Long Ball Stories

On one hand, it was a good thing the Blue Jays had a day off to lick their wounds and hit the batting cage to try to shake off the Tampa Torpor that hit them once again this week.

On the other hand, it was a bad thing for the Washington Nationals that the Jays had a day to regroup before taking on the tough Nats, who will be challenging for at least a National League Wild Card slot for the rest of the season.

Against all odds the underperforming Jays laid a three-game whipping on the Nats, thereby poking a stick in the wheels of their playoff pretensions.

Well, maybe not a whipping: the Jays held off Washington Friday night to escape with a 6-5 win that went down to the last pitch. Saturday, Marco Estrada absolutely outpitched the towering talent of Max Scherzer, and Devon Travis crushed his only mistake for a 2-0 team shutout. Sunday it ended up 8-6, as Toronto managed to stay one step ahead, barely, for the whole, exciting, game.

So a 16-11 margin over three games isn’t exactly a “whipping” but the series may have opened a little window on the question of which division is really the strongest in the major leagues. After, all, to turn it around, where would the Jays be if they were in another division, given that they were, as of the sweep in Tampa, a combined 6-19 against Boston, Tampa, and the Yankees?

Leave out the record against those three division rivals and Toronto was 24 and 19 against the rest of the major leagues going into the Washington series. That’s a pretty good go of it, considering that it includes that awful four-game sweep in Oakland. If you add just a 13-12, instead of 6-19, to their record, they’d have been 37-31.

I like inter-league play, though it’s inherently unfair to the American League teams.* The players are different, the pitchers are different, you run into different managerial styles, hell, you even get to see some snazzily different uniforms, with those of the Nats right up at the top of the sartorial rankings.

*It’s unfair that the DH is banned in National League parks. The Senior Circuit teams can easily—happily—adjust to using a DH, but the American League teams, built around having the DH, and with no time to keep pitchers’ bats sharp throughout the season, just for the possibility of an at-bat or two in a game or two, all of these mean that the American League teams are clearly at a disadvantage playing National League rules. And when somebody like Sleepy John Gibbons has to figure out double-switch substitutions and the like, that adds to the disadvantage.

By the way, I referred to the National League as the “Senior Circuit” above. This is common, but ancient, terminology dating back to the days when there was a definite awareness of the fact that the National League had existed for quite some years (25, to be exact, from 1876 to 1901) before the American League was founded. Thus they were often referred to as the “Senior Circuit” and the “Junior Circuit”.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, over and above the fact that the Jays swept the Nats on the weekend, this was an exciting series, definitely a cut above your usual three-gamer, and I would certainly attribute this at least partially to the fact that it was inter-league play.

Add to this the fact that the Nats, sigh, used to be the Expos, and there’s another frisson of excitement in the mix. (I forgot, did you? That becausethe Nats are theactual franchise successors of the Expos, all franchise records date back to the founding of the ‘Spos in 1969.)

So, Friday night. It was Aaron Sanchez against Gio Gonzalez.

The Nats scored one in the first and one in the second off Sanchez. In the first he walked Bryce Harper with two outs, Harper stole second, and scored on a base hit by Anthony Rendon. In the second, he gave up another two-out base hit with Juan Soto at third base after a double and a move-em-over ground ball out.

The Jays took the lead in the third in typical Toronto fashion with two dingers. Devon Travis cashed Aledmys Diaz, on with a single. With two outs and nobody on, thanks to a Justin Smoak double-play ball after a walk to Teoscar Hernandez, Yagervis Solarte hit one out to left field.

Sanchez gave up the lead in the fifth on another classic Nats sequence: Trea Turner got a base hit, stole second with two outs, and scored on another Rendon two-out single.

(Sigh.) Where oh where is Toronto’s Anthony Rendon?

Sanchez went out with the game tied after six with a quality start. Gonzalez threw six innings and would have had a Q-start too, if Nats’ manager Dave Martinez hadn’t sent him out for the seventh. He faced two batters. Travis singled and Hernandez hit a ground-rule double.

They both scored off Justin Miller, spoiling Gonzalez’ outing and putting Toronto in front to stay. Justin Smoak plated Travis with a sac fly, and Solarte, hitting from the other side, plated Hernandez with his second homer of the game.

Solartejoined a very small group ofJays’ switch hittersto hit one out from both sides of the plate in the same game.

After Seunghwan Oh retired the side in the seventh and became the pitcher of record thanks to Gonzalez andMartinez, Aaron Loup and John Axford each gave up a run in the eighth to make it close, turning the slim lead over to Ryan Tepera.

Tepera’s ninth was one of those supercharged experiences: great if you survive it, but otherwise don’t even think about it. Wilmer Difo (huh? Named after the distinguished American actor Willem Dafoe?) led off with a single, stole second, and advanced to third on Brian Goodwin’s first-out fly ball to left. Adam Eaton hit the ground ball he needed, but it was too short to second and Difo didn’t try to score. Trea Turner fanned on a 3-2 pitch for the game.

Yippee! I told you inter-league play was exciting!

But as soon as the game was over the Toronto hitters had to start thinking about facing the inimitable Max Scherzer on Saturday afternoon. Yikes!

Max Scherzer came in to Saturday’s game with a record of ten wins and two losses. His ERA was an even 2.00, and in ten of his fifteen starts so far this year he’d struck out ten or more batters. By his record to June sixteenth he was a clear front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award.

Scherzer delivered on all counts. He gave up four hits in six innings, walked one, and struck out, yes, ten Blue Jays. In fact, Scherzer really made only two mistakes in the game, and they came on consecutive batters in the fifth inning.

With one out Scherzer nicked Luke Maile with a pitch, bringing Devon Travis to the plate. Travis fouled off a fast ball low in the zone. Then Scherzer threw him a slider that stayed up, way up, and Travis didn’t miss it.

Scherzer’s big mistake soared majestically into the 200-level seats above the bullpen in left centre, and Toronto was ahead 2-0 in the game.

Those were the only two runs allowed by Max Scherzer, so we have to call it a typical start for Scherzer. Wander Suero picked up Scherzer in the seventh and eighth, and didn’t allow a baserunner while fanning three.

But the real story Saturday was Marco Estrada. Not to mention Danny Barnes, Aaron Loup, and Tyler Clippard, who held Washington hitless over the last two and a third innings, the only baserunner for the Nats a two-out walk by Aaron Loup in the eighth inning to Trea Turner that brought Bryce Harper to the plate with the tying run.

Loup caught Bryce Harper looking for the third out, to turn the 2-0 shutout over to Tyler Clippard, who retired the side in order in the ninth for the save, striking out the rookie phenom Juan Soto on a 2-2 pitch to end the game.

But let’s go back to the biggest part of the story, and that’s Marco Estrada. First of all, there’s the pitching line. Six and two thirds innings, no runs, three hits (bunt single, line single, double by Trea Turner in the fifth), 2 walks, and four strikeouts, on 108 pitches.

Only Michael A. (Anthony, but why must we?) Taylor solved him to any extent, reaching on a bunt single, striking out, and singling to centre, the hit that ended Estrada’s day. Leadoff hitter Adam Eaton never squared up, grounding out twice and flying out once.

Most notably, Bryce Harper, admittedly mired in a slump, was helpless against Estrada. He popped up once in fair territory, once in foul territory, then in the most significant moment of the game, with Turner on second after his two-out double in the sixth, Estrada crossed him up after going changeup, fast ball, change up, fast ball, with a 2-2 fast ball high on the inside corner that completely froze Harper.

It was also interesting if a little cruel to notice how Estrada carved up the vaunted rookie Juan Soto, striking him out and inducing a groundout, Soto totally off balance both times, before he managed to time him enough to fly out to centre.

So the story of this game was not Max Scherzer, but Marco Estrada, and how great was that?

Sam Gaviglio’s start for Toronto on Sunday was, in retrospect, a case study in how life can sometimes impinge on sport, even for professionals at the highest level.

Although he gave up a first-inning single to Designated Jay Tormenter Anthony Rendon, Gaviglio started like gangbusters, striking out three of the first five hitters he faced, and never throwing a ball outside the strike zone until he went from 0-2 to 3-2 on the sixth batter, Michael A. Taylor, before Taylor grounded a single through the left side with one out in the second.

Things quickly went south on Gaviglio. Taylor stole second. Brian Goodwin grounded out to second with Taylor going to third. Wilmer Difo cashed in Taylor with a base hit. Difo stole second. Spencer Kieboom walked. Russell Martin threw the ball away trying to pick off Difo, who went to third on the error. Gaviglio then balked Difo home before getting Trea Turner out with a called third strike.

In the third he gave up a double to that guy Rendon, and then an RBI single to Daniel Murphy. He was saved further damage by the fact that Murphy tried to go to second on Kevin Pillar’s throw to the plate, and Martin atoned for his earlier error by gunning him down for the second out. The hapless Juan Soto struck out for the second time, this time looking, to end the inning.

Gaviglio had a long fourth inning as well, even though he kept the Nats off the board. Taylor (again) led off with a single and eventually stole second and third before dying there when Turner hit into a fielder’s choice retiring Kieboom, who had walked behind Taylor.

John Gibbons wisely, perhaps, decided that was enough for Gaviglio; for his second start in a row he had failed to go very long, even though his line wasn’t that bad: four innings pitched, two earned runs, six hits, two walks, and a run-producing balk on 77 pitches.

But here’s the thing: we didn’t notice at the time, but Gaviglio didn’t stay on the bench for the rest of the game as is the more recent common practice (nobody sends the pitcher “to the showers” any more: they always stay on the bench unless injured.)

We only learned after the game that by the time it was over Gaviglio was already on a plane heading to San Francisco for a connecting flight to Medford, Oregon, in order to join his wife Alaina, who was about to give birth to their first child.

There had to be a lot of conflicting emotions going on when Gaviglio took the mound on Sunday, and it’s no wonder that he produced such mixed results.

He made it home on time, by the way. His daughter Livia was born early Tuesday morning as he was removed from the roster for the three days’ paternity leave granted to players in the collective agreement.

In any case, Tanner Roark, the Washington starter, had an even choppier start than Gaviglio, and he didn’t even have an excuse. The Jays had touched him for three runs early, so when Gaviglio left the game was tied, and Toronto took the lead with a run in the bottom of the fourth, and would never fall behind in what became a back-and-forth affair, with the Jays taking the lead, the Nats tying it up, and the Jays going ahead again.

After Washington took the lead with the two runs off Gaviglio in the second, Randal Grichuk pulled one back with a two-out solo homer in the bottom of the second. Aledmys Diaz followed with a drive to centre that went for a double, but he was stranded there when Devon Travis hit the ball hard, but right to Wilmer Difo at second for the third out.

The Nats extended their lead to 3-1 off Gaviglio in the third, but Toronto came back with two to tie it when Roark totally lost the plate in the bottom of the inning.

With two outs, Solarte singled. Morales singled him to second. Pillar doubled home Solarte with Morales stopping at third. Then Roark walked Martin on a 2-2 pitch. And then Grichuk on a 3-2 pitch to force in Morales to tie the game.

Morales picked up an RBI in the bottom of the fourth, with, if you can believe it, an infield hit. Travis led off with a base hit, Granderson hit into a fielder’s choice. Hernandez was hit by a pitch from Roark. Solarte hit an easy grounder to second that moved the runners up, bringing Morales to the plate. He hit a grounder in the hole at short and beat it out to first while Granderson scored the lead run.

Toronto was ahead 4-3 after four, Gaviglio was off to his wife’s bedside, and Joe Biagini came in to pitch for the Jays in the top of the fifth. Big Joe had a nice clean inning, holding the Nats off the board just long enough for Grichuk to pad the slim margin with a solo homer, his second of the game, off reliever Shawn Kelley, who took over from Roark in the bottom of the fifth.

Neither the two-run lead nor Joe Biagini survived the Washington sixth, though.

Never one to leave well enough alone, John Gibbons thought he might get another inning from Biagini. After all, he was all stretched out as a starter, you know, and all that . . . And besides, Gibbie just likes the guy, ya know?

So after retiring the leadoff hitter Soto, Biagini gave up a single to Taylor (again) who stole second (again) and scored on a double by Goodwin. Difo singled but Goodwin had to stop at third. Finally Gibbie pulled Biagini for Seunghwan Oh, who gave up a single to pinch-hitter Adam Eaton that scored Goodwin, but Difo was out trying to reach third on the hit, cut down by Hernandez. Turner fouled out to Grichuk to end the inning but there it was, tied up again at fives going to the bottom of the sixth.

Tiny Tim Collins (sorry, but you gotta do it: he’s only 5 foot seven and 168 pounds) had finished off the fifth inning for Shawn Kelley, and gave up a leadoff base hit to Hernandez, but Solarte popped out and Morales hit into another double play, and the game went to the seventh still tied.

John Axford took over for Oh. He struck out Harper and retired Rendon (yay!) and Murphy in order.

Justin Miller was next up on the mound for the Nats, and Pillar led off with a base hit and then stole second. Pillar advanced to third on a deep fly to centre by Martin, and scored on a base hit by Grichuk to give the Jays the lead. Grichuk stole second but died there. Toronto was back in front at 6-5.

The Nats tied the game in the top of the eighth, but it took a miracle and some good work by Ryan Tepera to keep Washington to the one run.

Tyler Clippard started the inning and gave up a base hit to Soto, and then wild pitched him to second. Wild ones in the dirt are an occupational hazard with Clippard because of the nasty low breaking stuff he throws.

After fanning Taylor, Clippard gave up an RBI single to Goodwin, than fanned Difo for the second out.

Gibbie elected to go with Tepera to get the last out, and it was an adventure. With Goodwin on first and two outs, the new Toronto closer walked Pedro Severino, and gave up a little dribbler infield hit to Turner to load the bases before Bryce Harper flew out to end the threat.

The Nats brought in old familiar flame-thrower Ryan Madson, and it was clear that the Blue Jays were not interested in going into extra innings on Father’s Day. After Madson fanned Smoak, he gave up back to back homers to Hernandez and Solarte to give Toronto an 8-6 lead.

Tepera cut off any hope of yet another rally by Washington in the ninth. He caught Rendon looking, fanned Murphy, and retired Soto on a fly ball to centre for the save.

Game, Set and Match to Toronto, as they came home from being swept by Tampa to turn around and sweep the Washington Nationals.

Not exactly revenge, but still sweet.

More inter-league play awaited Toronto; after an off-day Monday, the National League East Division leading Atlanta Braves were coming to town for a two-game set.

My son is taking me to the game as a birthday present. It was supposed to be the return of Jose Bautista to Toronto, but after we got the tickets the Braves released Bautista and he was signed by the Mets. When are the Mets coming to town?

If anybody was wondering who that dirty, bedraggled flock of birds was limping back into town Wednesday night looking like they were returning from the jungles of Central America rather than from sunny Florida, why, it was our very own Toronto Blue Jays.

After swaggering out of town on the wings of a rousing four-game sweep of the even more troubled Baltimore Orioles, the Jays had to come face to face with reality: playing the Rays in Tampa Bay is never fun, no how, no way.

I mean, who could have known, after the top of the fourth inning of Monday night’s game, when the Jays had matched the Rays run for run through three, and then taken a 4-3 lead in the top of the fourth on three base hits, that they would only score one more run in the remaining 23 innings of the series?

Even when Tampa took the lead back in the bottom of the fourth with a two-spot of their own, on a two-run homer by rookie Jake Bauers that dispatched erstwhile-ly effective Jays’ spot starter Sam Gaviglio from the game earlier than planned, it didn’t seem like that big a deal. After all, the pitching-starved Rays would be going pitcher by pitcher, inning by inning, as well, and sooner or later our guys would encounter someone they could hit.

But, nope.

Lefty Ryan Yarbrough, who’d given up the four early runs, settled and lasted through six innings, and Diego Castillo, Jonny Venters, and Sergio Romo kept “clean sheets” as they say in European football, infused by World Cup mania as we are at the moment. Castillo gave up a two-out base hit to Hernandez, and Venters walked one for the only Toronto baserunners.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Mosquitos, er Rays, exploited a botched double play ball by John Axford in the seventh to tack on three more runs and kill any hopes the Jays had of mounting a comeback.

On Tuesday, Rays’ manager Kevin Cash, who seems intent on rewriting a hundred years of baseball tradition, declared a “bullpen day” for his pitching staff, which meant using a closer-quality pitcher as an “opener”.

The hitting challenged Jays went down flailing against an array of not-starter but pitcher-who-threw-the-first-two-innings Ryne Stanek, Austin Pruitt, Venters again, Chaz Roe, Jose Alvarado and Romo again. Only Pruitt gave up a fifth-inning run on a couple of hits and a ground-out, that brought Toronto within one at 2-1, but after Pruitt, who have up the run on four hits over two and two-thirds innings, nobody got a hit until Kevin Pillar got a one-out base knock against Romo in the ninth. Pillar died at second after advancing on defensive indifference, and that was the ball game.

Meanwhile, John Gibbons got a reasonably effective outing from inconsistent lefty Jaime Garcia, who pitched a decent-enough five innings, giving up two runs on a third-inning dinger by noted Jays’ killer Wilson Ramos, who ought to be reported to the SPCA.

Garcia had only given up one other hit, a single in the first, and a leadoff walk to Rob Refsnyder (why do these ex-Jay non-entities always come back to haunt us?) before Ramos’ home run. 93 pitches through five should have been enough, a pretty good outing for a scufflin’ lefty.

Problem was, Gibbie, nice guy that he is, sent Garcia back out for the sixth.

Of course, Garcia gave up a leadoff walk to C.J. Cron and a double to rookie Willy Adames that sent Cron to third. Then Gibbie pulled him, for Joe Biagini.

And of course, try as he might, the star-crossed Biagini let both runs score for an obviously insurmountable 4-1 Tampa lead, given that the Toronto T-Ballers weren’t allowed to bring their batting tees to the plate.

It would be nice if a little birdie whispered in Gibbie’s weathered ear that 93 pitches over five and keeping your team in the game is just enough, thank you very much, and furthermore that a nervous guy like Biagini does much better, at least some of the time, if he gets to start an inning when he comes in from the pen.

So, the no-hit Jays lost another one, with a definite assist awarded to John Gibbons for again mishandling his pitching staff.

All that was left to have happen to Toronto was to be shut out completely by a Tampa team of Wilmer Font, who has never failed to fail wherever he has pitched, Matt Andriese, the faux-starter who pitched the middle innings, and Diego Castillo, who got the win when the Rays scratched out a run in the bottom of the ninth off Ryan Tepera.

Tepera, who was pitching his second inning, was the fifth of a line of Toronto pitcherswho had been brilliant, from Jay Happ to Seunghwan Oh to Aaron Loup to Danny Barnes to Tepera, who as a relay had held the Rays to only three hits before the ninth, plus the three walks given up by a somewhat wild Happ, which is what caused him to go only five innings, leaving with an elevated pitch count of 98.

For the second game in a row the Blue Jays were mesmerized by Kevin Cash’s unorthodox pitching assignments. Font in particular seemed to find his new role perfectly suited to him. Though he was constantly in trouble, and it took him 66 pitches, he threw three and a third shutout innings. To give you an idea of Font’s record, he came outof the game with an ERA of 8.48.

Andriese then came in and went three and two thirds innings, threw 50 pitches, and gave up a hit and a walk.

Castillo gave up one hit in his two innings of work, and was the pitcher of record when

the Rays walked the game off in the bottom of the ninth. With Tepera in, the speedster Mallex Smith hit a one-out double, moved to third on a ground ball, and came in to score when Matt Duffy hit a clutch ground-ball single to left to score Smith.

As I said at the outset, nothing good ever happens when the Blue Jays play the Rays in their atrocious home tin orange juice can.

We can only hope that Toronto’s luck will change when the Rays become, as they inevitably must, the new Montreal Expos.

Used to be, it was really something when the Toronto Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles got together.

Why, even as recently as the American League Wild Card game in 2016, the only real difference between the teams was the strange failure of Baltimore manager Buck Showalter to use the best closer in baseball in an extra-inning one-and-done affair.

That’s not to say, of course that the beloved and much missed Edwin Encarnacion would not have homered equally as dramatically against Britton as he did against Ubaldo Jimenez, but the fact is that Britton was still in the bullpen when Edwin hit the homer off Jimenez.

Since that magical night, the fortunes of both teams have suffered, but it’s undeniable that the fortunes of the Orioles have suffered more.

Recordwise, they’ve fallen much farther than the Jays, coming in with a terrible record of 18 wins and 42 losses, giving Jays’ fans something to feel grateful for, looking at our own record of 26 and 35.

But on the basis of what we saw here over a long four-game series, three of which were competitive and the fourth a blowout, all Toronto wins, it would seem not so much that the Orioles are significantly worse than the Blue Jays, but they they’ve lost the will to win.

On Thursday, the young right-handed starter David Hess combined with relievers Mychal Givens and Richard Bleier to keep the Jays’ hitters in check for eight innings of one-run, seven-hit ball, as the Toronto offence struggled to shake out of the doldrums they’d fallen into against the Yankees.

Meanwhile, after a very effective six innings by Jaime Garcia, Baltimore had gone deep against Tyler Clippard and John Axford to build a 4-1 lead to turn over to stand-in closer Brad Brach for the bottom of the ninth.

But Brach, who in previous appearances has eaten the Jays’ lunches, could only get one out while the Jays dizzily rallied for three to tie the game. With one out Brach walked Luke Maile. Aledmys Diaz doubled him to third. Randal Grichuk, looking for a fresh start after coming off the disabled list, doubled home Maile and Diaz to bring the home squad to within one.

The slumping Kevin Pillar, who’d been given the night off before pinch-hitting for Curtis Granderson against the lefty Bleier in the eighth inning, wasted no time cashing Grichuk with a solid single to centre to tie the game. At this point manager Buck Showalter had no choice but to pull Brach in favour of ex-Blue Jay Miguel Castro, who promptly threw a double-play ball to Yangervis Solarte to send the game to extras.

Danny Barnes dispatched the meat of Baltimore’s order, Adam Jones, Manny Machado, and Danny Valencia, another ex-Jay, on fourteen pitches, via a popup and two strikeouts, paving the way for Castro to come out for the bottom of the tenth.

Castro was victimized by the hustle of Teoscar Hernandez and a second clutch hit by Diaz to take the loss, though he almost got out of it. Hernandez turned a leadoff single into a double by sheer chutzpahthe likes of which Toronto hasn’t seen since the days of Ricky Henderson.

Castro did everything right after that, almost. When he went to 2-0 on Justin Smoak he was ordered to put him on. Then he fanned Kendrys Morales. And Maile. And went 0-2 on Diaz before the latter stung him with a rip that made it to the wall down the left-field line and was more than sufficient to knock Hernandez in with the walkoff fifth run.

The Orioles, who are supposed to be having serious problems with starting pitching, got another quality start Friday night from Andrew Cashner, who went six innings and gave up three runs, effectively scattering nine Toronto hits.

The problem for Baltimore was that Jay Happ was just that much better. He went seven innings, gave up one unearned run, in the first inning, and only two hits.

Sometimes a quality start isn’t enough, if it comes up against a better quality start.

Both teams scored in the second inning, but the Orioles got a tainted run resulting from a Devon Travis throwing error, while Russell Martin answered with a ripped line drive home run to left in the bottom of the inning off Cashner.

Though the run against Happ was unearned, he had to share some of the blame for walking Danny Valencia leading off, and then Mark Trumbo with one out. But he should have been out of the inning when Trey Mancini hit a double-play ball to Diaz at short. Travis recorded the out at second, but threw the ball away to first, not only blowing the double play but allowing the alert Valencia to come around to score.

Fast forward to the fifth inning, when Happ, who had only given up a bloop single in the third, gave up a two-out double to Craig Gentry, but stranded him there when Joey Rickard flew out to right.

Cashner wasn’t so lucky in his half of the fifth. He gave up a shot too, to Randal Grichuk, but it left the yard for a 2-1 Toronto lead, built on the two solo homers.

Toronto added another run in the sixth off Cashner when Hernandez, Pillar, and Martin linked base hits, with Martin getting the RBI.

After seven innings Happ turned the ball over to Seunghwan Oh, who got two outs in the eighth and was replaced by Ryan Tepera, who began a four-out save by finishing off the eighth for Oh.

The Jays added a run in their seventh off the left-handed Tanner Scott who got the first two outs, then gave up a base hit to Solarte and a triple to Hernandez, who notably whacked one over the head of the right fielder Craig Gentry, yes, the opposite way, to the wall, chasing Solarte home.

In the eighth inning Mike Wright Jr. gave up a hard-hit line-drive home run to the leadoff hitter Kevin Pillar, which set the final score at 5-1 for Toronto. Ryan Tepera retired the side on six pitches in the ninth, with the help of Valencia, who unwisely tried to stretch a leadoff single into a double by testing the arm of Hernandez, whose fine retrieve and throw made it close enough to review at second, but the out call stood. In all Tepera threwonly eight pitches for the four-out save.

Of the four games in this series, this one was the game that any team could have lost, because sometimes you just run into good pitching. Given that the Baltimore run in the first inning was unearned, Happ, Oh, and Tepera threw a shutout at the Orioles. Every team gets shut out once in a while.

Nothing to see here, no markers for long-term trends, let’s move on to Saturday and its lessons.

On Saturday the supposedlypitching-challenged Orioles got their third straight quality start, this time from Kevin Gausman, who pitched into the seventh-inning, and left on the losing end of a 3-2 score, thanks to the leadoff home run he’d given up in the seventh to the suddenly very hot Randal Grichuk.

Prior to that, the Jays had picked up a run in the third on three straight hits leading off the inning, the RBI going to Solarte, but Gausman had stranded the two runners with a fielder’s choice and a double play.

The Jays added a run in the sixth on back-to-back doubles, leading off, to Solarte and Hernandez. Again Gausman staved off further problems, this time by striking out the side to leave Hernandez at second base.

Meanwhile Aaron Sanchez, while still struggling to keep his pitch count down, as evidenced by the four walks he issued, continued to improve his effectiveness, giving up two runs in six and a third innings off six hits.

Unfortunately, the two runs came off Sanchez as he tried to pitch into the seventh, and just ran out of gas. Some consideration should be given to the role played by John Gibbons in leaving Sanchez out there in the seventh. He’d been lucky to get the first out as Kevin Pillar had to dive and just barely secure a snow cone off a liner by Mark Trumbo.

That drive, despite producing an out, should have rung the warning bell for Gibbie, but, no, he left Sanchez in there for two more hitters, Trey Mancini who singled and Chance Sisco who doubled Mancini home with Baltimore’s first run. Danny Barnes came in and gave up a single to Adam Jones that scored Sisco with the tying run, charged to Sanchez.

After Grichuk gave the Jays the lead off Gausman in the bottom of the inning, Joe Biagini and Tyler Clippard gave it up right away in the top of the eighth. It was starting to look like an Alphonse and Gaston routine.

After Aaron Loup came in and got the first out, Biagini faced two batters. He hit Jonathan Schoop on the shoulder with a runaway curve ball, and threw Mark Trumbo’s cheap little comebacker away trying to get the lumbering DH at first. Clippard came in and walked Mancini to load the bases, then fanned Jace Peterson and Sisco. Unfortunately, he also wild-pitched Schoop home to tie the score.

The Orioles scored without a base hit and without hitting the ball out of the infield. Nonetheless, they scored and the game was tied.

It stayed that way until it was the Orioles’ bullpen’s turn to give up the game to the Blue Jays in the tenth inning.

After the Orioles blew a chance to score off John Axford in the ninth, Axford shut them down in the tenth, setting himself up for his first win of the season.

Buck Showalter gave the ball to Mychal Givens for the Jays’ tenth. Toronto has experienced feast and famine with Givens. This time it was feast, with Givens playing the role of attentive waiter.

After he struck out Hernandez, he walked Smoak, and Morales followed with a line single right through the stacked right side of the infield. Pillar hit one hard to deep centre for the second out, and I was concerned that Smoak hadn’t tagged and advanced on the catch.

Not to worry, though, because Givens was determined to hand the game to Toronto and didn’t want them to have to trouble themselves by swinging the bat. He hit Grichuk to load the bases, and then walked Maile on four pitches for the ever-so-exciting walkoff walk.

Toronto 4, Baltimore 3, in ten innings for the second time in three games.

On Sunday Marco Estrada took the ball for Toronto, and Alex Cobb, who has been tough on Toronto in the past, was Buck Showalter’s pick.

It was no contest. The Orioles totally caved and handed the sweep to the Blue Jays just like they handed Saturday’s game to them.

All you have to do is look at the pitching lines. Cobb went three and two thirds and gave up nine runs on 11 hits. He walked one, struck out five, and threw 83 pitches. Marco Estrada threw a tidy six innings. He gave up two runs on four hits, walked one, and struck out nine, on 97 pitches.

Curtis Granderson beat the Orioles all by himself. He went four for five with two doubles and a three-run homer, and chalked up six RBIs.

Toronto responded to Baltimore’s first run in the top of the second with two in the bottom of the inning, both scoring on Granderson’s wrong-way bloop double to left with two outs. Kendrys Morales extended the lead to 3-1 in the third with his long-awaited fifth home run of the season, an opposite-field solo shot.

That set things up for the ring-around-the-rosy Toronto fourth, when they racked up six runs on seven hits, most of them ropes, and one walk. It was a rising that was marked by the Jays’ apparent attempt to knock Cobb out of the game. I mean really knock him out of the game, as Grichuk, Gio Urshela, and Solarte all hit shots right through his kitchen, any one of which could have had a seriously dangerous outcome.

It became apparent as Toronto sent ten batters to the plate (Grichuk went two for two in the inning), six of whom scored, that Showalter was reluctant to use another reliever so early in this game, but finally he had not choice, and Cobb was forced to hand the ball over to Pedro Araujo, who let in Cobb’s last run when Grichuk knocked in Pillar from second.

So all that was left to see, with the Jays holding a 9-1 lead, was how long Estrada could go, and how many relievers Toronto would need to finish off the affair. As we noted, Estrada went six innings, Joe Biagini gave up a run in the seventh, and Tim Mayza finished off with two scoreless innings, giving up only one base hit.

And there you had it, a Toronto sweep over some ghost team with a vague resemblance to the vaunted Orioles of yore. Two extra-inning squeakers, one well-pitched solid win, and a walkover, and all that was left was for the Orioles to slink out of town while the Jays jumped on a plane for sunny Florida, for a series in the atrocious Tin Can Dome.

Gulp.

As for the Orioles, I’m not sure what player capital currently on their big league roster is going to be around and contributing in one or two years’ time.

Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo are clearly finished, and are serious liabilities. Adam Jones, a streaky guy at the best of times, showed none of his previous ability to carry the team during the four games here. While of course Mannie Machado should reap a bountiful harvest when they inevitably trade him next month, Jones might not bring much in return.

Of the lineups the Orioles displayed during the four games, arguably only Trey Mancini and Jonathan Schoop are players that you would expect to see written into the O’s lineup every day for the next couple of years. Joey Rickard might also hang around as a useful—and highly annoying—utility piece.

And it’s not a great sign that both Mancini and Schoop went through town hitting under .230 for the season.

Let’s face it. Any team that turns to the much-travelled Danny Valencia to play third and anchor the middle of the batting order is in more than a little bit of trouble.

And we haven’t said anything yet about the Baltimore pitching staff. Though the bullpen still has the strong presence of Darren O’Day and Brad Brach, not to mention Britton when he’s not on the disabled list, the rest of the relievers have the feeling of being ad-hoc fill-ins. Again, if they’re placing a lot of hope on a Miguel Castro, it says something about where they are.

As for their rotation, well, it doesn’t suck as much as I might have thought, to use an expresssion I’ve never used before in this forum. They had three quality starts in the four games here, a performance which would suggest that the rotation is not actually responsible for the terrible Baltimore record.

What has contributed to their record? Based on what we saw here, they’ve given up, or somehow lost the will to win.

So the Yankees came to town this week and took two of two from the Blue Jays, powered by their superior brawn and superb bullpen.

Ho hum.

But it wasn’t really like that at all, as it turned out, because these two games were great pitchers’ duels between equally effective starting pitchers. Both games were decided late by the greater firepower brought to bear by the swaggering visitors. Not to mention the decisive influence of their impressive bullpen.

Still and all, these games kind of made you think, didn’t they?

Tuesday Night: Andujar Slam Breaks Jays’ Hearts:

Tuesday night was a battle of the wily veterans, Marco Estrada versus C.C. Sabathia. Although Estrada’s pedigree doesn’t have nearly the length of Sabathia’s, he has been arguably the more impactful pitcher in crucial situations in recent seasons.

There are a lot of similarities between the two in their pitching styles, and even in their demeanour on the mound. Sabathia, who used to be a flame-throwing dragon, lost his fast ball years ago and relies on playing the corners. Estrada, who never had a real heater to speak of, uses his meagre power surgically to set up his killer changeup.

The rumpled, sad-sacky look of Sabathia makes it hard to take him seriously as a major league pitcher, whereas Estrada presents the appearance of what would pass for a buttoned-down businessman in professional baseball, neat beard, carefully tucked shirt, pants bloused into stirrups.

Despite the contrast in their appearances, both work quickly from a base of both feet squarely on the mound, and both take the catcher’s sign peeking out from behind their gloves like a little kid spying around a corner.

Typically, even when they’re pitching well, both Sabathia and especially Estrada will give up the occasional shot and will have to pitch out of trouble from time to time, as neither is able to really dominate opposing hitters.

On this night Estrada gave up more solid drives than Sabathia. Giancarlo Stanton, hitting second, pounded one to the wall in right for a double in the first inning, but died at third. Miguel Andujar looped a single off the end of his bat into left with two out in the second, but Estrada fanned Tyler Austin for the third out.

In the fourth inning Greg Bird led off with a ground-rule double to right, but Estrada easily retired the side on a strikeout, a short fly to centre, and a comebacker, and Bird never moved from second.

In the fifth after Andujar lined out, Austin reached on an infield single, but he was erased when he was caught stealing as Gleyber Torres struck out.

In the sixth inning Estrada’s defence rose to the occasion again to keep his shutout intact. Brett Gardner hit a liner the wrong way to left leading off, a ball that took a tricky short hop on Teoscar Hernandez, who managed to stay with the ball and hold Gardner to a single. Then Russell Martin gunned Gardner down at second on a straight steal attempt on which he was initially called safe. The video review, however, god bless its impersonal little heart, showed that Devon Travis had actually caught the ball right on the runner’s side an instant before his outstretched fingers touched the bag.

With Gardner dispatched, Stanton was retired on a fly to right and Bird fanned to end the inning. After six innings of work, Estrada had allowed no runs on five hits with no walks and 6 strikeouts, on 97 pitches. He had allowed two doubles and three singles, but never more than one base hit in an inning, and two of the hitters who reached safely against him were erased attempting to steal.

Sabathia was even better than Estrada, at least through the first five innings. He allowed a line single by Yangervis Solarte in the first inning, and walked Justin Smoak in the fourth, the only Blue Jays to reach base.

More impressive was the fact that he had set down fifteen of seventeen batters he faced on only 59 pitches through five. Estrada, by contrast, who was considerably more efficient than in his recent outings, still stood at 73 after five.

The C.C. beat continued in the bottom of the sixth as Sabathia fanned the leadoff batter Travis. This brought Teoscar Hernandez to the plate. He’d popped out leading off the game for the Jays, and grounded out to short to end the third inning. Sabathia threw three cut fast balls in three different locations to Hernandez, all around 88 miles an hour. The first one was up and out over the plate and Hernandez fouled it off. The second one was a ball, up and in.

The third one was down and in on the inside corner. Hernandez turned on it and launched a high, high fly down the left-field line that soared and soared and soared as Gardner ranged back to the wall near the line and then watched helplessly while it continued to soar into the second deck just inside the line.

Finally, the dam had burst and Toronto was on the board. Sabathia quickly regained control and retired Solarte and Smoak, the latter on a checked-swing strikeout, to take the game into the seventh inning with the Blue Jays leading 1-0.

The decision to remove a successful starting pitcher from a game is almost always the most difficult one a manager has to make, and John Gibbons faced it in the top of the seventh, with Estrada throwing a shutout but up to 97 pitches.

On the one hand, Estrada had never been in trouble in the game, even with runners on second after doubles, and why would the Yankees suddenly start to solve him now? On the other hand, they were into the third time through the order against him, and had seen all he had on this night.

Another consideration is that it’s always better to have a relief pitcher start the inning with a clean slate. If you leave the starter in you risk having to pull him mid-inning, putting the reliever in exactly the situation you would have avoided.

Add to all this the fact that Gibbie is a players’ manager, and first and foremost a manager who gives deference to his veterans. Given a choice, he will almost always give a veteran starter considerable say as to whether he should stay in the game.

And so it was that Marco Estrada came out to start the seventh against the Yankees, now with a 1-0 lead.

The last thing John Gibbons wanted to see was a leadoff base hit, but that’s just what he got; Gary Sanchez lead off with line drive single to centre. Gibbie was now triply damned: to many, he never should have sent Estrada out to start the seventh. To others, he was making a mistake to pull him after just one base hit, only his sixth of the game. And yet, if he left him in and the Yankees rallied . . .

With a guy like Seunghwan Oh, so, so, so-Oh steady Oh, ready to go in the bullpen, Gibbie quickly made the call to bring him in, and oh, what a mistake that turned out to be.

I’m sorry about the Oh puns. I won’t make another, I promise.

Down 1-0, despite the firepower in his lineup, Yankee manager Aaron Boone decided to ask Didi Gregorius to lay down a bunt to move the very slow Sanchez up to second. It worked out fine for Boone, but not as he intended. Trying to foil the bunt, presumably, Oh threw one low and inside, but it was a little too-too, and nicked Gregorius on the foot, giving him a base and moving Sanchez to second.

The dread started to spread through my body as Oh proceeded to go to 3-2 on Aaron Hicks, pitching the switch-hitter away, away, away, finally walking him on another high outside pitch to load the bases with nobody out.

This brought the rookie Miguel Andujar to the plate. Oh tried to get ahead of him by throwing a cutter right down the middle, just above the knees, but it never got there. Andujar hit it square and hit it hard, and all of a sudden it was 4-1 New York as the Yankee runners circled the bases in front of young Andujar.

Oh quickly retired the side on a strikeout, a popup, and an easy fly, but it was too late; far, far too late.

Buoyed up, obviously, by the sudden benificence of the baseball gods, C.C. Sabathia went one inning longer than Marco Estrada. He didn’t escape the seventh unscathed, but at least he didn’t allow a baserunner before Kevin Pillar unloaded on a 1-0 pitch and lofted it into the Jays’ bullpen to cut the New York lead to 4-2. Sabathia ended up giving up two runs on three hits with 1 walk and 6 strikeouts on 89 pitches.

Enter Joe Biagini to start the eighth for Toronto with one goal now that he was back in the bullpen, to keep the deficit at two so that the Jays might have some chance to come back against New York’s bullpen.

Well, that didn’t go so well. Giancarlo Stanton singled to left leading off. Biagini wild-pitched him to second Greg Bird grounded out, with Stanton moving to third. Gary Sanchez struck out for the second out.

With the left-handed Didi Gregorius coming up, John Gibbons called for Aaron Loup for the lefty matchup. Loup, who’s actually more effective against right-handed hitters, walked Gregorius, who promptly stole second.

Now Loup had to face the switch-hitting Aaron Hicks, who put the game out of reach with a three-run homer.

With a 7-2 lead and only six batters to go, the Yankees didn’t really need to use top arms out of the bullpen, but they still brought in David Robertson for the eighth; he pitched a clean inning with a strikeout.

The left-handed Chasen Shreve mopped up the ninth with two strikeouts, and what was once a fine double shutout ended up a game of two homers apiece

Problem was, New York’s two homers counted seven runs, while the Jays’ two only counted two.

It would be up to new rotation member Sam Gaviglio to try to gain a split for Toronto Wednesday night against the veteran Sonny Gray.

Wednesday Night: Twelve Shutout Innings Aren’t Enough:

For Gaviglio this would be his toughest test yet.

Sam Gaviglio had been acquired in the spring in a trade with the Kansas City Royals, and immediately optioned to Buffalo, where he would join the Triple A rotation and serve as a depth piece for Toronto’s rotation.

When the team finally bit the bullet and admitted that Marcus Stroman wasn’t right, Gaviglio was called up from the Bisons on May eleventh, and thrown immediately into the fire. He came out unscathed.

Gaviglio was sent out to pitch the tenth inning of a 3-3 tie at home with the Red Sox. All he did against the tough Sox was throw three innings of shutout ball, allowing only one base hit and striking out three on 44 pitches. For this he was awarded with the win when the Jays walked off on Luke Maile’s homer in the bottom of the twelfth.

He had another relief appearance in the same series against Boston, on the Sunday afternoon, in which he gave up one run in an inning and a third. After a clean seventh inning, he gave up a walk and a base hit in the eighth, and left with one out and a runner on third. The runner scored on a grounder allowed by Tyler Clippard, and that was the only run Gaviglio gave up in two appearances from the bullpen.

Then the decision was made that Joe Biagini wasn’t the answer to the hole left in the rotation by Stroman’s loss, and Gaviglio was given the chance to start.

Since that decision was made, there have been no regrets on the part of the Blue Jays. Gaviglio made three starts in the rotation before Wednesday night’s start against the Yankees. He went five and a third shutout innings against Oakland, gave up three runs in six innings and got the win in Philadelphia, and gave up four runs in six innings to take a loss in Fenway, so he’s provided some steady length that’s been lacking in Toronto’s location.

Starting for the Yankees was the established Sonny Gray, a New York rotation regular, and a once sought-after free agent, but a guy who blows hot and cold, both in general and against the Blue Jays.

Gray definitely blew hot against Toronto this time, and at the same time Sam Gaviglio totally passed his toughest test.

Gaviglio went seven shutout innings, and gave up only three hits and three walks while striking out four. To his credit, the more established Gray was even sharper, going eight shutout innings, giving up two hits and two walks while striking out eight.

Gary Sanchez hit a two-out ground-rule double in the fourth inning, the first hit for either team. Prior to that, only Gaviglio had been in a spot of trouble in the second when he issued his second walk of the inning with two outs, but retired Austin Romine on a fielder’s choice, with a big assist credited to Devon Travis, who flagged down Romine’s one-hop rocket to make the play to Diaz at second.

Both teams had chances in the fifth inning. The Yankees picked up their second and third hits with two outs, a base hit by Gleyber Torres and an infield hit by Brett Gardner, who beat out a dribbler that Gaviglio couldn’t get to in time. Then the Toronto starter made his only real mistake of the game, and wild-pitched the runners to second and third.

This worked out fine, though. Gaviglio had a base open and could be careful with Aaron Judge, walking him on a 3-2 count. Greg Bird ended the threat by meekly grounding out to Justin Smoak at first.

In the bottom of the fifth the lack of speed in the middle of the Toronto lineup cost the Blue Jays a run, at least. Smoak led off the inning by breaking up Gray’s perfect string of twelve outs in a row, driving a solid double into right centre. But Smoak had no chance of scoring on Kendrys Morales’ hard line single to left, charged smartly by Giancarlo Stanton, who was making one of his rare appearances in left field.

Then two terrible things happened. First, Toronto put on the horrid contact play with the lead-footed Smoak at third, and he was an easy out at the plate on Kevin Pillar’s sharp grounder to third. And after Russell Martin walked, Devon Travis did his roll-over-with-ducks-on-the-pond trick and grounded into an easy double play.

After the fifth both starters sailed to the end of their assignments, Gaviglio going seven innings and Gray eight.

Gaviglio faced the minimum in the sixth and seventh innings, striking out two, inducing a groundout, a popup, and two easy fly balls, as the unheralded right-hander continued to mess with the Yankees’ timing. His line for seven shutout innings was no runs on three hits with three walks and four strikeouts on 104 pitches.

Gray walked Granderson with one out in the sixth, but he was immediately erased by a Solarte double-play ball to second. Facing the middle of the order in the seventh, he struck out Hernandez and Smoak, though I would question the strike three call on Smoak, and then got some help from Judge in right, who went back quickly to snag a hard shot by Morales.

In his last inning the Jays went meekly on a Pillar short fly to centre, a called third strike on Martin, and a broken-bat grounder to third by Travis.

The game was then in the hands of the bullpens, from the eighth on for Toronto and from the ninth on for New York.

In the face of the vaunted reputation of the Yankee bullpen, the Jays’ relievers matched them pitch for pitch until the fateful and very unlucky thirteenth inning.

Ryan Tepera retired five straight in the eighth and ninth, gave up a two-out single to Gregorius in the ninth, and then ducked as Martin’s throw gunned Gregorius down trying to steal second. A big assist went to Travis who made a great diving tag on Gregorius, Travis’ second game-saving play of the game.

Tyler Clippard served up a leadoff double to Andujar in the tenth, then retired the next two batters before giving way to the lefty Tim Mayza who matched up with Brett Gardner. The latter sliced a liner to left that Hernandez managed to handle after a bit of adventure for the third out.

John Axford gave himself a rocky ride in the eleventh, though he started out well. He caught Judge looking on a 3-2 pitch after starting out 3 and 0. Hernandez made a magnificent sliding catch heading for the wall to get to Bird’s slicing foul fly to left for the second out. Then it got interesting. Axford walked Stanton, and proceeded to wild pitch him to second. And then to third. But all’s well . . . .. Axford fanned Sanchez on a beauty 2-2 curve ball to leave Stanton on third with the lead run.

Danny Barnes pitched the twelfth, and fanned Gregorius, walked Andujar, and then got AustinRomine (not his brother, Andrew, nor his father, Kevin) to hit into an around-the-horn double play.

The Jays, on the other hand, didn’t get a baserunner until there were two out in the eleventh. Chad Greene retired six in a row in the ninth and tenth on 23 pitches. The erratic Dellin Betances pitched the eleventh and fanned Pillar and got Martin out on a weak liner to left before giving up a sharp base hit to Travis, who stole second before Betances blew Diaz away on a 2-2 heater that touched 100 on the radar gun.

David Robertson fanned two in the twelfth before Hernandez hit him hard with a liner to left that Stanton played a bit casually, showing a sno-cone before securing the catch for the third out.

This brings us to the Yankee thirteenth, to Joe Biagini entering the game, and to the end of our story. It was quick, but not painless.

It started out with rookie star Gleyber Torroes fanning on a 2-2 cut fast ball that looked like a changeup. Then Brett Gardner lined a single to centre. There’s a reason that manager Aaron Boone has the under-the-radar Gardner leading off. He stirs up a lot of trouble on a regular basis, especially against Toronto.

You can’t really blame Biagini for the fact that Aaron Judge went down and got a good 1-2 curve ball and hit it out of the park to straightaway centre. The deadlock was finally broken, and with Gardner on it was a two-run lead, after twelve innings of two-way shutout.

Just for good measure, with two outs Biagini left a changeup in the zone for Giancarlo Stanton, and I swear to whoever that the line drive to left that he hit out left smoke trails behind it. It was out almost before you knew he hit it.

Of course, we finally saw Aroldis Chapman. Kendrys Morales tied into one of his fast balls and drilled it off the wall in right for a double, but that was it for Toronto, and the Yankees had swept the short series, primarily by hitting the ball out when it counted, and especially when it counted for more than a single run.

And yet, they were hardly walkovers, were they?

I was born in Detroit, and lived there until I was 22 years old.

My father regularly took the various remnants of our large brood to one or two ball games a year at Tiger Stadium, preferably for doubleheaders, first to get more value for his ticket bucks, and second to keep us out of our mother’s hair for twice as long.

When I was an early teen, my friends and I would take the city buses to the ballpark and pay $1.25 to sit in the bleachers, always in the sun-drenched upper deck, overlooking the broad expanse of the deepest centre field in the major leagues.

At beyond 440 feet from the plate, the action in the infield was little more than a faint rumour, but we were savvy fans, and had no trouble following the game from that distance. And as we did we enjoyed the atmosphere of a decidedly working-class clientele that regularly and raucously filled the bleachers to near capacity.

As a young parent in 1976 I returned to Tiger Stadium with my first son, who was five. We saw three games to enjoy the thrill of the atmosphere created by the golden season of Mark (the Bird) Fidrych. Three times we watched him pitch, and three times we watched him dominate the opposition and lead his decidedly mediocre team to victory.

The single beautiful season of Mark Fidrych is one of the saddest and sweetest stories not only in Detroit Tiger lore, but in the history of Major League Baseball. Sometime I must give it my attention and record my thoughts and memories of it, since I lived through it in my own small way.

The Blue Jays came on the scene the next year, and all thoughts of the Tigers and Mark Fidrych diappeared. I attended a number of games that year, including the opening game in the snow on April seventh, 1977. I know there are at least a quarter million Torontonians who were in that crowd of 44,000 that day, but I still have them socked away, my ticket stubs from that Opening Day.

One of the games that I attended that year was when the Tigers came to town. I had wondered how I would feel about the Blue Jays playing my beloved Tigers, but it was no contest: after being swept up in all the excitement of Doug Ault and company, the Tigers were just another road team in greys.

I’ve never been to the new ballpark in Detroit, but I’m happy about it for two reasons: first, that it was build in the inner city core, not far from the location of the old Tiger Stadium. Second, that it’s about as pretty a new ballpark as you could find, especially with the view of Detroit’s classic mid-twentieth-century skyline off in the distance beyond the centre-field fence.

Even after all these years, in a place I’ve never been, I still feel a bittersweet hitch in my throat when the camera opens out on the view from behind the plate at the Detroit ballpark. There’s a moment when I actually expect to hear the soothing, mid-Atlantic twang of the late, great Ernie Harwell, excitedly declaring, “Good evening baseball fans! The Detroit Tigers are on the air!”

I am feeling less bittersweet about the fact that according to the best evidence so far, the Tigers’ “bottoming out and rebuilding from the bottom” seems to be taking considerably less time than anticipated, and after one of the worst seasons in franchise history in 2017, the team is rebounding quickly and may in fact be going entirely in the opposite direction from my beloved Blue Jays.

Friday Night: Don’t Blame it on the Pitchers!

On the face of it, the Tigers won Friday night, sending Toronto to its fourth straight loss, because they jumped on Jaime Garcia for four runs in the second inning and chased him from the game.

But that’s only half the story. Four runs isn’t a whole lot to make up, especially in the spacious confines of the Detroit ballpark, where doubles can fall like the spring rains. And Toronto’s bullpen didn’t allow another run until the seventh inning, and only one then.

So it’s as much the case that fill-in starter Blaine Hardy stonewalled Toronto on two runs and three hits for six innings, and the Tiger bullpen, though it wobbled, didn’t fall under pressure from the Jays late in the game.

Instead of stressing Garcia’s failure to survive the second inning, we need to tip our hats to those that followed: Danny Barnes for an inning and a third after picking up Garcia, Joe Biagini for three sparkling innings giving hope for the future, Tyler Clippard, who gave up the solo homer to Nick Castellanos, and John Axford, who fanned two.

Meanwhile, the depleted Tiger lineup, sans Ian Kinsler, J. D. Martinez, and Justin Upton, not to mention Justin Verlander on the other side of the ball, seems to be doing just fine, thank you very much, even if they started out looking like the Boston Red Sox at their flukiest on this night.

Poor Jaime Garcia gave up two runs in the second on the first three batters, the most damanging blow a triple by Jacoby Jones that Kevin Pillar missed with a dive. Jacoby drove in Victor Martinez, on with a flare single to left, and James McCann, who grounded one through the depleted left side of the Toronto infield.

Leonys Martin scored Jones with a groundout to short. Jose Iglesias doubled to left and stole third. He scored on a single by Jeimer Candelario to give the Tigers a 4-0 lead. After the Toronto lefty fanned Tiger rookie second baseman Ronnie Rodriguez for the second out, Nick Castellanos followed with a base hit. John Gibbons decided it was time to pull the dedevilled Garcia, who had only notched five outs while giving up the four runs and leaving two runners on.

But as I said you can’t pin this one wholly on Jaime Garcia. Despite the fact that the Jays’ bullpen did a great job of shutting down the aggressive Tigers’ hitters, they could do nothing with Blaine Hardy, who threw a lot more like a mid-rotation regular than a fill-in starter on a sub-.500 team.

The Jays finally got to Hardy in the top of the sixth, when Teoscar Hernandez plated a leadoff walk to Aledmys Diaz with a deep drive to centre that deflected off centre fielder Leonys Martins glove for a triple. Hernandez would eventually score on a sacrifice fly by Kendrys Morales to cut the Tigers’ lead in half and give the visitors a lift.

When Hardy finished his solid six, he turned it over to a Detroit bullpen that’s had its ups and downs this season (see sub .500 record) but was spot on in support of Harday.

Buck Farmer pitched around two base hits in the seventh, Artie Lewicki mopped up a bit of a mess left by Johnny Barbato, who gave up a hit and a walk in the eighth, and Chad Greene picked up his fourteenth save when Solarte grounded into a fielder’s choice after Hernandez’ two-out single, and the Tigers had drawn first blood in this series between under-achievers.

Saturday Afternoon Heartbreak:

If there’s been a game in this string of sorry losses that hurt just a little more than others it was this one.

Jay Happ was on the mound for Toronto, a signal event that usually suggests that the Jays would have a better than average chance of recording a win. Happ is the only starter who’s been consistent in giving them a chance to win.

And for what seems like the first time in ages the Toronto offence gave Happ not one, but two leads.

But the snake-bitten Jays can’t depend on anything these days, not even Jay Happ.

Happ held Detroit to two runs in the first four innings on 66 pitches, but after Luke Maile and Yangervis Solarte had given him a 4-2 lead with solo homers in the top of the fifth, he gave up two runs to Detroit to tie the game, threw 40 pitches doing it, and was finished for the night after five innings at 106 pitches, only able to keep the slate even for Toronto at 4-4.

You had to think early on that it wasn’t going to be a great day for Happ. After Detroit starter (and former Toronto farmhand Matt Boyd) pitched around a two-out walk to Justin Smoak in the top of the first, Detroit leadoff hitter Jeimer Candelario smoked Happ’s first pitch into the left-field seats for an instant 1-0 Tiger lead.

The Jays nicely reversed the score in the top of the third. Luke Maile doubled to left leading off. With one out Solarte lined one into left centre for a double to score Maile, and Smoak immediately scored Solarte with a single to right. With the slow Smoak on first and the slower Kendrys Morales at the plate, Boyd threw a pitcher’s best friend double play ball to Morales to end the rally.

The Tigers tied it again in the bottom of the third, with a little help from the shamrock bucket. With one out Dixon Machado hit a ball into left centre. Curtis Granderson moved to his left, dove for the ball, got his glove on it, but had it roll out as he hit the ground.

Machado ended up on second, whence he scored on Castellanos’ two-out double to left, and the game was tied again. Needless to say, if the ball sticks in Granderson’s glove, Castellanos’ double is harmless.

After both Boyd and Happ retired the side in the fourth, Maile and Solarte provided their instant lightning to give the Jays a second lead at 4-2 going to the bottom of the fifth.

But Happ couldn’t hold the lead against these tough Tigers. Two walks figured into this being Happ’s last inning, but only the first one, to Jose Iglesias after he struck out the leadoff man Jacoby Jones, figured in the scoring. With Iglesias on first, second baseman Dixon Machado drove one to right centre that just beat the reach of Pillar, and went for a run-scoring double.

Happ got the second out with a big assist to Solarte at third. Candelario hit a shot to the third baseman’s glove side, but Solarte came up with it and threw him out. Castellanos, consistently tough on Toronto pitching over the last few years, singled the opposite way to right to drive in Machado to tie the game.

Happ walked Miguel Cabrera, on an eighth-pitch 3-2 count before Victor Martinez grounded out to second to end the inning. If anything, the meaningless walk to Cabrera was the final straw in preventing Happ from pitching into the sixth.

Matt Boyd trucked on into the sixth and eventually went seven innings for the Tigers, holding them in check for his last two innings of work, giving up only a walk to Luke Maile in the seventh. Louis Coleman pitched a clean eighth to preserve the tie for the Tigers.

Meanwhile, John Axford pitched a sterling two innings to make up for Happ’s short start. He set down six in a row, striking out two on thirty pitches.

Bringing us to the bottom of the eighth and the meltdown of Seunghwan Oh.

Oh got the first out when Castellanos flew out to right field. But then Miggy Cabrera hit a grounder up the middle for a base hit, and was replaced by pinch runner Victor Reyes.

Toronto caught a break when Victor Martinez’ drive to left centre bounced over the fence for a ground-rule double, forcing Reyes to stop at third. Ronny Rodriguez ran for Martinez, so that both of the hard-hitting plug horses were out of the game. Niko Goodrun was walked intentionally to load the bases.

This brought catcher John Hicks to the plate. Hicks hadn’t hit a ball in fair territory all night, going down swinging twice to Happ and once to Axford. But he was okay with Oh. He reached out and poked a soft liner over second that scored the two pinch runners and sent Goodrum to third. Jacoby Jones knocked in the third run with a liner to left for a sacrifice fly.

After Iglesias lofted a base hit to left, moving Hicks up to second, John Gibbons had seen enough of Oh and brought in Tim Mayza, who got Manny Machado to fly out to left on the second pitch and end the misery.

With the wind totally out of their sails, the Jays went meekly in order in the ninth before the slants of Joe Jiminez, who only had to throw 13 pitches to pick up his first save of the year.

Sunday Revival: Once a Week is Better than Nonce a Week (I guess):

After the 4:00 start on Saturday it was a short turnaround on Sunday for the traditional 1:00 afternoon start.

Sunday was a matchup of young bulls, rotation studs of recent years who’ve been struggling in 2018. It was Aaron Sanchez versus Michael Fulmer, and devil take the hindmost.

Which turned out to be Michael Fulmer, who has had significant success against Toronto in the past couple of years.

It took a long time for somebody to blink in this one, though, in a game that was scoreless through the first five innings.

If you looked just at the pitching lines, especially the pitch count, Fulmer was pitching a gem and Sanchez was struggling. Sanchez retired seven in a row before giving up a base hit and a walk in the third, while Fulmer allowed only a walk, immediately erased on a double play.

Yet Fulmer had thrown 25 pitches, and Sanchez 49.

After the fourth inning the discrepancy was even worse. Fulmer retired the side quickly to go to 40 pitches. Sanchez struck out the side and walked a second batter, but by the time he sat down he was up to 71 pitches; he had thrown nearly twice as many pitches as Fulmer, and it was still no score.

The disparity evened up somewhat in the fifth when Sanchez put the Tigers down on 12 pitches, to take him to 83. Prior to this, Fulmer had given up his first hit and faced his first mild problem in the top of the fifth.

In fact, he gave up base hits to both Russell Martin and Devon Travis, but unfortunately for the Jays before Travis’ base hit, he and Martin botched an attempted hit-and-run, and Martin was thrown out at second by Tigers’ catcher James McCann. Fulmer racked up 21 pitches in the inning, leaving him at a still very economical 61 through five.

But efficiency isn’t always the only issue when it comes to pitching, and in the top of the sixth Fulmer made a fatal mistake and Toronto was able to capitalize on it to take a lead they’d never relinquish.

The first two Jays’ hitters, Diaz and Granderson, went down quickly, but then Fulmer went to a full count on Solarte before losing him. The only thing worse, sometimes, than a leadoff walk is a two-out, nobody on walk. Gifted with an unexpected plate appearance, Justin Smoak made the most of it and became the first Blue Jay to reach second base against Michael Fulmer. He also reached third and home after taking a 3-2 pitch deep to right to give Toronto, and the hard-working Sanchez, a 2-0 lead.

It was a lead that Leonys Martin immediately cut in half in the bottom of the sixth with a leadoff home run to right. Sanchez gathered himself after the Martin shot, though, and managed to keep Castellanos in the ball park on a deep fly to right. Then he struck out Cabrera, walked Candelario, and fanned Niko Goodrum to finish six tough innings over which he gave up one run, 2 hits, walked three, and fanned seven on exactly 100 pitches.

An interesting highlight of Sanchez’ sixth inning is that when he struck out the dead-cinch future Hall of Famer Miggy Cabrera, it stretched Cabrera’s record at the plate against Sanchez to 0 for 14.

Michael Fulmer was sent back out for the top of the seventh, but only two batters into the inning, a ground single to centre by Pillar and a walk to Russell Martin, Tigers’ manager Ron Gardenhire turned to the impressively-named Warwick Saupold to take over on the mound.

Alas for the Tigers, Saupold’s name is far more impressive than his performance was, at least on this day, and a tight ball game was about to become a big Toronto lead.

The first batter Saupold faced was Devon Travis, who hit one to the wall in right field, where Nick Castellanos came down from a leaping catch that robbed Travis. Pillar, reading the hit well, tagged up and advanced to third.

Randal Grichuk, hitless since his return from the DL on Friday night, lined a double into the left-field corner which scored Pillar and brought Russell Martin around to third base. Aledmys Diaz hit a liner to right that Castellanos tried to Pillar with a dive, but he’s not Pillar, and it was ruled a trap. Martin scored, and Grichuk moved up to third on the hit.

The Jays were now up 4-1, but weren’t finished yet.

Saupold fanned Granderson for the second out, but Solarte grounded one through the bunched left side to score Grichuk and bring Diaz to third. This brought Smoak back to the plate for the second straight inning, and he juiced another one, a deep drive to centre that bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double, scoring Diaz but forcing Solarte to stop at third.

So Smoak picked up six total bases and three RBIs in two consecutive plate appearances over two innings. The Jays now led 6-1; when Saupold finally fanned Morales the rising was over.

Tyler Clippard took over for Sanchez for the Tigers’ seventh and threw what has become a typical Clipp-ish inning: strikeout, popup, ringing double off left-field wall by Jose Iglesias, strikeout. We just have to breathe a sigh of relief that Iglesias’ launch angle wasn’t just a little higher. (In layman’s terms, which I prefer: thank god he didn’t hit it out.)

Righty Zac Reininger pitched the top of the eighth for Detroit, and he got bit on the butt by a one-out walk followed by a botched double-play ball, and paid a two-run price for his troubles. After Pillar hit a soft liner to second off the end of his bat, Reininger lost the plate and walked Martin on a 3-1 pitch. Travis hit a grounder to short that was tailor-made for an inning-ending double play, but the rookie second baseman Rodriguez dropped the ball, and the Tigers only got the force at second.

This gave Grichuk a shot at the plate, and like Smoak earlier in the game, he made the most of his opportunity. After the line double to left in the seventh, Grichuk hit a liner to right that carried over the fence for two more runs.

Once again, an error can’t be assigned if an out is recorded but an obvious double play isn’t turned because of a bobble, so the runs were earned. No fair on Reininger, but he shouldn’t have walked Martin in the first place.

As for Grichuk, if this Randal Grichuk is the guy we traded Dominic Leone to the Cardinals for, well, welcome to Toronto, Randal, as you duplicate Smoak’s feat with a double, a homer, and three RBIs in consecutive plate appearances in consecutive innings.

With an 8-1 lead it didn’t matter much, with an off-day coming up, that Danny Barnes and Aaron Loup couldn’t put the Tigers away in the bottom of the eighth, and that Ryan Tepera had to come in and get two outs to preserve an 8-4 lead.

After Johnny Barbato dodged some bullets in the top of the ninth, Tepera came back out and finished the five-out stint with panache, on a ground ball and two strikeouts.

What does matter in the big picture is another poor performance by Danny Barnes, who should have been breezing, starting an inning with an 8-1 lead. But, no, he had to walk the leadoff batter Martin, and give up a one-out single to Cabrera, causing John Gibbons to pull the plug quickly.

But Barnes’ ducks were on the pond, and sometimes like Sunday afternoon in Detroit, those ducks have to come home to roost. Good job there weren’t more of them, and that the Jays had built a big lead.

Now we get to see whether our boys can build on this one win when the fearsome Yankees come to town for two, Tuesday and Wednesday.