Long Ball Stories

If you think you’d like to be a big league baseball player, maybe you should think twice about the work and travel regimen before signing on for the big bucks.

I don’t know how your work week went, but this is what the Jays’ last week looked like. Monday they arrived in the Twin Cities for a three game series with the Minnesota Twins. They played the Twins Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday afternoon.

After Wednesday’s 4-0 loss to the Twins’ star pitching prospect Fernando Romero, the team flew to Cleveland for the Thursday doubleheader that was scheduled to make up for the two games lost to rain in April in Cleveland.

As is usually the case, those rainouts in April sabotaged a much-coveted off day for both teams; both were available, decreed the poo-bahs of Major League Baseball, so play a doubleheader they shall!

In the face of another round of threatening weather that almost caused Toronto’s management to preemptively cancel the Wednesday night flight to Cleveland, the teams waited out a rain delay of nearly two hours past the 1:10 p.m. scheduled start time.

When they finally started, it was the beginning of a wild and crazy game that went eleven innings and was decided by a grand slam by Yanvergis Solarte, leading to a final score of 13 to 11 for the Blue Jays.

The second game started at 8:30 in the evening; it was a game in which Cleveland’s Triple A pitchers easily outpitched Toronto’s Triple A pitchers, to the tune of an ugly 13-4 loss for the Blue Jays, and a game that ended at 11:42 p.m., ten and a half hours after the doubleheader was supposed to start.

After the game—we’re still talking about Toronto’s travel schedule here—the Jays boarded a night flight to Tampa Bay, arriving there sometime close to dawn, one presumes, in order to bunk in and get some rest before the start of the weekend’s three game series with the Tampa Bay Rays.

As for the anomaly in my headline for today’s piece, it’s explained thus: Wednesday’s loss to the Twins followed two Blue Jays’ wins in Minnesota, so they won that series. When you combine the doubleheader split with the result of the only game played in the original weekend series, an 8-4 Toronto win, then Toronto wins this Cleveland “series” as well.

Because the games have come hot and heavy this week even for yer humble scribe, I’m going to treat the three games just played all in one piece, and I’m going to abandon my usual in-depth analysis of how it all went down, just to touch on certain highlights, and notable moments and issues.

Questions abounded on both sides of the pitching matchup for Wednesday’s matinee closer in Minneapolis-St. Paul. For the the Blue Jays, it was one big one: whither Marcus Stroman? Would he avoid the one-inning beatdown that’s plagued him for much of the year? Other questions were, would he finally start to be more economical with his pitches? Would he avoid the solid contact he’s experienced lately? Would he get deeper into a game for the first time all season? The answers to these questions were yes, yes, not really, and definitely yes, notwithstanding that yet again he was unable to spearhead a victory for his team.

Just to get the numbers out of the way, Stroman went seven full innings and gave up two runs on six hits with one walk and five strikeouts, on just 99 pitches. Unexpectedly, it was one of the most solid and complete starts we’ve seen from any of the Jays’ starters all season.

He gave up a run in the first and a run in the third and that was it, so he avoided the big inning problem that’s been so troubling for him.

As for the solid contact, in the first two innings he had three balls hit solidly against him. Leadoff hitter Brian Dozier hit one to the warning track in centre in the first, and Eduardo Escobar hit one to deep centre in the second before Eddie Rosario hit one the opposite way and way deep to left centre for a one-run Minnesota lead.

By contrast, the Twins scored their second run in the third with only one solid hit. Stroman gave up a leadoff infield hit off the glove of Yanvergis Solarte at third by Gregorio Petit, who stole second, but had to stop at third on the only good hit, a line single to right by old pro Joe Mauer. Petit finally scored on Max Kepler’s groundout to first.

After that Stroman stayed in charge. He gave up a base hit in the fourth, got a double-play ball after an error in the fifth, then gave up a hit, and stranded a leadoff double in the sixth. His seventh inning was a ten-pitch three-up, three-down, rounding back on his first inning of work.

So, the only thing wrong with Stroman’s start is that he didn’t win it because Toronto couldn’t score, which raises the question of Minnesota’s starter, Fernando Romero, who was a callup, the Twins’ top pitching prospect, and was making his much-anticipated major league debut against the Blue Jays.

For the Twins the only question was whether Romero was the real deal, and based on this outing, things look pretty good for him, and for the future of the Minnesota rotation. He has a good, heavy fast ball and a nasty sinking slider.

As debuts go for rookie starters, he wasn’t exactly lights out, but he was effective when he had to be, and this seemed to be one of those days when his opponents weren’t up to much, no matter who was pitching.

Romero went five and two thirds innings of scoreless ball, giving up 4 hits and 3 walks, with 5 strikeouts, on 97 pitches. That’s the impressive part.

The less impressive part was that he had to work his way out of trouble in three different innings. He had two runners on in the second, fourth, and fifth innings. Twice he faced Kendrys Morales with two on and struck him out with his slider, showing that he can utilize a scouting report with the best of them.

So did Fernando Romero look like the saviour of the pitching staff that the Twins are looking for, especially in the absence of the injured Erwin Santana? Not completely. Did he look like he’ll be a very good major league pitcher, sooner rather than later? Absolutely.

One Jay hitter who had his number was Kevin Pillar, who went two for two with a walk against him, singling in the second and fourth, and walking in the sixth, the walk which prompted manager Paul Molitor to call it a day on Romero.

As for those two singles by Pillar, sadly his extra-base-hit streak came to an end at ten in the second inning when he hit a measly single instead of a double or better. Still, with the two base hits he ended up the day hitting .324, and I’m starting to wonder if the Pillar nay-sayers might end up not having much to chew on this year, as the “different” Kevin Pillar seems to be developing some real staying power.

The Twins’ bullpen followed Romero with a solid three and a third innings of relief, as Toronto showed no ability to mount any kind of a rally against Trevor Hildenberger, Zach Duke, Addison Reed, and Fernando Rodney.

Aaron Loup had his first rough outing in some time, but it wasn’t like the Twins clobbered him in the eighth inning. The first two hitters reached against him with soft Texas Leaguers, and only Robbie Grossman with a line single to load the bases hit the ball hard off him. Loup gave up a third Minnesota run then on a sacrifice fly, and the fourth one, also charged to him, scored on a bases-loaded walk by Carlos Ramirez, who finished out the inning.

So the Twins pitched well enough and Toronto didn’t hit hardly at all except for Pillar, and the result was that the Blue Jays had to put away their brooms for another sweep opportunity down the road, pack quickly, and head off for Cleveland, where the rain clouds were threatening once again.

On Thursday afternoon, the weather gods helped the MLB schedulers avert a huge disaster by parting those clouds, albeit a little late, and allowing the Blue Jays and Cleveland to complete their very long, and very messy, doubleheader.

Sometimes life intrudes on baseball, even for me, and Thursday was one of those times. My wife and I had planned to drive all the way across town during rush hour to attend our five-year-old grandson’s spring concert at school, preceded by a light supper at his parents’ home.

We’d planned to leave the house about 4:00, so I thought I’d get to see most of the first game of the doubleheader before leaving. Silly me. That one hour and 53 minute rain delay for the start of game one left me able to watch only the first couple of innings.

This meant that I had to listen to/follow the rest of that crazy, crazy game with Mike Wilner and Ben Wagner on the car radio, and by surreptitiously watching Gameday at appropriate, or sometimes inappropriate, moments during our visit.

The good thing was that we were well in the car and on the way home when Solarte broke up the game in the eleventh inning, and I was able to hear Wilner’s excited home-run call live.

The bad thing, the really bad thing, the really, really bad thing, was that between the rain delay and the long first game I was able to watch the whole second game, every excruciating moment of it.

So the last play that I saw live of the first game was actually Yanvergis Solarte’s face plant at third base in the third inning. He really took one for the team, that crazy Solarte. Toronto was already leading 2-0 on Russell Martin’s second-inning homer, which cashed Solarte’s first hit of the day/night, a leadoff single to left.

Solarte had led off the third for the second inning in a row with a line shot the opposite way to left while hitting left off the right-handed Cleveland starter Carlos Carrasco. Carrasco, by the way, looked like he’s not quite ready for prime time after being on the DL. He sure didn’t dominate the Toronto lineup.

This time Solarte ended up on second with a double. Then, with one out and Kevin Pillar on behind him with a walk, Solarte advanced successfully from second to third when Martin flied out to centre fielder Brad Zimmer.

It was Solarte’s awkward slide into third that tore up his upper lip, requiring the training staff to attend to him, and leaving him with a big plaster-y-type bandage on his upper lip that looked like a milk ‘stache.

There must have been some magic in that old bandage he wore (come on, sing along with me here) because from that point on Solarte continued on what turned out to be the tear of all tears. He collected three more hits after the single and double to left, to go five for six with a walk. Plus, he piled up six RBIs, two on a two-out fourth-inning single, and of course the four on the walk-off grand slam in the eleventh.

And yes, Solarte did have base hits in all three of the second, third, and fourth innings.

And yes, he did set a Toronto record with eight base hits in the doubleheader, and joined Josh Donaldson—wait for it, he’s up for discussion in this piece too—in tying a major league record of a team having two players hit a home run in each end of a doubleheader.

So then there’s Donaldson, who made his surprise return to action for the doubleheader, when everybody but Donaldson was expecting him to join the team in Tampa Bay for the weekend.

He of course also had a great game of it, going 3 for 7 with a game-tying home run off Nick Goody in the sixth inning, after Cleveland’s horrendous seven-run rally in the fourth had wiped out Toronto’s exciting five-run early lead.

And yes, I admit that I’d just finished grousing to my wife in the car that I thought Donaldson had come back too soon to play in Cleveland, when he hit his RBI double in the Toronto fourth. This embarrassing turn of events led to much mirth and jocularity from my wife over the rest of the evening, whenever Donaldson’s name came up.

Really must remember not to make dire predictions out loud, especially not within the hearing of my wife, who is sometimes merciless.

So Donaldson’s back in full force, and we don’t know whether it was his competing presence at third, or the magical bandage that caused Solarte to go on his tear, but whatever caused it, we’ll take it.

The other issue I’d like to address about game one is the Toronto pitching. Jaime Garcia, who’d looked awfully good for the first three innings, suffered from another one of those meltdown innings in the fourth that we’ve seen far too many times from Toronto’s starters.

After the Cleveland seven-run fourth, it would be up to the bullpen to keep Toronto in the game. After all, after four innings the score was only 7-5, and there was a long way to go. A long, long way to go.

After Garcia’s early exit in the fourth, it was student body to the pitching mound for the Blue Jays. Danny Barnes struggled and gave up a run of his own before closing out the fourth.

Barnes was followed by John Axford, Tyler Clippard, Ryan Tepera, Seung-Hwan Oh, Tim Mayza, and Robert Osuna.

The big Canadian John Axford, who’s been nothing short of a revelation so far this year, was fantastic following Barnes. He retired seven batters in a row—no mean feat in and of itself against these Cleveland hitters—and did it on only 18 pitches.

Of the parade of relievers, only the usually redoubtable Ryan Tepera, and Roberto Osuna, who tends to lose focus when there’s no save on the line, were touched up by Cleveland.

After Toronto had scored a pair of runs in the seventh and eighth innings to retake the lead at 9-7, Tepera allowed Cleveland to tie it up in their eighth, giving up a solo home run to Francisco Lindor, and then an unearned run that scored as the result of a very embarrassing 3-base error by Solarte, whom circumstances managed to place at first base, a not-great fit for him, by the eighth inning.

And Osuna gave back two of the four Solarte grand-slam runs in the bottom of the eleventh before closing out the game by fanning pinch-hitter Yonder Alonso and getting Jason Kipnis to fly out to centre to end the game with the tying run, for god’s sake, after all this, at the plate.

Then there was game two of the doubleheader, which I did watch. Oy, did I watch that one. Ugh.

Since this was a game in which Cleveland’s minor league pitchers were better than Toronto’s minor league pitchers, and that’s pretty well the whole story of the game, we need to address the fact that the “traditional doubleheader” is simply not a good fit for baseball the way it is played, or rather managed, now.

The traditional doubleheader, and I’ve only heard the term this year, for some reason, is the type of doubleheader that used to be part of the regular schedule. The two games would be played consecutively, with about a twenty-minute break in between.

They might have been scheduled as a day doubleheader, usually on Sundays, with the first game starting at the normal time of 1:00. Alternatively, twilight or twilight/night doubleheaders, usually slotted for a 5:00 start, would sometimes be slotted for Friday nights.

Obviously, there are no longer any scheduled doubleheaders. Team managements are completely unwilling to give up the revenue from even a single game date.

So doubleheaders are now utilized only as a last resort to make up for rained-out games. As in Thursday’s twin bill, for which the MLB schedulers utilized a mutual off-day to slot in the two games to make up for the weekend games that were rained out on April 15^thand 16^th.

The traditional doubleheader runs completely counter to the contemporary practice in utilizing pitchers, both starters and relievers.

There are virtually no complete games any more. A starting pitcher has done a good job if he has finished six innings and kept his team close. The average for all starting pitchers in major league baseball (an educated guess here) would be about five and a third innings, five and two thirds tops.

That means that on a daily basis a team’s bullpen has to provide from three to four innings of work. Combine this with the fact that most teams carry only seven relievers, and there are five starters.

Allied to this is the disappearance for all practical purposes of the long man, the bullpen guy who can throw two or even three innings, and fill in as an extra starter. With the need for the bullpen to cover so many innings effectively on a daily basis, the guy who isn’t a one-inning specialist has a lot of trouble finding a spot for himself on a roster.

The upshot of all this is plain and simple: teams can’t possibly use the pitchers needed for two games on the same day that are either long or high-scoring, and hope to continue playing the rest of the week.

So MLB has come up with a solution for a problem that it created: teams can activate a twenty-sixth player for doubleheaders. Almost inevitably, this player is a minor league starter who will take the start in one of the games. In other words, it’s a roll of the dice. And woe betide the team whose minor league starter has a short night after a long first game.

So that’s what happened to Toronto in the second game of the doubleheader: Joe Biagini was average, or, worse, typical for him in recent starts for Toronto, and Adam Plutko was outstanding for Cleveland. Case closed.

But it was close until the fifth inning, in fact it was tied 2-2, but Biagini had wavered and struggled with his control from the start. In the fifth inning he hit the wall, and hit it very hard. Cleveland scored nine runs, count ’em, nine, in the fifth inning off Biagini and his successor on the mound, Luis Santos, who had no more success than Biagini.

In fact, it’s part of the cruel calculation of managing such games that John Gibbons, after Santos had given up five of the nine Cleveland runs on 31 pitches to get out of the fifth, was sent back out to give up another run in the sixth before finishing up at 51 pitches for one and two-thirds innings.

No way was Gibbie going to waste another member of his real bullpen on such a lost cause. And of course Santos’ reward for his appearance in the game was a one-way ticket back to Buffalo.

There’s nothing sadder in baseball, I think, than a fringe pitcher, or a minor league callup, labouring away in the late innings of a blowout. It’s a chance for him to shine, of course, and make his case for a job, but if it doesn’t go well, there he is out there, getting pummelled or walking everybody, and everybody in the ball park knows that there’s no one warming up in the bullpen.

And short of injury, there won’t be.

After Santos was wrung out, there were still six more outs to be gotten, and this time the sacrificial lamb was Carlos Ramirez, who had been brilliant, both at Buffalo and at the end of the year in Toronto, last season.

But Ramirez couldn’t find the plate.

After getting the first out Ramirez walked the bases full and then bounced one while striking out Tyler Naquin for the second out, allowing Jose Ramirez to score from third with Cleveland’s final run.

Our Ramirez, Carlos, threw 28 pitches in that seventh inning, more than enough for a reliever, but there he was, back out on the mound for the eighth. He held Cleveland off the board this time, but gave up a fourth walk and his only hit. He needed 27 pitches this time, for a total of 55.

Joe Biagini 86 pitches. Luis Santos 51 pitches. Carlos Ramirez 55 pitches. 192 pitches total. Enough for an efficient starter to throw two complete games. Look up some of Roy Halladay’s complete games and see. Or Mickey Lolich and Bob Gibson in the fabled 1968 World Series between the Tigers and the Cardinals.

So in the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader Cleveland manager Terry Francona and Toronto manager John Gibbons rolled the dice for starting pitchers. Francona, with Adam Plutko, rolled sevens, or whatever’s good in Craps. Gibbons rolled snake-eyes.

For what it’s worth, Adam Plutko threw seven and a third innings, gave up three runs on six hits, walked nobody, struck out six, and threw 104 pitches.

And the Toronto Blue Jays dragged their tired asses out of Cleveland in the middle of the night for their date with the Rays on Friday evening, with not even their spirits to buoy them up after the embarrassing second-game slaughter.

And Joe Biagini, Luis Santos, and Carlos Ramirez headed back to Buffalo, with nothing to show for their quick trip to Cleveland but some terrible numbers in their major league statistics. And a day or so of pro-rated major league pay.

Oh, and Plutko? He was back to Triple A after the game as well.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I can’t help but wonder what Paul Molitor must be thinking about the play of his currently-tanking Minnesota Twins after they threw away a second straight game to the visiting Toronto Blue Jays.

The Twins took an early lead on Marco Estrada with two runs in the first inning, on a solo homer by Joe Mauer, who looks like he’ll go on forever, and a double to right by Eddie Rosario that scored Max Kepler, who had reached on a walk.

Estrada, who has regularly experienced one really bad inning in each start, came up short in the first inning yesterday, and ended up throwing 31 pitches, virtually guaranteeing that he wouldn’t be seeing the seventh inning, or even a quality start.

To be fair to Estrada, he’d gotten the soft contact in the air that he needed from Rosario to end the inning, but the foul fly he hit to left just barely spun out of the reach of a sliding Curtis Granderson, giving him another shot that resulted in the RBI double.

Estrada kept the Twins from extending the lead as he settled down to complete five innings without further damage. He allowed two base hits in the second as his pitch count ballooned to 54.

After Kepler’s leadoff single in the third, however, he retired eight in a row to take him to the end of the fifth. By then the game was all tied up, and things were looking fairly bright for Toronto.

Minnesota’s veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson had protected his early lead through four innings. He allowed a walk to Kevin Pillar in the second, hit Granderson on the foot with a pitch in the third, and gave up a two-out double to Pillar in the fourth.

Pillar had two doubles on the day, the second one starting the Jays’s winning rally in the tenth inning, thereby extending his extra-base-hit streak to ten, one short of the franchise record.

Gibson started the fifth inning by going to 3-1 on Kendrys Morales, who was leading off. For some silly reason Gibson and catcher Mitch Garver thought it was a good idea to throw Morales a fast ball on 3-1. Then they got to watch their good idea soar into the elevated seats in right, cutting the Twins’ lead to one.

Luke Maile followed Morales with a sharp line single to left. But Gibson at this point suffered another one of those defensive lapses by his team-mates that doesn’t show up in the box score, but hurts just the same.

Jays’ manager John Gibbons, in his ongoing quest to be named Manager of the Year, with nobody out started Maile on a 1-1 pitch to Aledmys Diaz, who strikes out. A lot. But Diaz made contact, and it resulted in a strange play on the scoreboard.

Diaz hit the ball sharply to third. It looked like a double-play ball. But with Maile running, the third baseman Eduardo Escobar had to field the ball quickly and unload in a hurry to second-baseman Gregorio Petit to have any chance to turn two.

Escobar bobbled the ball, then threw to second, and Petit made the pivot and throw to first. But Maile beat the throw to second, whereas Diaz, who doesn’t exactly go down the line like a shortstop (well, maybe Troy Tulowitzki) was out easily at first.

This resulted in Diaz’ out being recorded as a ground ball 5-4-3, with Maile safe at second on a fielder’s choice. If you get one out while trying to turn two because the ball was mishandled or there was a bad throw, the rules don’t allow an error to be scored for the bobble, because the rules don’t assume double plays will be made.

So, no error, but a defensive lapse that led to the tying run. Maile, who runs the bases sharply, especially for a catcher, advanced to third on a short grounder to third by Teoscar Hernandez, and then scored when Justin Smoak flared a little looper into centre for a hit.

By the way, is there anybody out there who is still scorning the waiver selection of Luke Maile last April? As Russell Martin’s regularly scheduled relief catcher, he has been a treasure, and a big contributor to the team’s record.

Gibson fanned Yangervis Solarte for the third out, but by the time all this transpired, the Twins’ starter had accumulated 30 pitches in the inning, taking him to 96 on the game, and he would have to give it up and not come out for the sixth, leaving with the score tied.

Estrada retired the side in the bottom of the fifth, throwing only 13 pitches. The last one was a beauty, a mesmerizing curve that froze Max Kepler for strike three. Kepler had been the last batter to reach base on Estrada, with his leadoff single in the third, and with this strikeout he was the ninth straight Twin to go down before Estrada’s slants.

Kepler is an interesting anomaly: he was born in Berlin, and when I first heard this I assumed he was a U.S. military brat, but, no, he’s actually a German-German. More interestingly, he was a fellow participant in the MLB European tryout camp in Torino, Italy, with Gift Ngoepe. They both came out of the camp with contracts with major league teams. Kepler signed with the Twins in 2009.

Most importantly, he’s a fine-looking young ball player with a quick and strong bat, and good fielding instincts. He has handled centre-field well for the Twins in the absence of the injured Byron Buxton and will be a good fit for the Twins in either corner when Buxton comes back.

Molitor gave the ball to Ryan Pressly for the Jays’ sixth. Pressly had wavered but not cracked in an inning and two thirds on Monday night, but last night he became the second victim of the amazing and unexpected revival of Kendrys Morales. Pressly retired his first two batters, Pillar and Gurriel Jr. on line drives to the outfield, on only three pitchesl.

But despite the extensive book on Morales’ troubles with the curve, Pressly and Garver decided to lay in another 2-1 fast ball to the big slugger, and this one ended up in almost the same spot as the first one. Toronto had a 3-2 lead, up on the Twins for the first time in the game.

John Gibbons sent Marco Estrada back out for the bottom of the sixth when he’d already thrown 94 pitches. I understand why he sent him out for the bottom of the sixth. He had been rolling along nicely, and with his easy delivery he could easily go another inning, up to about 110 pitches or so. Besides, Estrada is a veteran, and that cuts a little more ice with Gibbie, I think.

So he sent him back out to face the switch-hitting Escobar and the left-handed Rosario. I would have done the same. And would have been just as disappointed as Gibbie surely was, that Estrada gave up a double to the right-field corner to Escobar, and a jack to Rosario that not only gave the Twins the lead again, but knocked Estrada out of the game.

Seung-Hwan Oh came in and threw about as well as he has so far this year, retiring the side, striking out Garver and Adrianza, and getting a grounder to second from the slumping Logan Morrison, all on 18 pitches.

The lefty Zach Duke protected the slim lead in the top of the seventh inning, and John Axford, who’s building quite a late-inning resume, whipped through the bottom of the inning on 14 pitches. Gregorio Petit hit a grounder back to him that he deflected off to Gurriel Jr. but he’d slowed it down and Petit was safe. The second sacker, of course, was lined up to make the play just fine until the pitcher got in the way.

Non-plussed, Axford blew a high fast ball past Robbie Grossman on a 2-2 pitch, and then got a double-play ball from Joe Mauer. Diaz took the ball at short and made a good feed to second, and the fast pivot and strong arm of Gurriel Jr. in turning the ball over to first were a wonder to see.

Paul Molitor brought in Addison Reed to protect the one-run lead in the eighth. Reed ran into control trouble immediately, going 3-0 on Justin Smoak. The latter disdained two fast balls to bring it to a full count, and then took ball four down and in. Oh, those leadoff walks . . .

The catcher Garver went out to talk to Reed. I’m pretty sure he didn’t tell him to go 3 and 0 on Solarte, and then throw two fast balls in the zone. Solarte took the first one for a strike, but the second one, a little higher and on the inside half, he really liked, so he pulled it on a line into the left-field corner for a double, with Smoak chugging into third. Nobody out, of course.

Pillar wasted no time ensuring a tie game, hitting the first pitch from Reed out into left field deep enough for Smoak to score standing up after the catch. Solarte held second, and died there, as Reed struck out Gurriel Jr. , walked Morales intentionally to fill the open base at first, and struck out Maile to end the inning.

Ryan Tepera efficiently disposed of the tough part of the Minnesota order, Kepler, Rosario, Escobar, on three easy chances and only 12 pitches.

Molitor went to his closer, Fernando Rodney, for the Toronto ninth, and Rodney needed an overturned call at first on leadoff batter Aledmys Diaz to keep Toronto off the score sheet. After Diaz was declared out at first on a play from the shortstop Adrianza, Rodney fanned Granderson, but gave up an infield hit to Hernandez and walked Smoak, so that when Solarte came to the plate, there were two on and two out, instead of the bases loaded and one out. But that’s what video replay is for, and Solarte grounded out to second to end the inning.

Tyler Clippard continued the fine run of the Toronto bullpen, and his own run of good work, retiring the side on eight pitches to send the game to extra innings. On this night, Oh, Axford, Tepera, and Clippard allowed only one baserunner in total, and that was the infield hit that Axford slowed down with his glove in the seventh.

Kevin Pillar led off for Toronto in the top of the tenth, and the way Pillar’s been going, you had to know he’d be up to starting things off on the right foot. John Curtiss, he of the flowing locks, had replaced Rodney on the mound. Pillar didn’t let him get too comfortable out there.

On a 1-0 pitch Curtiss threw a low fast ball, in the zone and a little outside. Showing his new-found maturity, Pillar didn’t try to pull it, but drove it toward the alley in right centre, and ended up with a double. As I mentioned above, this was his tenth straight extra-base hit.

But it was after Pillar reached base that he created the conditions for a game-winning rally with his smart, aggressive baserunning. Gurriel Jr for the first time was undisciplined at the plate, striking out on a 3-2 fast ball that was clearly ball four outside. Morales was up next, and after two dingers, he barely had time to pick up his bat before he was waved to first on an intentional pass.

Choosing his moment perfectly, Pillar broke for third and stole it easily. On the next pitch, John Gibbons and Tim Leiper tried to decoy the Twins into throwing the ball away. Morales was improbably sent off to second on a straight steal, but the Twins didn’t bite, Garver ate the ball, and Morales had himself a stolen base.

With only one out and first base open, and maybe with the Twins aware of the success rate of Luke Maile in situations like this, Curtiss pitched carefully to the Toronto catcher and walked him on a 3-2 pitch.

Then the Twins just threw the game away, literally. Curtiss threw a wild pitch to Diaz that scored Pillar, with Morales and Maile moving up. Gibbie inserted Gift Ngoepe to run for Morales at third as Diaz came to the plate.

Diaz hit a sharp grounder to short but Petit, playing in, had all kinds of trouble handling it. Ngoepe scored, Maile moved up to third, and Diaz had an infield single, courtesy of an overly-indulgent Minnesota scorer.

Then, and finally, Curtiss wild-pitched Maile home with the third run of the inning for Toronto. Matt Magill came in to retire Granderson and Hernandez on outfield chances. So the Jays led 7-4 with three runs in the tenth on one solid hit, one infield hit, two walks, two wild pitches, and a bobbled ground ball.

With a three run lead it was still a save situation for Toronto, and Roberto Osuna made short work of it, two easy flies and a grounder on six pitches.

So, led by Kendrys Morales, and especially Kevin Pillar, Toronto secured its third straight win after the dismal losing streak. We owe a lot to those two for leading us to a win during which we only led briefly by a run one time until the tenth inning.

But, for both Monday night’s game and last night’s, to be honest, we owe a bigger debt of gratitude to the feckless, error-prone Twins for their great generosity.

My thoughts return to Paul Molitor, who has been an excellent presence as the manager of the Twins, but must be suffering deeply through this bad stretch.

Do we think that Molitor may be thinking back fondly to the glory days of his short Toronto stay?

There wasn’t a pre-season prognosticator who would have put the Toronto Blue Jays on the same page as the Minnesota Twins as possible playoff contenders. I might’ve, mind you, but then I’m a little less than objective.

It would have been more than a little surprising, then, if they could have foreseen that a 15-12 Blue Jays’ team would arrive in the Twin Cities for a three-game series at the beginning of May with a Twins team struggling along at 9 and 14.

And all of baseballdom must register shock if not horror that a Minnesota team managed by the great Paul Molitor would make such a shoddy showing of it in losing to the visitors last night in the first game of the series, the last game of the April schedule.

To be fair to Minnesota, the team is playing more rookies than any playoff-hopeful team should. Injuries to slugging third baseman Miguel Sano and non-pareil centre-fielder Byron Buxton would obviously be hard to cover for any team. And then they were hit with the 80-game suspension of their starting shortstop, Gregory Polanco under the doping protocol.

But of course no team is immune from the injury bug; after all the Jays themselves are playing without the entire left side of their all-star, playoff-contender infield, having to cover the absence of both Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki. And yet, look at the records.

Even the pitching matchup was reflective of the differing fortunes of the two teams. Aaron Sanchez, who had a completely lost year in 2017 because of blister problems, is gradually returning to the form he showed in 2016 when he was the American League ERA champion.

Lance Lynn, starting for the Twins, was a late off-season free agent signing (as who wasn’t?) after pitching exclusively for the St. Louis Cardinals throughout his career. He was, in fact, one of the most prominent of the second-tier free-agent pitchers, i.e. anyone not named Jake Arrieta or Yu Darvish.

Lynn was an important piece in the Cardinals’ rotation from his first full year of 2012 through 2017. He had a career record in the National League of 72 wins and 47 losses, throwing to an ERA of 3.50, and never pitching less than 175 and a third innings in the five years he was in the rotation.

But Lynn has not made a good transition to the American League. In four starts he has only thrown 18 and two thirds innings, walking 18 and fanning 22. He entered last night’s game with a record of 0-2 and an ERA of 7.70.

Before we go with the game, though, I have to fill you in on the latest roster moves. As i mentioned at the end of my piece on the three-game Texas series at the TV Dome, Randal Grichuk sprained his knee when he made that crucial catch in the first inning of Sunday’s game. He’s been put on the DL, with a projected 3-weeks’ timeline, and because the Jays still have four outfielders contributing significantly without Grichuk, they decided to shore up their thin infield corps by recalling Gift Ngoepe from Buffalo.

It’s quite notable that it was Ngoepe who was recalled, and that Devon Travis was left in Buffalo to work out his hitting problems. This latest move belies the claim that the main reason Travis was sent down was in order to add a much-needed reliever at the end of the home stand.

You wouldn’t have known Lynn’s been struggling by the way he started out last night. He caught Curtis Granderson looking (with some help from home plate umpire Adam Hamari) Then he got ground balls from Teoscar Hernandez and Justin Smoak and finished with only 8 pitches.

Aaron Sanchez in turn had 2 outs in three pitches, with Brian Dozier lining the first pitch right at Lourdes Gurriel Jr. at second, and Joe Mauer grounding sharply back to Sanchez on the second pitch he saw. Eddie Rosario was positively eclectic in his approach, taking three pitches to fly out to left.

So Lynn at 8 pitches and Sanchez at 6 for 14 in total, it looked like it was going to ba pretty quick night.

But whereas my game notes for the first inning take up only two lines, the second inning runs to 9 lines as the Jays scored 2 to take the lead and the Twins loaded the bases on Sanchez with two outs before he retired the side without allowing a run.

The first Toronto run was delivered by Gurriel Jr in what has been billed as possibly the shortest RBI single in major league history. What it was, however, was a terrible mental mistake/misjudgement by Twins’ catcher Mitch Garver.

Here’s how it all came down. Yanvergis Solarte, who seems to be in the middle of every Toronto rally these days, led off with a hard ground ball that beat the shift into right centre for a base hit. Kevin Pillar followed with a line drive into right centre that split the outfielders. He ended up at second with Solarte stopping at third.

In a strange but impressive stat, Pillar’s double was his eighth straight extra-base hit. In other words, his last eight hits have been for extra bases.

After Russell Martin struck out on a 3-2 pitch for the first out, Lynn went to a 3-0 count on Kendrys Morales, and then the Twins chose to put him on, since first base was open. This brought Gurriel Jr. to the plate.

Gurriel was up there looking to put the ball in play. He fouled off a cutter on the outside corner for strike one, and then swung over a low fast ball, He topping it so it rolled, agonizingly slowly, up the third base line, mostly in foul territory but always touching the line. The catcher Garver came out from behind the plate, bent over the ball and watched it, planning to kill it, I suppose, as soon as it lost contact with the line. But it never did, and he finally picked it up.

Problem was, he was way too late. Solarte, forced from third, had roared down the line and was already out of Garver’s reach when the catcher picked up the ball. Gurriel of course was already out of sight down the line to first.

What was he thinking? What was the advantage of having the ball go foul, giving Gurriel another hack, as opposed to picking it up for an easy first out and preventing a run?

It’s an image that will stick: Garver bending over the ball, studying it intently as it perversely clung to the slightest contact with the foul line, and Solarte racing past him to the plate.

Lynn managed to regroup and fan Aledmys Diaz, bringing Granderson back to the plate for the second time. After Granderson worked the count to 3-2, Lynn missed badly with a fast ball low and outside, forcing in Pillar with the second run. He dodged a much bigger bullet when Hernandez made solid contact with two outs, but hit it to the deepest part of the park where Max Kepler flagged it down.

As much as the Toronto rotation is supposed to be a strong point, it’s never easy with these guys. We’ve seldom seen a shutdown inning after a rally, and Aaron Sanchez had to struggle to keep the Twins off the board in their half of the second.

He started well. Eduardo Escobar and Kepler both grounded out to second, for five consecutive outs at the top of the lineup. Then either he let up or the Twins buckled down. Robbie Grossman singled up the middle. Logan Morrison managed to stick the front of his jersey out far enough to flag down an inside pitch and claim a base. Mitch Garver, needing to make up for his mistake behind the plate, lined a hard single into left to load the bases; it was hit too hard to score Grossman from second.

After Russell Martin made a trip out to the mound to give Sanchez a breather, Ehire Adrianza, the Twins’ rookie shortstop, grounded one out to Diaz near the bag at second for an easy forceout to end the inning.

With a lot of help from Lance Lynn the Jays loaded the bases again in the top of the third on a base hit by Solarte and walks to Martin and Morales, but the threat died when Lynn struck out Gurriel Jr. on a foul tip. Sanchez walked Joe Mauer in the bottom of the inning and faced hard contact from Rosario and Escobar but avoided further damage.

What was telling, and a harbinger of what was to come, was that after three innings Lynn’s pitch total was 60, and Sanchez’ was 38.

The fate of Lance Lynn on this night was decided in the top of the fourth, when Toronto added 3 runs to its lead. With one out Granderson drew a walk. Hernandez hit a bullet over Grossman’s head to the wall in right. It’s a measure of Hernandez’ power that this ball was hit so hard to the opposite field. Granderson moved to third on the double, and then Mitch Garver let his pitcher down again, allowing Granderson to score and Hernandez to move up on a passed ball.

The next two runs were the responsibility of the pitcher Lynn, who thought it was okay to throw Justin Smoak a 1-2 waist-high fast ball on the inside corner. Smoak gave it a real ride to right centre; there was no doubt from the crack of the bat that it was gone.

From this point the narrative of the game became the Twins’ futile effort to catch up, which they sabotaged by their own mistakes. In their fourth Teoscar Hernandez kind of circled around Max Kepler’s leadoff drive to right, and it banged off the wall hard enough to let Kepler get to third with a triple. Kepler made a mistake not tagging up in time on Grossman’s lineout to right, but scored anyway on Morrison’s ground out to second.

Russ Martin’s blast to left when he swung away on a 3-0 pitch in the top of the fifth inning restored the five-run lead, but Lynn managed to limp through the inning to finish off his day with six runs allowed on seven hits with a damaging five walks on 99 pitches.

If there’s an indication of how Sanchez isn’t quite “there” yet, it’s the fact that again in the fifth inning he got two outs, and then found trouble. He seems to be lacking the instinct to finish well. After fanning Brian Dozier and retiring Mauer on a grounder he deflected to Gurriel, he suddenly bloomed to 3-1 on Eddie Rosario before losing him. The only thing worse than a leadoff walk, sometimes, is a two-out walk. Escobar stepped in and powdered one to dead centre, and the score was now 6-3 after five.

In the Twins’ sixth, after Trevor Hildenberger kept the Jays off the bases with only six pitches, the Twins clawed back a fourth run off Sanchez in his last inning, eliminating his quality start. Robbie Grossman lined a double into left field, moved to third on a groundout, and scored on a groundout, and Sanchez left the game to the hardworking Toronto bullpen to protect only a two-run lead.

With Lynn already gone and Sanchez gone now, the game was in the hands of the bullpens. It was an even fight. Aaron Loup let Joe Mauer on with a leadoff single in the seventh, and Danny Barnes came in to give up a run-scoring double to Max Kepler.

The score remained a tight 6-5, in a game the Jays had thought was salted away, until the top of the ninth, when the Twins made two errors, one of which led to a valuable insurance run for Toronto.

Facing the right-handed Ryan Pressly, Justin Smoak lofted a fly ball the wrong way into the left field corner. Eddie Rosario drifted over for it, caught up with it only to flub away an easy catch as Smoak steamed (sort of) into second base. Yanvergis Solarte grounded a single up the middle that allowed Smoak to score.

The inning and the torture for Ryan Pressly, and manager Paul Molitor, weren’t over. Kevin Pillar hit into what should have been a double play started by shortstop Ehire Adrianza. But Brian Dozier at second fumbled away the feed from Adrianza and both Solarte and Pillar were safe.

Pressly dodged further problems because Max Kepler made a fine diving catch coming in on a sinking liner by Russell Martin. He then ended the rising by fanning Kendrys Morales.

The Twins made it close in the ninth and made Roberto Osuna work for his seventh save in eight opportunities. With one out Rosario singled to centre, and with two outs Kepler doubled into the right-field corner, but Rosario had to be stopped at third, bringing Robbie Grossman to the plate. Grossman hit an easy fly ball to centre that Pillar camped under for the third out, and an escape by a relieved Osuna and his team-mates.

It’s hard to imagine how the proud professional Paul Molitor must feel about watching a performance like this. It was a game that in some ways Toronto was ready to give away, but the Twins seemed to want it even less, even as they closed the gap at the end.

First blood in Minnesota goes to the Blue Jays.

This weekend’s Toronto series with the visiting Texas Rangers had all the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy. There was Marcus Stroman, the tainted hero, stained with hubris. There was a tragicomic interlude where no one could do anything right, but the heroes stumbled more than the villains. .

Then, just when this tragic farce was about to play out to its final, inevitable act, the gods descended from the sky, in true deus ex machina fashion, and placed Jay Happ on the mound in the brilliant circle of Sunday sunlight. Happ, the anointed one, ledhis band of ragamuffin wanderers back, if not to the Promised Land, at least to its surburban portals, where eternal life is a few degrees better than Outside in the Dark, where Chaos reigneth over all who have abandoned hope of a Wild Card slot.

We did not have to wait long for Stroman to stumble on Friday night. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t trip over the foul line and come a-cropper before the first pitch. Unlike his last start when he threw five innings of good ball before melting down in the sixth, the crashcame immediately.

He got a ground ball to short from Delino DeShields but DeShields beat it out. He went 3-2 on Shin-Soo Choo and lost him. Jurickson Profar tried to bunt the runners up, failed, and then advanced them anyway with a slow roller to shortstop. Nomar Mazara knocked them in with a ground single up the middle and Joey Gallo extended on a pitch away and belted one over the fence in left-centre.

5 batters, 3 hits, a walk, and it was 4-0, and not only had Toronto not come to bat, but Texas only had one out and Stroman was well on his way to a thirty-pitch inning.

I guess the only thing worse than watching your team play catchup for the whole game is being on the team that’s trying to catch up.

Actually, it wasn’t quite so bad through those early innings. Lefty Mike Minor wasn’t nearly as effective against the Toronto lineup as he had been in Texas on April seventh, when he’d given up one run on two hits over six innings with seven strikeouts.

In fact, he started out: Steve Pearce caught looking, Teoscar Hernandez double to right centre, Justin Smoak flare single to right scoring Hernandez. Then he fanned Yanvergis Solarte for the second out, but Kevin Pillar doubled to centre on a ball that hitoff DeShields’glove, and, were it not for a bad decision by either Smoak or third-base coach Luis Rivera, or both, the Jays could still be batting in that theoretical inning-that-goes-on-forever.

Because Smoak got himself thrown out at the plate, trying to score from first on Pillar’s hit. It wasn’t close.

Still, they’d scored on Minor and he’dshown that he wasn’t going to be dominant like the last time.

It’s kinda too bad that they didn’t put a “2” up on the scoreboard for innings before Stroman took the mound for the first, because he was pretty damn sharp two through five. In fact, he struck out two in the first after Gallo’s homer, and the first two in the second. More impressively, he gave up only a 2-out double to Mazara in the fourth, and a leadoff single to second baseman Drew Robinson in the fifth, both of whomdied on the bases. In all, after the Gallo homer he retired 14 of the 16 batters he faced.

Meanwhile, Toronto had managed to tie the game by the end of the third inning, and with Stroman sailing along things looked considerably brighter than they had at around 7:20 in the evening.

Minor’s wildness contributed materially to 2 Jays’ runs in the second. Russ Martin had led off with a booming double to left centre, a welcome site to Toronto slump-watchers. Then he rashly took off for third on a Minor pitch in the dirt.

(Insert here, for those who don’t know it: age-old baseball wisdom decrees never to make the first or last out of an inning at third base.)

Martin was initially called out, and after a video review it was determined that he had gotten his hand to the bag safely. Whew.

It looked like he was going to die there as Kendrys Morales fanned on a curve ball in the dirt, and Devon Travis grounded out to third. But Minor hit Aledmys Diaz with a pitch to prolong the inning and bring Steve Pearce to the plate. Pearce doubled into the left-field corner and the initial Texas bulge was reduced to one run after two innings.

Toronto tied the score in a home half of the third that was an absolute Gong Show for both teams. Smoak singled to left off the glove of shortstop Jurickson Profar. Solarte singled to centre off Drew Robinson’s glove at second. Smoak tried to go first to third on the hit and was thrown out easily by DeShields. Never make the first out or the last out . . .

Then Kevin Pillar lofted a bloop single to left that Joey Gallo over-charged so that the ball bounced over his head off the turf and went for a triple scoring Solarte from first.

But Pillar died at third and we didn’t know at the time that the Jays’ chances in this game had died with him, with only three innings in the book.

Stroman’s effectiveness came to a crashing halt in the Texas sixth. Mazara singled to right. Gallo singled to centre, though Pillar nearly came up with the sinker on a dive. Then Texas manager Jeff Bannister elected to bunt with rookie third baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the plate. The rook got it down, rookie Ronald Guzman singled them both in, and both Stroman at five a third and the Blue Jays were done.

Tyler Clippard finished the sixth for Stroman, Aaron Loup pitched a perfect seventh, and John Axford saved the Jays’ bullpen a pitching appearance by closing out the eighth and ninth.

Meanwhile, Minor finished with a flourish, retiring Toronto in the sixth on six pitches, two groundouts and a lineout. Kevin Jepsen, Alex Claudio, and Chris Martin delivered a 6-4 lead to Keone Kela, who closed out the ninth for the save on only 5 pitches.

The Blue Jays entered this series hoping to regain some momentum after the disappointing week against the Yankees and Red Sox, but being beat up in the first inning of the first game against the West Division cellar-dwelling Texas Rangers was just not how you turn the ship around.

Bartolo Colon is a recurring dream. An infuriating, portly, grinning, extremely annoying recurring dream. I will not include any age insults because at my age that’s just not very appropriate. Besides, I realized recently that at 44 he’s still two and a half years younger than my oldest son.

Last year he started against Toronto three times, once for Atlanta where he was in the same rotation as R.A. Dickey (and Atlanta was supposed to be rebuilding via a youth movement at the time . . .) and twice for Minnesota after the Twins acquired him as a trade-deadline acquisition. On May 15th for Atlanta he went five innings and gave up three runs on seven hits, but got the win. On August 25th for Minnesota he went six and two thirds and gave up one run while scattering nine hits for the win. On September 15thhe took the loss but went six innings again, giving up four runs on only five hits.

After three straight losses and six of their last eight, Colon was not exactly the person Toronto wanted to see taking the hill for Texas in the second game of the series, Colon with his below-90 fast ball, his wicked control, and his even more wicked grin whenever he does good, like snagging a rocketing liner off the bat of Kevin Pillar before he was even out of the batter’s box, for the last out in the sixth inning, on his 81st pitch Saturday afternoon.

The left-handed Jaime Garcia got the assignment against Colon. Garcia has been about what you would expect as a fifth starter for Toronto so far this season, which is to say that he’s not exactly the pitcher who was eagerly sought as a trade-deadline addition by not one, but two, contending teams in 2017. Dizzyingly, he was traded from the Braves to the Twins on July 24th , and from the Twins to the Yankees on July 31st.

Garcia has been infected by the Toronto 2018 starting pitching virus, which makes its victims susceptible to extreme gopher-ball-itis. So while he has pitched a number of outstanding individual innings, and had some good runs in his starts, he has also been taken deep seven times in 26 and two thirds innings.

Bartolo Colon went through four innings like a man who knew how to conserve his energy. He faced one over the minimum, a double by Curtis Granderson leading off the fourth, while throwing only 47 pitches.

Garcia, on the other hand, fiddled and flustered his way through to exactly twice as many pitches in the same number of innings, giving up five runs along the way, two on a second-inning home run by Jurickson Profar, and another following on a back-to-back solo shot by Robinson Chirinos.

Any real hope the Jays may have had of either breaking down Colon or breaking through against the Texas bullpen was blunted in the Texas fourth when Garcia’s wildness and the Texas aggressiveness on the bases gave the Rangers two extra runs that they cashed as the result of a really unfortunate outfield mistake by the rookie left fielder Teoscar Hernandez.

Shin-Soo Choo was at the plate with two outs and Rangers on second and third. Ryan Rua had forced Profar, who’d reached on a leadoff walk. Rua advanced on a stolen base/wild pitch combo while Garcia was walking DeShields, who also stole second, bringing Choo to the plate.

Choo lofted an easy fly ball to centre. Pillar, moving to his right, waved his hands that he had it. But Hernandez, coming over from left, must have missed Pillar’s call, and kept coming. Sensing Hernandez’ approach, Pillar pulled off the ball at the last minute, and it hit off his glove, going for a double that scored both runners and boosted the Texas lead to 5-0.

Garcia finished off with three ground-ball outs in the fifth, and Toronto finally got on the board in the bottom of the inning on a leadoff home run to left by Pillar, and then threatened to break through for more against Colon. But the latter, who’d quickly gotten two outs after Pillar’s knock before giving up a line single to Luke Maile and an infield single to Diaz, ended the rising when he got Curtis Granderson to fly out to short left.

As often happens when a team that’s behind starts to show signs of coming back, Toronto took a dagger to the heart when Seung-Hwan Oh, who came in for Garcia for the sixth, was rocked by a second solo homer by Chirinos with one out to restore the Texas lead at 5, 6-1.

Leading off the bottom of the sixth against Colon, Hernandez crushed one to right centre field. For at least the second time this season, the ball got lost in the lights of the field-level scoreboard as it descended. The fielders knew it was still in play, but the ump couldn’t tell because of the glare from the lights. By the time the ball was retrieved off the wall Hernandez was in to third with a triple.

Toronto scored Hernandez on a ground-out up the middle by Solarte, but couldn’t mount another concerted effort against Colon despite Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s first major-league homer leading off the seventh.

So after seven innings the mirthful Colon was finished, leaving with a 6-3 lead, having been touched up for three long flies, but never facing a coherent rally in the game.

It became increasingly apparent that Toronto would need a strong starting performance on Sunday as the bullpen was fast being depleted. Oh, who usually pitches in the seventh inning, had to take the sixth, Tepera pitched an effective seventh, Axford heroically came back for the eighth after two innings on Friday night, and then, ironically John Gibbons needed to give some work to his closer, because Roberto Osuna hadn’t been needed since Tuesday against Boston, when he’d suffered his first blown save of the year.

Nevertheless, the overworked bullpen had shut down Texas since the Chirinos homer off Oh in the sixth, until the rested Osuna came in and gave up a one-out double to DeShields, an RBI single to Choo, and a following single from Kiner-Falefa before retiring the side.

Kevin Pillar usefully forced the Texas manager to bring in his closer by hitting his second homer of the game off Kevin Jepsen, but Kela came in and closed the game out without further problems.

It was looking bleak for Toronto after Saturday’s loss, the fourth in a row and seventh in nine games, and particularly alarming was the fact that other than Osuna almost everyone in the bullpen had worked more than once in the last two games. Something had to give on Sunday.

What gave was pretty big: the Jays announced before the game that they’d optioned Devon Travis to Buffalo and called up Carlos Ramirez to reinforce the bullpen. This guaranteed that both Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. were here to stay with the team for a while.

Because of Marcus Stroman’s arm troubles in spring training, Jay Happ was kind of an accidental Opening Day starter for Toronto, but by now, after five starts, he has established that his status as the number one starter is no accident.

And who could be better to send tothe mound than Jay Happ to try to stop the bleeding and turn Toronto’s April around as it was lurching to an end?

With a little help from Randal Grichuk, Happ showed from the start that he wasn’t go to let any little mistakes bring him down. Delino DeShields started the game with a tough chance on the ground for shortstop Aledmys Diaz. DeShields made it to first for an infield single, but Diaz made an ill-advised throw for an error and DeShields made it to second.

Happ buckled down and fanned the pesky Shin-Soo Choo on a checked swing, bringing the double-named, Hawaiian-raised Isiah Kiner-Falefa to the plate. Isiah, to save a mouthful, hit a 3-2 pitch on a looping liner into right centre that looked sure to drop for a hit.

But Grichuk, who can contribute even when he’s not hitting, closed fast on the ball, and dove in andto his right on his backhand. The ball entered his glove but as he hit the ground it rolled out and he desperately tried to corral it to his chest. Agonizingly, it bounced around off various body parts before he secured it; the replays clearly showed that it never touched the ground.

Even better, DeShields never for a minute thought the ball would be caught. He stood forlornly off third and watched Grichuk throw the ball to second from one knee to double him upand end the inning.

Texas left-hander Martin Perez quickly dispatched Toronto in the bottom of the first on 11 pitches, despite walking Teoscar Hernandez, who was erased when Justin Smoak hit into a double-play.

Happ had an interesting second inning in which he struck out the side, increasing his total to 4 strikeouts over two innings, but he also gave up a very definite and very loud solo home run to the Rangers’ stout young third sacker, Renato Nunez. Not to mention a base hit to Jurickson Profar, before notching his third whiff of the inning, courtesy of the dangerous (to Toronto, if not anyone else) Robinson Chirinos.

But this was a game in which, after the first inning, the Jays constantly had Perez in trouble. They put up two runs in the second and one each in the third and fourth innings to quicklyovercome the early Texas lead.

Cleanup hitter Yanvergis Solarte, leading off the second, belted a 2-0 pitchdeep over the left-centre field fence to erase the Texas advantage with one stroke. Kevin Pillar worked a walk off Perez on a 3-2 pitch. Russell Martin hit the first pitch he saw hard back up the middle. It caromed off Perez’ knee to third and Martin beat it out for an infield hit.

This brought Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to the plate amidst much fanfare. Gurriel, who seems to do everything correctly, shot it on the ground to the right side. Unfortunately the Rangers were positioned perfectly. Isiah picked itand went to second for the force on Martin, with Pillar going to third.

Grichukcame upfor his first at-bat in the game. Before I proceed to describe how next he helped his team to win, let me tell you something we now know with the benefit of hindsight. We learned Tuesday that Grichuk had sprained a knee making that catch in the first inning. He played the rest of the game with that knee sprain. Everything he contributed to Toronto’s win Sunday should be viewed in light of that. Now he’s off to the DL with a projection of three weeks’ recovery time.

Regardless of his condition Grichuk fledout to left, deep enough to allow Pillar to score the Jays’ second run.

I just want to point out here that the lead the Blue Jays took in thesecondinning of Sunday’s game was the first lead they held in a game dating back to the fifth inning of the third game of the Red Sox series.

Toronto picked up a single run in the third when Hernandez went deep the opposite way to right on Perez, and another in the fourth on Pillar’s leadoff homer to left, his third home run in two games. They lost a glorious opportunity to put the game away early when Perez walked Martin and Gurriel Jr. after the Pillar shot, and Grichuk followed with a hard ground single to left past Nunez at third to load the bases with nobody out.

But Perez fanned the slumping Diaz for the first out, and then Steve Pearce lined into a double play over the bag at second to let the Rangers’ starter off the hook. It was the last pitch Perez threw, though, because the Texas manager went to his bullpen for the fifith inning.

Tony Barnette stopped the string of runs for Toronto in the fifth, though he did have to work around a one-out hit batsman of Smoak, striking out two Jays in the process.

In the meantime the Rangers could do little with Happ, who was seriously on his game.

Ryan Rua reached with a base hit leading off in the third, stole second, and moved to third on a groundout, but died there. Happ retired the side in the fourth and fifth innings, elevating his strikeout count to eight for five innings, on his way to nine in seven innings pitched.

In the sixth inning Happ’s string of consecutive outs was broken off at nine by a Delino DeShields leadoff double into the left-field corner. Happ responded by inducing three ground balls from Texas. DeShields moved to third on the first and scored on the second, a grounder to short by Isiah. This cut the lead to 4-2 for Toronto, but that’s as close as it would get.

The Jays responded in their half of the sixth with another run, this one totally unearned. Russell Martin reached on a fielding error by Nunez at third. Gurriel Jr. stroked a long single into centre that was played well by Mazara to hold the hitter to a single while Martin advanced to third.

Randal Grichuk put the ball in play again with a runner in scoring position, hitting a ground ball to second that scored Martin from third. The play went as a fielder’s choice to Profar covering second, but Profar threw the ball away on what should have been a double play, allowing Grichuk to reach base. Again, Grichuk was hustling down the line on that sprained knee.

Barnette promptly picked Grichuk off first, and Rua ended the inning for him with a spectacular sliding catch into the wall in foul territory in left that retired Diaz. The Jays asked for a review, but the out call on the field was upheld.

In the Texas seventh, on just eight pitches, Happ finished the job that Toronto really needed from him. He retired the side in order and rung up Joey Gallo for his ninth strikeout, and sat down with a 5-2 lead.

The Jays sealed the deal in their half of the seventh. After Barnette had pitched two effective innings, Jeff Bannister sent him out for a third, and it was too much of a stretch for him. He walked Pearce and gave up a double to Hernandez that sent Pearce to third.

Bannister pulled him for Jake Diekman, and Justin Smoak hit his first pitch deep to left for a sacrifice fly scoring Pearce, and on which Hernandez alertly advanced to third. When Solarte looped a single to left Hernandez trotted home with the final run of the day, making the score 7-2 Toronto. Both of the seventh-inning runs were charged to Barnette, who deserved better.

Lefty Matt Moore finished up for Texas in the eighth inning, inducing a double-play ball from Diaz, whose hitting woes worsened Sunday, to erase a one-out infield hit to short by Grichuk. Let’s pause on that for a minute. Grichuk hurt himself making a great catch and starting a double play in the first inning. He then produced a sacrifice fly, a solid base hit, a run-producing ground ball, and beat out a hit to short. On a bum knee.

While Randal Grichuk recovers from his knee strain, let’s not write this guy off yet. He contributed a gritty performance on Sunday, after enduring an incredibly long and frustrating batting slump.

For the Blue Jays, Ryan Tepera had made quick work of Texas in its eighth inning by striking out two and throwing only ten pitches, and Aaron Loup threw a scoreless ninth despite a one-out double to left by Isiah. Loup struck out Joey Gallo to end it, adding to his recent string of impressive innings.

So Jay Happ did what an ace does: he stopped the bleeding for Toronto. Not only did he stop the bleeding, but he did it briskly, confidently, and emphatically.

Until we hear otherwise in terms of the future performances of the other four members of Toronto’s rotation, Jay Happ has firmly cemented himself in position as Toronto’s number one starting pitcher.

In fact, despite his age of 35, it’s looking more and more like it would be a huge mistake not to resign Happ, who is a free agent at the end of the year. He’s strong, fit, works hard, and is a good role model for the two budding stars Stroman and Sanchez.