a useful utility piece, but it should be as a corner outfielder or first baseman, pinch hitter (he’s reputed to wield a better stick than we’ve seen,) or a pinch runner, (he is quick), but not as a second baseman. Now that the Jays have Nori Aoki and Zeke Carrera as outfielders, both hitting left, maybe that carves out a niche for him hitting right.

To give him his due, though, we can’t ignore the fact that Estrada would have started the game in a hole again, were it not for a beautiful, leaping grab by Refsnyder of a liner off the bat of the leadoff hitter Dickinson that looked destined to go all the way to the wall in right centre in the bottom of the first inning.

The Blue Jays weren’t going to run up a big number against the Rays’ lefty beanpole Blake Snell. You can just disregard his 0-6 record this year, it just wasn’t relevant against a team that’s always had trouble with him.

Toronto picked up a run off him in the second inning, but it was more than a little bit tainted. Steve Pearce was on first with a one-out single, and Kevin Pillar blooped one into short right centre that drew both centre fielder Mallex Smith and right fielder Steven Souza. Neither could get to it as it fell safely, but Souza cut in front of Smith to take it on the hop but it bounced over his head, hit the turf still spinning, and skipped under Smith’s glove. All of this silliness took enough time that Pearce came around and score, with Pillar to second with a double. Pillar died at second, but the Jays had a lead on Snell, briefly.

Lucas Duda took care of the lead three batters into the top of the third. Daniel Robertson singled, Corey Dickinson struck out, and Duda hit a blast to right that made it 2-1 Rays. Estrada then gave up a double to Logan Morrison after Evan Longoria flew out, and walked Souza behind Longoria before Smith flew out to leave runners at first and second.

In the fourth Ramos hit a rope to left to make it 3-1, and then the flukey Hechaverria double was cashed in by a single by Dickerson and the Tampa lead was solidified at 4-1 before that messy fifth.

In the meantime, besides the Pearce-Pillar combo for the Toronto run, Snell allowed only two other runners, a walk to Donaldson in the third, and a single to Pillar in the fourth, before he came out for the fifth inning newly fortified with a five-run lead. Mike Ohlman, tonight serving as the backup catcher to the backup catcher Raffie Lopez (I could go on, but I won’t) made the first out, a loud one, with a deep fly to left. Barney singled to centre for the Jays’ fourth hit, and Bautista followed with the fifth, a double to right that pushed Barney to third.

Then, in the most promising moment of the game, Donaldson crushed another one, this time to right centre, to bring Toronto within a tantalizing two runs of Tampa Bay, where they would stay until the Rays’ bullpen closed it out.

Snell finished off six innings, pitching over Refsnyder reaching base on a catcher’s interference call against Ramos in the sixth. He’d given up four runs on seven hits, walked one and struck out four on 108 pitches. Except for the gopher ball* to Donaldson, it was a pretty solid outing for Snell.

*”Gopher ball”? That’s easy, a hit that “goes fer four” eh?

Steve Cishek pitched the seventh, and failed to pick up a little bouncer by Donaldson that went for a one-out infield hit. But then Justin Smoak hit a one-hop bullet to the second baseman Robertson who started an easy double play. Toronto went down meekly on ten pitches by Tommy Hunter in the eighth, and twelve by Tampa closer Alex Colomé in the ninth, and the Rays had tied the series at one win apiece.

As for the Toronto bullpen, after Matt Dermody rescued Estrada in the fifth inning, manager John Gibbons sent him out for the sixth inning, and he retired Longoria on a ground ball, but walked the lefty Morrison whom he was supposed to retire, so Gibbie handed the ball over to Danny Barnes, who made things more interesting for himself by giving up a double to Souza that moved Morrison to third before retiring the last two batters on weak contact.

In the seventh Barnes easily pitched over a throwing error by Barney at short which was at first called as having nipped Robertson in a bang-bang play at first, but then was overturned on appeal.

The call went out to Ryan Tepera to pitch the eighth, in the hope that the Jays might stir things up in the bottom of the eighth, bringing Roberto Osuna into play. Tepera had another clean, efficient inning, dispatching the Rays on 13 pitches, though he walked off the field applauding his centre fielder Pillar for ranging to the wall in deep left centre and reaching up over his shoulder to haul down a drive by Souza.

It’s an axiom in baseball that he who thrives and surprises in the spring will inevitably join the big club before the end of the year. In the absence of meaningful work for the closer, today was the day for Tim Mayza, a rangy (six three, 225) twenty-five-year-old left-hander, who had impressed in spring training, to make his major league debut. After Florida, Mayza started at New Hampshire in Double A, and then was promoted to Bufallo, where he made eleven relief appearances, and went 1-1 with an 0.93 ERA, good enough to get a look-see in Toronto.

It didn’t take Mayza very long to get his first strikeout in the show, either, as he gunned down the first batter he faced, Peter Bourjos, with a 1-2 killer slider. Nor did it take long to give up his first base hit, because he went 3-1 on Wilson Ramos, up next, and Ramos grounded one up the middle for a base hit. Next he got Adeiny Hechaverria to ground into a fielder’s choice, but Daniel Robertson doubled to left before Corey Dickinson lined out softly again, this time with no drama, to short, to end Mayza’s debut. Lots of interesting experiences in those 23 pitches.

So, there you go. Muck up a double play and sometimes the whole ball game can be wrapped up in that muff. If they make that play, they could still be playing since, as we all know, “there’s no time clock in baseball”. (Except for the silly pitcher’s clock that absolutely does not speed up the “pace of play”.)

Oh, and a message for Gibbie: do not platoon Ryan Goins. How many of his key RBIs have been off left-handed pitchers? And what offensive “advantage” gained by hitting Refsnyder against lefties could ever outweigh Goins’ play at shortstop, or Barney’s at second? Case closed.

Baseball is such a funny game.

Sometimes the ball flies out of the park, bangs off the walls, rattles around in the corners while the runners circle the bases and the runs tally up. But then you get a game like tonight’s.

This was a game in which two swings of the bat, one in the Toronto first, and one in the Tampa second, produced three runs, and that was it for the whole game.

Tonight, after fill-in starter Nick Tepesch stranded a Lucas Duda single and retired the Rays in the top of the first, Toronto came to the plate against Jake Odorizzi, a long-time linch-pin of the Tampa rotation who has always pitched well against the Blue Jays.

For the second game in a row, Jose Bautista ran up a multi-pitch walk to bring Josh Donaldson to the plate. And for the second game in a row, after working the Tampa starter for eight pitches, Donaldson lashed a fast ball high on the outside corner to right field for a two-run homer. Down 2-0, Odorizzi quickly retired Justin Smoak and Kendrys Morales on easy fly balls, and Steve Pearce on a liner to third.

With the two-run lead, Tepesch came out and started throwing bombs, but luckily for him only one of them left the park. Steven Souza hit one to deep right that Bautista hauled in. Brad Miller hit one to deep centre that Kevin Pillar hauled in. But Tepesch’s luck ran out with catcher Wilson Ramos, who reached down and golfed a low slider to dead centre that Pillar tracked to the wall and leaped hopelessly after as it smacked off the facing of the 200 level to cut the Jays’ lead to 2-1. It only took one more pitch for Tepesch to pop Peter Bourjos out to Smoak at first to end the inning.

Not to spoil the suspense, but that was it for the scoring. For the next seven innings, Odorizzi and three relievers, and Tepesch and two relievers, kept the scoreboard clean, racking up an unbroken string of goose eggs between them.

Odorizzi only had to deal with base runners in the third and the sixth innings. In the third, Rob Refsnyder led off with a base hit that was followed by another walk to Bautista. But Odorizzi retired Donaldson, Smoak, and Morales to strand the runners without advancing.

In the sixth inning, with two outs Steve Pearce hit a long drive into the right field corner. Steven Souza just failed to track it down after a long run, and the ball rebounded back past him, allowing Pearce to go all the way around to third. But Odorizzi had more magic in his glove than the two-out black arts in the bat of Ryan Goins, and struck him out looking on a curve ball that just nicked the outside corner, to leave Pearce at third.

In a game that either pitcher could have won, Jake Odorizzi went out after six innings bearing responsibility for the lead run. He’d given up only three hits and three walks

while fanning four on 110 pitches.

As for Tepesch, he skated around trouble in both the third and fourth innings, in the third giving up two-out base hits to Duda and Evan Longoria, and in the fourth walking Brad Miller and Ramos with one out, and hitting Daniel Robertson with a pitch to load the bases before getting Corey Dickinson to fly out to right on the most fraught at-bat for the Rays in the game.

Tepesch finished strongly, retiring the side in the fifth and the sixth, though there was a moment of cold chill with two outs in the sixth, when the same Wilson Ramos who’d taken him out to centre in the second, got into another one to straightaway centre, but this time it stayed in the park for Pillar to haul it in.

Speaking of home runs and fly balls, it’s interesting to note that in Tepesch’s first outing against the Yankees he threw only four ground balls and seven fly balls, counting the three that went out. Tonight he threw twice as many ground balls, eight, and the same number of fly balls plus homers, seven, but only one of the seven went out. So the improvement of getting a few more grounders and mostly keeping the ball in the park made the difference between going four and a third for a loss and going six for a win. He’ll have to confer with his fellow fly ball-ers Marco Estrada and Jay Happ to work on keeping the baseball in the park, if he’s to stay with the team.

Tepesch finished up at six innings plus two batters, and gave up one run on four hits with three walks, two hit batters, and a partridge . . . er, no, on 96 pitches to notch his first win in the majors since September 16, 2014.

Just because the game was scoreless after Ramos’ home run in the second doesn’t mean that it was devoid of interest. Manager John Gibbons hopefully sent Tepesch back out for the seventh, but he hit Peter Bourjos and walked Daniel Robertson on four pitches, and that was enough to call it a night for the starter. Aaron Loup came in to face the left-handed slugger Corey Dickinson.

There ensued one of the oddest plays you could imagine. It was a play that illustrated why the infield fly rule exists, because if it could have been called, a whole lot of confusion would have been avoided.

Basically, the infield fly rule was instituted to prevent infielders from deliberately dropping a popup to be able to force out a faster lead runner, or even turn a double play if the hitter is lazy out of the batter’s box. Paraphrasing, it reads that if a ball is a fair fly ball, and can be caught with ordinary effort by an infielder, the batter will be called out automatically with runners on first and second or the bases loaded and less than two outs.

Loup sawed off Dickerson, who pushed out a little hump-backed liner toward second, where Rob Refsnyder was playing fairly deep both for the double play, and because Dickerson’s a left-handed power hitter. Refsnyder charged the ball, but didn’t quite get to it and took it on the short hop. Problem was, it wasn’t a fly ball, and Refsnyder never really had a chance for it, so the condition of catching it with ordinary effort didn’t apply. Correctly, no call was made, except that the second-base umpire gave the safe sign to confirm that Refsnyder had trapped the ball, and not caught it.

Refsnyder quickly flipped the ball to Ryan Goins, already on the bag at second. The second-base runner, Bourjos, before realizing that the ball had been trapped, correctly retreated to second, and arrived on the base before the throw came from Refsnyder, which was actually irrelevant. The runner from first, Robertson, with the play in front of him, was caught in the classic no-man’s land; he had to hold first until he saw the ball wouldn’t be caught, and then take off for second. The matter should have been simple: with Goins on the bag when he caught the ball, the force was off for Bourjos, and he could run or hold at will, and just had to avoid being tagged while off the bag. Robertson was forced out, and Dickerson, of course, was on first.

Goins, however, ended up standing on second, between Bourjos and Robertson, comically tagging first one, then the other. One of them had to be out, right?

For some reason the video review took a long time, perhaps because one of the umps, or maybe two of them, had signalled more than one out, and they needed a reset: Bourjos at second, Dickerson at first, and Robertson out.

As it turned out, Loup took matters into his own hands, fanned Lucas Duda and got soft contact from Evan Longoria, who hit an easy liner to second, which was caught on the fly by Refsnyder, for the third out.

This was one of those games, it seems, and John Gibbons was prepared to go all out. Loup came back out for the eighth because two of the first three batters were left-handed, and he did his job, striking out Logan Morrison and Brad Miller, but walking Steven Souza in between. With the dangerous, right-handed Ramos due up, the call went out for Roberto Osuna to come in and try for a very unusual for Osuna four-out save. The short term worked, as Ramos grounded out to short on the second pitch.

He came back out for the ninth and quickly ran the table in eleven pitches, two ground balls and a strikeout, for his thirtieth save in 37 chances.

Meanwhile, Sergio Romo had stranded a single by Kevin Pillar in the seventh, but Brad Boxberger had a more adventurous eighth. He still managed to keep Toronto from adding an insurance run, with the help of Tampa’s newly-acquired lefty, Dan Jennings. Josh Donaldson led off with a ground-rule double to left. Justin Smoak grounded out to first, with Donaldson moving up to third. Kendrys Morales hit one in the hole between first and second that should have scored Donaldson, but Brad Miller made a great grab and threw him out at first while Donaldson had to hold at third, with no contact play on. Then Jennings came on for the lefty matchup and retired Goins on a comebacker to save the run.

So thanks to the combined efforts of Tepesch, Loup, and Osuna, Donaldson’s first-inning shot stood up for the win, and the Jays held on for a somewhat unusual in these days 2-1 win. It was good enough to push Toronto’s record to five of seven in its last seven games, and gave them an important first win in this crucial series with one of the key teams ahead of them in the wild card race.

And, they managed to steal a win with one of their fill-in starters on the mound, a real bonus.

Just in case anyone here needed a reminder of what a laugher is, today happened. After Jay Happ gave up a run on three straight hits in the top of the first against the Pirates in this afternoon’s rubber game of the series with Pittsburgh, Chad Kuhl walked Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson delivered him with another first-inning smash, and then Toronto piled on Kuhl for three more runs to take a 5-1 lead into the second inning.

After that, Happ settled in to pitch six innings of one-run ball and we got to relax and sit back and enjoy the sunshine and the good vibes emanating from the giant clamshell on the lakefront. Isn’t this the way baseball in August in Toronto is supposed to be?

All the elements of today’s win, Happ’s progressively more effective shutdown of the Pittsburgh lineup, Donaldson’s blast, Ryan Goins’ amazing focus at the plate with ducks on the pond, the bullpen’s effectiveness—three innings, four pitchers, no runs, no hits, two walks—have appeared in various combinations in many games over the course of this curious season. But seldom have all four combined on the same day to give such a satisfying outcome.

I won’t bother going into the stats but, let’s face it, the Jays’ pitchers have stunk in the first inning this season. None of the starters, whether regulars or fill-ins, has been immune from this problem. Yesterday’s nine-pitch gem in the first by rookie Chris Rowley was such a shock that we had to shake ourselves to be sure it was actually over so quickly.

So it was with a resigned shrug that we watched, after Starling Marte skyed out to Jose Bautista in right, as Josh Harrison, Andrew McCutchen, back in the lineup as the DH after taking yesterday off to tend to his injury, and David Freese knocked out clean base hits to give the Pirates a quick one-run lead. And, as so many times before, it was with a profound sense of relief that we watched Happ go on to control the damage, stranding McCutchen at second and Freese at first by fanning Jose Osuna and retiring Sean Rodriguez on a fly ball to centre.

It’s often said that facing imminent death has a way of marvellously focussing the mind. Maybe that works for the Blue Jays’ hitters when they give up that quick run in the first inning. Okay, that’s a stretch, but who knows? Anyhow, Bautista did his annoying thing that he does, annoying to opposing pitchers that is, by falling behind 1-2 to Pittsburgh starter Chad Kuhl, taking two perfectly hittable pitches for strikes, laying off tempters, fouling off another hittable strike, and then walking on the eighth pitch. It’s almost like they plan it, he and Johs, you know? (Of course they do.) All the while Bautista is wrecking Kuhl’s good pitches, Donaldson’s watching like a hawk, so we shouldn’t be surprised when he takes one strike and crushes the next one.

Bottom of the first homers to take the lead back from the visitors are all well and good, but what happened next was crucial to the outcome of the game. Kuhl failed to get the first out of the inning, as Justin Smoak delivered a blast to right centre for a double. Kuhl caught Kendrys Morales looking for the first out, but Zeke Carrera drew a walk, bringing Ryan Goins to the plate. Wait a minute, you say, Zeke Carrera hitting fifth, Goins hitting sixth? Well, with both Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki on the disabled list, with Kevin Pillar producing inconsistently, and Raffy Lopez and Darwin Barney pressed into action, where would you hit Carrera and Goins against right handers?

One thing I don’t understand is why teams continue to disregard Goins’ strength with the bat. The Pirates were definitely playing “pitch ’em away, play ’em away” for Goins, but it was amazing how far into right centre the right fielder was stationed when Goins pulled the second outside strike from Kuhl into right field, not even right down the line. Goins’ double was a given, but what the positioning did was enable Carrera to score all the way from first, behind Smoak, and it was 4-1.

Then the Bucs (for Buccaneers) played give-away again. Kevin Pillar bounced one hard to third and it went right through David Freese for an error. Goins advanced to third, perfectly positioned to be the second man to go on an audacious double steal. Pillar broke for second, and as soon as Francisco Cervelli let go of the ball for second, Goins broke for the plate like a streak. Shortstop Jordy Mercer charged the ball and fired it back to the plate, but Goins slid across easily as Pillar took second, and it was 5-1.

As far as the starting pitchers were concerned, that was all the scoring. Happ only gave up one more hit, a single to Sean Rodriguez in the fourth. He stranded a walk in the second, and two walks in the sixth, his last inning of work. His first two innings, when he accumulated 42 pitches, the three walks and the eight strikeouts extended his pitch count to 104 over six, and he deservedly received a warm handshake from manager John Gibbons for a job well done.

After the rough start, Kuhl gave the Pirates another four innings, and gave up only one more hit, an infield single to Josh Donaldson in the second. His 40 pitches and two walks in the first inning, three more scattered walks, and six strikeouts stretched him out to 96 pitches over the five innings.

Left-handed former Buffalo Bison Wade LeBlanc came in and pitched the sixth and seventh innings for Pittsburgh, and if the Pirates had any hope of cutting into Toronto’s lead, LeBlanc didn’t help their cause much by giving up solo homers to Darwin Barney in the sixth and Justin Smoak in the seventh, extending the margin to 7-1.

Daniel Hudson walked Kevin Pillar to start the eighth inning but then retired the side.

The Toronto bullpen once more gathered up its strength, which must surely be on the wane by now, and kept the Pittsburgh offence from threatening over the last three innings to maintain the lead for Happ’s well-deserved win. Danny Barnes threw a thirteen-pitch seventh. Leonel Campos came in for the eighth, retired Josh Harrison on a fly ball, and then, presumably, annoyed John Gibbons no end by walking Andrew McCutchen and David Freese, necessitating his removal and replacement by Ryan Tepera, as if he needed the work. Tepera finished things off with a strikeout and a popup on only five pitches, so at least it was a short stint for him.

The beleaguered J.P. Howell was asked to mop up, and did an admirable job, getting three ground-outs on only twelve pitches.

That’s two series wins in a row for Toronto, and it’s been just enough to keep them on the fringe of the wild-card race. Next comes a four-game series at home with their worst division tormenters, the Tampa Bay Rays. If they can navigate those dangerous waters, they might get just a little closer to the pack. At the very least, they’ll keep us from writing them off if they manage to win more than they lose against the Rays.

The Toronto Blue Jays have had to use an inordinate number of fill-in starting pitchers this year, thanks to the rash of injuries that has riddled their rotation, a wave that has washed over all but Marcus Stroman. Now, with Francisco Liriano gone to Houston and Aaron Sanchez shelved for most of the rest of the season, there are two holes in the rotation that need to be filled on a regular basis for the foreseeable future.

One of the interesting side lights of keeping up with the revolving door of replacement starters is delving into their back stories, and the various paths they’ve taken to their moment in the spotlight.

None can match the story of Chris Rowley’s map to today’s start against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Toronto, for being both unique and fortuitous.

For starters, Rowley is the first ever graduate of West Point, the United States Military Academy, to play in the major leagues. There are a couple of intertwined reasons for this. One is that though West Point’s baseball team plays in the top tier of U.S. college baseball, it seldom attracts top level prospects. The other is that graduates of West Point normally have a five-year commitment to military service following graduation. Obviously, five years in uniform would be a career-killer for any real major league prospect, and by the same token the commitment would deter top-notch prospects from signing on with the cadets.

Undeterred by these circumstances, Rowley chose to accept an appointment to the Academy, since it would offer him the best opportunity to start with a tier-one baseball programme. His career at West Point marked him as a possible future pro, and he was fortunate in being able to take advantage of a special provision offered by the army and navy academies to shorten the commitment of graduates who are prospective professional athletes to two years.

Rowley wasn’t picked in the 2013 draft, but was invited to pitch in the Gulf Coast rookie league that summer by the Blue Jays, in the time he had remaining before reporting for duty. He impressed them enough during that time that they were willing to sign him after he completed his two years’ service. During his time in uniform, he never pitched off a mound, and managed to keep loose while serving in Bulgaria and Rumania by throwing to an army medic who had some catching experience.

His age and physical/mental maturity no doubt contributed to his rapid rise in the Jays’ organization. Once shorn of his uniform, he spent 2016 in Dunedin at advanced A ball, and started this season at New Hampshire in Double A. Seventeen game appearances with the Fisher-Cats and 10 with the Buffalo Bisons, and here he was, taking the mound for the Blue Jays in Toronto on a grey afternoon with the roof closed.

There was no debut nervousness in Chris Rowley as he faced Starling Marte in the top of the first. I love a first-pitch strike. Even more do a I love a second-pitch slider that gets chased. I especially love when the leadoff hitter gets in the hole and grounds out weakly to the second baseman. Adam Frazier lined out to Steve Pearce in left on the first pitch, and Josh Harrison chased a sinker and two sliders to strike out on four pitches. Ex-Lieutenant Chris Rowley was through his first inning in the majors on nine pitches, had his first strikeout, and could stand at ease while his team-mates went to work on Pirates starter Trevor Williams.

Williams is a 25-year-old Californian who was a September callup to the Pirates last year and made the team out of spring training this year. He started in the bullpen, was slotted into the rotation in early May, and has been there ever since, compiling a 5-4 record with an ERA of 4.17 over 111 innings with a WHIP of 1.27, and averaging less than three walks a game.

However, he walked Jose Bautista to lead off the game, as who hasn’t, and that led directly to the Jays’ first run. After Josh Donaldson struck out, Justin Smoak singled him to third, and Steve Pearce hit a grounder up the middle for a fielder’s choice that allowed Bautista to score.

Rowley was rudely greeted in the top of the second when Josh Bell, the imposing young Pittsburgh first baseman, hit a liner to the opposite field that split the outfielders in left centre; Bell can fly, and fly he did, all the way to a close arrival at third for a triple. This posed a new situation for Rowley, suddenly confronted with a serious scoring threat, the ultimate test, a leadoff triple. He came so close to getting out of it. He fanned David Freese. Gregory Polanco lined out to Smoak at first. But shortstop Jordy Mercer confounded everyone by swinging at an 0-2 sinker that rose instead, almost above his head, and somehow getting on top of it to ground it up the middle for a base hit scoring Bell. John Jaso grounded into a fielder’s choice and the game was tied.

So, no fairy-tale no-hitter, or even shutout for Rowley, just a 1-1 baseball game after one and a half innings. That is, until Williams reached his game-average for walks in two innings and added a hit batsman to help the Jays go ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the second. First off, Williams hit Kevin Pillar, then retired Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney before giving up a ground single to centre by Rob Refsnyder, who broke his strikeout streak from last night’s game. Then he walked Bautista on a 3-2 pitch, and Donaldson on a 3-2 pitch to force in the run before striking out Smoak.

Rowley and Williams both settled down in the third inning, Rowley stranding a one-out Starling Marte single, and Williams retiring the side. The fourth mirrored the third, Rowley stranding a one-out single by Freese, and Williams putting the Jays out in order again.

In the fifth inning Rowley dismissed the Pirates on ten pitches, fly ball, two ground balls. After having a few rocky spots, he’d started looking like he was in it for the long haul, with his pitch count at only 64. Williams, on the other hand, came a-cropper in the bottom of the fifth, and not only did he contribute to his downfall, but his defense let him down, much as Stroman’s had the night before.

But Williams started it by hitting Bautista, leading off, adding to the right fielder’s phenomenal on-base percentage as leadoff man, despite his low batting average. Josh Donaldson lofted a tricky short fly into no-man’s land near the right-field line. Gregory Polanco raced in and nearly picked it off, but had to take it on the short hop. Unfortunately, he injured himself trying to make the play and had to be removed from the game, taking a potent bat out of the lineup.

Williams got the first out by fanning Justin Smoak, but then walked Steve Pearce. This loaded the bases and brought Kendrys Morales out of the dugout to hit for Raffy Lopez, his first appearance since reporting back for duty after his bout with the flu. Though he didn’t make a dramatic impact on the game, he did put his bat on the ball, and drove it on the ground toward short, where Jordy Mercer turned it over to Adam Frazier at second for the force on Pearce, but Frazier’s throw to first got past Josh Bell, and both Bautista and Donaldson scored, to bump the Toronto lead to 4-1. Kevin Pillar hit the ball hard, but right at Mercer on a line for the third out.

As it turns out, Trevor Williams took the loss and Chris Rowley got the win, but ironically Williams lasted longer on the mound than Rowley. With a three-run cushion, Rowley retired Frazier on a fly ball to left, but Harrison singled and Bell drew a walk. Manager John Gibbons decided that his rookie starter had reached his best-before, and turned the ball over to Dominic Leone, who brilliantly stifled the threat by fanning Freese and retiring Sean Rodriguez, who’d come in for Polanco, on a come-backer, taking only five pitches to preserved Rowley’s chance for a win in his first start.

So Rowley went out with five and a third innings pitched, giving up one run on five hits, walking one and striking out three on 75 pitches. First West Point grad to play in the majors. First West Point grad to start on the mound in the majors. First West Point grad to record a win in a major league start. And recipient of a warm ovation from the faithful in attendance, acknowledged by a modest tip of the cap.Well done, soldier!

In the sixth Williams survived a two-out single by Refsnyder, who had three hits in this game of redemption after last night’s debacle, and applauded Marte’s sliding catch of a blooper to short centre by Barney. Williams finished 6 full innings, gave up 3 earned runs on only four hits with seven strikeouts, but his kryptonite was four walks and two hit batters, both leading off, both of whom scored. When you factor in the error in the fifth, he still deserved a better fate.

Dominic Leone finished a powerful and effective performance by coming back and striking out the last two batters in the top of the seventh, stranding John Jaso, who had doubled with one out, at second. Five outs, one hit, three strikeouts, 19 pitches. You can’t post a better hold.

Joaquin Benoit was the sad man on the sidelines when Toronto made its playoff run last year. You’ll recall that Benoit had worked his way into the seventh-inning reliever position with the Jays after arriving in Toronto on July twenty-sixth in a trade for the disappointing Drew Storen (remember him?) Benoit made 25 appearance for the Jays, throwing 23 and two thirds innings to an incredible ERA of 0.38. But in the famous beanball game with the Yankees on September twenty-sixth, he tore a calf muscle while rushing out of the bullpen to join the melee. Thus he was sidelined for the playoffs, and then chose to sign with the Phillies as a free agent after the season ended. But his contribution to last year’s regular-season run for Toronto was undeniable.

Benoit has arrived by way of trade to the Pirates, and came into the game against his former team for the Toronto seventh. He didn’t fare well, either, but once again it was the Pittsburgh infield that contributed to the problem.

Benoit popped up Donaldson for the first out, but Smoak and Pearce followed with singles, with Smoak stopping at second. Catcher Mike Ohlman topped a little squibber to third that Josh Harrison should have eaten, but he tried to be a hero and threw the ball away; it went so far down the line that both Smoak and Pearce scored, and Ohlman ended up at third. Kevin Pillar followed with a sacrifice fly to plate Ohlman, and the Jays had three, but only one earned, off Benoit.

A.J. Schugel came on to finish up in the eighth for Pittsburgh, pitching around Refsnyder’s third base hit of the night. Aaron Loup and Ryan Tepera shared the eighth inning, Tepera coming on to strike out Sean Rodriguez to strand a couple of base runners.

Leonel Campos got the ball in the ninth to mop up for the Jays. He allowed a leadoff home run by Jordy Mercer to make the final score 7-2 before finishing off the Pirates, stranding a two-out walk to Marte.

The inter-league series between Toronto and Pittsburgh is now knotted at one game apiece, and Jay Happ will face a reputedly tough right-hander, Chad Kuhl, in the rubber game tomorrow afternoon. Here’s hoping that, for the first time in this series, the game will be decided on the merits of one team or another, and not on mistakes. Sure, errors are part of the game, but they’re not all that edifying to watch.

(With apologies to the beloved childrens’ novelist Judith Viorst, whose wonderful title of her best-known book I have ripped off above.)

(And with apologies to Rob Refsnyder, who will surely see better days in a Toronto uniform.)

A couple of weeks ago, looking ahead to this weekend inter-league series in Toronto between the Blue Jays and the Pittsburgh Pirates, I caught myself thinking that it would be interesting to see an unfamiliar team in town, and always fun to watch major league baseball, but that the series wouldn’t have much meaning beyond the games themselves.

Now it looks a little different. For all the doom-saying, Toronto continues to slog along, playing slightly better than .500 ball since the All-Star Game at 16-14, and still not definitively out of the hunt for a wild card slot. And the Pirates, surprisingly, while coming in one game under .500 for the season, and seven and a half games behind the second wild card slot, find themselves only three games out of the division lead in the winning-challenged National League Central, where the defending World Champion Cubs hold the lead with a mediocre 59-54 record.

So, a series that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t mean a whole lot, but on the other hand certainly does not mean nothing.

The matchup tonight would seem to have favoured the home team, with marquee starter Marcus Stroman taking the hill against Canadian-by-descent Jameson Taillon. However, you can never discount the emotional response of a “home-boy” making his first start on Canadian soil. Taillon, born in Lakeland Florida of Canadian parentage on both sides, has been vocal in his feelings for his country of origin once removed, and had intended to pitch for the Canadian team in the World Baseball Classic, to repeat his participation for Canada in the 2013 tournament.

Taillon has had to traverse a rocky road to have become a semi-regular member of the Pittsburgh rotation in 2016, and a solid starter for the Pirates this year: Tommy John surgery in 2014. Recovery from a hernia operation which cost him all of 2015. And this year, surgery for testicular cancer on May 8, followed by only three weeks of recovery before making his first rehab start. Despite all, tonight he was making his eleventh consecutive start without missing an assignment since his return from the cancer surgery.

Taillon is a big strong guy who relies on a two-seam fast ball that usually runs upwards of 95 mph; when he throws a four-seamer, it can reach 97 and better. His mound opponent, Marcus Stroman, well, you know, bend but don’t break, as always.

After a first inning in which both sides went down in order, we realized that there was a real problem with Russell Martin, who had come out of the box slowly on his grounder to third in the bottom of the first; he came out for the warmups, took them from Stroman, made a weak throw down, and then was removed/removed himself from the game, causing a short delay while Raffy Lopez, who had never caught Stroman before, suited up and took some warmup throws on the field.

After getting three groundouts in the first inning, with Lopez behind the plate Stroman varied his approach, retiring the side in order again on a fly ball to left, a strikeout, and another groundout.

The Jays struck for a run in the bottom of the second to take the lead, but could have had more, as they missed an opportunity to get a real leg up on Taillon and the Pirates. Justin Smoak led off with a solid single to right centre. Steve Pearce was hitting cleanup tonight in the absence of Kendrys Morales, who, along with Nori Aoki, is fighting a flu bug and was unavailable. Pearce walked, and was followed by Zeke Carrera, who hit one hard the opposite way to left, but it stayed in the park for the first out. This brought Ryan Goins, hitting sixth tonight—strange things happening in the absence of Morales—to the plate. Goins hit a rope single to centre, but Smoak had to stop at third, loading the bases for Kevin Pillar, hitting behind Goins in seventh. Pillar hit a sacrifice fly to centre that scored Smoak, but Rob Refsnyder struck out—remember that—to end the inning.

I’d like to pause here for a consideration of the effect of the departure of Edwin Encarnacion on this year’s Blue Jays. The immediate comparison that want to make is between Encarnacion’s increasingly productive year with Cleveland, and Kendrys Morales’ record with Toronto, since that was the straight-up swap, if you will, of free agents that took place. This comparison favours Cleveland, both in terms of the numbers and in terms of clutch reliablity. While Morales hit a few dramatic shots earlier in the season, it’s obvious that his ability to deliver with runners on base is significantly less than Encarnacion’s, with his vulnerability to the breaking ball the obvious problem.

But the real comparison should be between Encarnacion and Justin Smoak, who took over from Encarnacion as the regular first baseman, and here the comparison is definitely skewed toward the Blue Jays, except in one important respect, which is actually my point here. In all other respects, Smoak has it over Edwin: five more homers, six more RBIs, hitting thirty points higher and flirting with .300 the whole year. When you add to that the fact that Smoak is markedly better defensively than Edwin, who’s not even playing in the field in Cleveland, where Carlos Santana has his occasional adventures at first, he’s four years younger, and way cheaper, it’s no contest, as much as I love Edwin Encarnacion.

Except. The only thing Encarnacion has over Smoak is that, though he’s not much faster, he’s a more instinctive and opportunistic base runner than Justin Smoak, and therein lies the only problem we’ve had with Smoak this year. Like David Ortiz in his last years with Boston, if Smoak leads off an inning with a base hit, it slows down the whole operation. Thus, tonight, he couldn’t score on Goins’ base hit after moving up on the walk. If Pillar comes to the plate with a run already in and runners on first and second, or even first and third, his approach is different, as he’s not governed by the notion of, above all else, get that run in from third. Maybe something different, and better, happens.

After this rather long digression, we need to turn to the nub of tonight’s game, the horrendous events of the Pirates’ third inning, during which the Jays threw this game away, pure and simple.

It’s important to set the context here, to understand how frustrating it was, for both Marcus Stroman and his team, that this game went south all in the one inning. Stroman had retired six in a row to start the game, on 26 pitches. Three pitches into the inning and he had seven in a row, shortstop Jordy Mercer flying out to centre. Three more pitches into the inning and he was 1-2 on John Jaso, who was hitting .212. Then Stroman threw one down and in, headed for Jaso’s back foot. Following typical modern baseball practice, Jaso didn’t move a muscle, and let the ball nick his foot, in violation of the rule that players have to make a reasonable attempt to get out of the way of the ball. Whatever.

The Jays asked for a review, but Jaso was awarded first. Franco Cervelli came to the plate, a catcher, mind you, and no twinkletoes he. Cervelli bounced one to Rob Refsnyder at second. Therewas one out already, Cervelli a perfect candidate for turning two. But Refsnyder uncorked a wild throw that sailed past Goins into short left, Jaso went on to third, and Cervelli was safe at first. With a clean exchange, the inning should have been over.

Adam Frazier then hit one hard to Donaldson at third, so hard that it spun him around and he went to his knees. But he was still able to fire a bullet to Refsnyder at second, though it wasn’t likely they’d turn two on the play. But after review they hadn’t recorded any outs, because it was clear that Refsnyder came off the bag before catching the ball. Cervelli was safe at second, Frazier at first, and Jaso in with the first Pirate run, to tie the game. Refsnyder was tagged with his second error of the inning on the play.

Josh Hamilton singled into right centre, a ball that Pillar had to hustle to cut off to keep from going to the wall. Cervelli scored for the Pirates’ lead and Frazier came around to third. Andrew McCutchen hit one in almost exactly the same direction as Harrison’s ball, but harder. Pillar was on his horse, and nearly tracked it down, but it deflected off his glove to Carrera playing right. Frazier scored, but Hamilton, who had to wait on a possible catch, only made it to third, whence he scored on a sacrifice fly by Josh Bell—remember, there was still only one out! But of course if Pillar had held the ball, and if Refsnyder had stayed on the bag . . . If . . .

Unfortunately, at this point McCutchen was removed from the game limping, and Starling Marte came in to run for him, but he was stranded at second when David Freese struck out to finally end the agony.

The final tally was four runs, all unearned, on two hits and the two errors by Refsnyder. Jose Bautista gave the Jays some faint hope by homering to lead off the bottom of the third, cutting the lead to 4-2. Raffy Lopez, hitting in Martin’s spot, singled following Bautista, and Donaldson hit one deep but catchable to Marte in centre, but Taillon, who’d had an extended rest on the bench in the top of the inning, settled down and retired Smoak and Pearce on a popup and a strikeout.

Believe it or not, that’s basically the whole story of the ball game. After the Lopez single, Taillon mowed down eleven Jays in a row, which took him to the top of the seventh. Zeke Carrera led off with a double over Frazier’s head in left, and then Ryan Goins hit one hard up the middle for a base hit. Marte was playing shallow in centre, and Jays’ third-base coach Luis Rivera played it safe and brought Carrera to a screeching halt. That was it for Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle, and Taillon was finished after a tidy six innings plus two batters, responsible for two base runners, having given up two runs on six hits with one walk and seven strikeouts on 93 pitches.

Hurdle gave the ball to George Kontos with the tying runs at first and third and nobody out, in what became the only other defining moment of this game when Kontos turned Toronto away without a run and stranded Carrera and Goins. Pillar popped out. Refsnyder fanned (remember that). Jose Bautista grounded into a fielder’s choice.

After that, Juan Nicasio gave up a two-out single to Smoak in the eighth, and closer Felipe Rivero gave up a two-out single to Pillar in the ninth, but both were stranded, Pillar, when Refsnyder made the final out with, not his third, but his fourth, strikeout of the game. Refsnyder fanned one other time that didn’t figure into the narrative, so his day ended up like this: two errors that allowed four unearned runs, oh for four at the plate with four strikeouts leaving five runners on base.

Was it a “horrible, terrible” and so on day for Rob Refsnyder? You can be the judge of that.

As for Marcus Stroman, he deserved better. Boy, did he deserve better! After the third, he gave up a two-out base hit to Harrison in the fifth, he walked Bell in the sixth but erased him with a double-play ball. He gave up a single to Frazier in the eighth but he erased him with a double-play ball.

Wait a minute, did I say the eighth? I sure did. Marcus Stroman pitched eight innings of shutout ball today (except for the four unearned runs in the third), giving up four hits and one walk while fanning four on 109 pitches. Too bad MLB doesn’t have a pitching category for virtual wins!

At the very least, Toronto has to win every series from here on in. They just made their job a little harder by throwing away game one of this series to the Pirates.

Tomorrow they get to try to win the first of two in a row to win this series, and they do it behind call-up Chris Rowley, who will be making his major-league debut on the mound for Toronto. Gulp.