Was that all Toronto needed, to get out of town?
Playing in the pretty confines of Philadelphia’s cozy ballpark, yet another space named after a greedy financial institution, was all it took to turn the Toronto Turkeys of Thursday afteroon’s embarrassment at home back into a flock of Blue Jays who can fly with the best of them?
Used to be, going into an inter-league series with the Phillies, Toronto’s spring training partners in the Clearwater-Dunedin area, was a tonic for the ERAs and the batting averages, given the woeful state of the perpetually-rebuilding Phils.
Not so much any more. These here Phillies are some ball club. It might be a little early; it wasn’t expected this year, but for all intents and purposes I think we can declare “mission accomplished” on the rebuild of this Philadelphia team.
So what happened when the Blue Jays dragged their sorry feathered rumps into town after a dreadful homestand?
The starters lasted. The relievers relieved, some of them mightily. The hitters hit, just enough. And when they lost one game out of three, it was crisp, clean, and entirely deserved by the Phillies, so who could gainsay them one out of the three?
NAIL-BITIN’ FRIDAY NIGHT
This past weekend was art show weekend at the gallery where my wife shows her paintings. We had an opening at 7:00 Friday evening, and a closing and pickup of paintings at 4:00 Sunday afternoon.
So I had to be creative to follow the game when I couldn’t watch. Luckily I’ve finally entered the twenty-first century, and have had a smart phone for the whole season. Makes life much easier when there are conflicts with the Jays’ games.
I only watched the last part of the game, from the bottom of the seventh on, just in time to join the nervous nellies watching Toronto try to close the deal after some crisp hitting and a great start by Sam Gaviglio vaulted the Jays into a 6-1 lead after five and a half innings.
From the start of the game I got to exercise my nimble fingers (ha!) on my phone by switching between Gameday and the memo pad where I was scoring the game in my usual notetaking style, all the while listening to Ben and Mike call the game on the radio.
I was disappointed, of course, not to have seen Toronto’s hitters jump start the game by delivering three two-out base hits with runners in scoring position to post a three-spot in the top of the first.
But there is something deeply satisfying about hearing a good radio caller narrate a rally for his team. (For, let there be no doubt, the radio broadcasters are fans of the team they work for in ways that the television guys just aren’t allowed to be.)
When Teoscar Hernandez beat out the two-out grounder to third that scored Josh Donaldson with the first Toronto run, the excitement emanating from the radio booth was almost palpable. And then, to have not only Yangervis Solarte but also the slumping Kevin Pillar drive the ball into opposite corners for doubles that scored first Hernandez and then Solarte, was, as they said in a play somewhere, “too much happiness”.
Even better, though, was to listen to the casual narration of Jays’ starter Sam Gaviglio’s easy, and much appreciated, three-groundout, twelve-pitch bottom of the first.
Gaviglio came to the plate with one out in the bottom of the second, and we paused for the curiosity of finding out how another Toronto pitcher might do at the plate in this National League park. Well! Phillies’ starter Zach Eflin through him a fat fast ball up and in for an easy strike three on a 2-2 count, but Gaviglio put a nice swing on it, caught it fat, and sent it on a line to left centre. Left fielder Rhys Hoskins moved to his left and put on an ill-advised leaping dive but the ball sailed past his glove, hit and bounced all the way to the wall, while the surprisingly impassive Gaviglio easily chugged into second.
Unfortunately, he died there, and had to be content to come back out for the second with the lead still 3-0.
Neither the exhilaration over his hit, nor the exertion of running it out, nor the disappointment at not crossing the plate, affected Gaviglio’s pitching, though, as he came out for the home second and recorded two more groundouts for five in a row, followed by a popup. This time he took 14 pitches, for 26 in total after the two innings.
Without actually watching him pitch, it was obvious to me that Gaviglio’s approach had a seriously negative effect on the timing of the Philadelphia hitters.
In the bottom of the third, though, a really strange thing happened. The Toronto righty threw only another 14 pitches for 40 after three, picked up another groundout, his sixth, his first fly ball out to left, and his first strikeout.
But with two out and nobody on, after retiring eight batters in a row, Gaviglio was facing his counterpart, Zach Eflin, who had managed to keep Toronto from extending its lead in the second and third.
If Gaviglio had any thoughts yet of throwing a no-hitter, and if he was thinking of himself as the best hitting pitcher on display this night, Eflin was having none of it. On an 0-1 pitch Gaviglio threw him a sinker that stayed up in the zone, and, like Gaviglio had done to him, Eflin put a good swing on the ball, hit it on the barrell, and away it went, headed irretrievably for the Phillies’ bullpen in right centre field.
3-1 Toronto after three.
Buoyed by his big hit, Eflin came out and shut Toronto down in the fourth. Gaviglio ran into his first trouble in the fourth, other than not missing Eflin’s bat. He walked Rhys Hoskins leading off, fanned Odubrel Herrera, and walked Carlos Santana. Then he got his ground ball mojo back, and Mikael Franco hit into a fielder’s choice, and Nick Williams grounded out to third.
Any semblance of a duel between the starting pitchers came to an end after three batters into the Toronto fifth. Curtis Granderson singled to right and advanced to second on Josh Donaldson’s slow roller to third. That gave Grandy a good vantage point to watch Justin Smoak’s drive to centre on a 1-0 pitch that chased Grandy home before Smoak’s dignified trot followed him across. It was 5-1 for the Blue Jays
Eflin got the second out, but let Toronto off the mat again, with a little unwanted help from his defence. Yangervis Solarte followed Smoak’s homer with a base hit to right, a solid line drive. Solarte moved up on a passed ball, and Kevin Pillar reached on a bad throw by the third baseman Franco that should have been the third out, while Solarte moved up to third, and then scored on a single by Russell Martin off reliever Victor Arano; Phillies’ manager Gabe Kapler had rescued Eflin from further damage after Franco’s error.
So Eflin was out, Gaviglio was still in and pitching with a 6-1 lead. Things were looking good for the visitors, but of course with Toronto it seems like things are never easy these days.
Gaviglio had his best inning in the fifth, fanning the catcher Jorge Alfaro and right fielder Aaron Altherr on six strikes and retiring Pedro Florimon on a first-pitch liner to centre. After five innings he’d thrown only 69 pitches.
But Toronto was to stall at six runs. Arano pitched a good sixth after finishing the fifth for Eflin; Adam Morgan kept the Jays in check in the seventh and eighth, and Tommie Hunter finished off the ninth.
In fact, after Martin’s RBI single in the fifth, the Jays only had one more baserunner the rest of the way. Justin Smoak reached on an infield single in the seventh off Morgan, but was erased in a double play.
Sam Gaviglio came within one batter of the magical six-inning start with only one run allowed, but with two outs in the bottom of the inning Herrera doubled to left and Santana crushed the first pitch he saw from Gaviglio over the right-field fence to cut the lead to 6-3. Gaviglio fanned Franco for the second time to finish his sixth inning; he had given a quality start of six or more innings pitched with three runs or less, a start that was much needed by the bullpen, but 6-3 was a lot less secure than 6-1.
But it was plenty secure for one inning in the capable hands of Seunghwan Oh. Oh threw 21 pitches, and the only pitch that was hit in fair territory was a popup to the shortstop by Florimon for the second out.
Prior to that he’d walked Scott Kingery and fanned Alfaro, and after the popup he fanned Altherr.
Mindful, no doubt, of his two previous meltdowns as closer, manager John Gibbons elected to bring Tyler Clippard in for the eighth inning and leave the closer’s role for Ryan Tepera.
On the scoreboard Clip didn’t do a lot better in the eighth inning than the ninth, as the Phils cut another run off the Jays’ lead, but it wasn’t totally his fault. Cesar Hernandez started the inning with a drive to right that was catchable, except that Teoscar Hernandez, who is still learning the outfielding trade, took a bad route to the ball, and it got by him and hit off the wall for a double.
If Teoscar had caught Cesar’s hit, Cesar wouldn’t have been on second when Rhys Hoskins lined a double into the left-field corner, and Hoskins would have died on second as Clippard ran out the side after Hoskins’ shot with two popups and a strikeout.
In came Tepera to attempt to earn the save, thereby protecting Toronto’s now two-run lead.
Well, it was tense, really tense. I mean “god, I can’t look!” tense. He gave up one more run, and the Phillies were in a position to do even more damage, when he finally shut them down.
Would you believe bases loaded, one out, one run already in on a wild pitch? And would you believe that Tep got out of it? Both the situation he faced, and the fact that he survived, are true, and Toronto won the first game of this interleague series by a razor-thin margin of 6-5.
With one out, the inning started with a hit that barely made it out of the infield. Jorge Alfaro hit a chopper that just snaked through between Solarte and Gio Urshela at short. Pedro Florimon who was 0 for 3 to this point, lined one into right centre and hustled to second while the catcher Alfaro was held at third.
The throats got a little tighter when, with one out and the tying runs in scoring position, Tepera bounced a wild slider past Russell Martin to the backstop. Alfaro scored to make it 6-5 and Florimon moved up to third.
The throats got a lot tighter when Tepera then walked both Aaron Altherr on a 3-1 pitch and Cesar Hernandez on four pitches to load the bases. It was at this point that John Gibbons came out, not to bury Tepera, but to praise him, apparently. He seemed to give his substitute closer a pep talk, and then retreated to the dugout.
Whatever Gibbie said seemed to have worked, because in the most important at bat of the entire game Tepera threw a 2-2 fast ball to the young slugger Rhys Hoskins on the outside black* and plate umpire Joe West rung him up, much to his dismay.
*It’s a tradition for plate umpires to allow pitchers strikes that are thrown “on the black”. If you’ve never seen a home plate up close, you should know that it’s designed rather strangely, in that there is about a two-inch bevel all the way around it. During the game the bevel has a tendency to be covered in dirt so that the players and the umpire can only see the flat part of the plate. When you see umpires sweep off the plate they are usually clearing dirt away from the side bevels so that they can be seen. Whether covered by dirt or not, the bevels are part of the plate and therefore within the strike zone. When an ump gives a pitcher a pitch that he envisions is over the bevel, the pitch is said to be “on the black”.
With two outs the tension eased considerably. And it disappeared when the over-eager Odubel Herrera jumped at the first pitch and hit a hard chopper to second. Solarte had time to back up for a good hop and throw him out to end the game.
So it took Ryan Tepera one run, two hits, two walks, a wild pitch, a strikeout, and 26 pitches to record his first save.
I’m sure he’s hoping that the next one will be a little easier.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON PITCHERS’ DUEL
When you looked at the pitching matchup for Saturday’s game, it looked more like a pitching mis-matchup, with the hot young Philadelphia star Aaron Nola, coming into the game sporting a 6-2 record and a 2.37 ERA.
Facing Nola for Toronto would be Jaime Garcia, coming off a stint on the disabled list for shoulder issues, preceded by some very inconsistent and unproductive starts.
Well, Nola was as advertised. How about walking second batter Josh Donaldson in the first inning, and then not allowing a baserunner until the seventh inning with one out, when he issued his second walk, to Justin Smoak?
Not only did Nola retire 19 of the first 20 batters he faced, he struck out ten of them.
In the end, Nola and manager Greg Kapler found themselves in the same trap as many other managers and fine young pitchers find themselves. He carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning with only the one walk, but the moment the no-hitter was broken, Kapler was out of the dugout to take him out.
Not only did Russell Martin break up the no-hitter with his ground single through the left side, he also drove in the Jays’ first and tying run. More importantly, the hit came on Nola’s 113th pitch.
Nola—and Kapler—were rapidly reaching a moment when it may have been necessary to take him out even if the no-hitter was still on. The fact that Nola had walked Smoak and Solarte to set up the situation for Martin to tie the game was the last factor in stretching his pitch count. Martin’s hit solved the problem for Kapler and made it easier for him to take Nola out.
I’m waiting to see what the buzz is the first time some young stud is pulled from a no-hit bid in the eighth inning because he’s at 120 pitches. I think that such an event would mark another irrevocable change in the traditions of the game, right up there with the adoption of the defensive shift.
But we started out saying that this game was a surprising pitchers’ duel, so let’s look at the real surprise, the performance of Jaime Garcia.
I keep thinking that Garcia at his best, and we’ve seen some great innings, or even strings of innings, from him this year, not only resembles Marco Estrada physically, but pitches very much as a left-handed version of the slow-throwing changeup specialist.
In his first three innings Garcia gave up two base hits, one in the first by Rhys Hoskins and one in the second by Scott Kingery. Neither was hard hit, and Garcia stranded both of them. He struck out one in the first inning and two in the second, and by the end of three innings, he’d thrown only 41 pitches.
In the fourth, much like Estrada, Garcia’s pitches started to come up, and he retired the side on three fly balls, the first two easy outs, but the third a deep drive by Aaron Altherr, the hardest hit ball so far off Garcia, that Pillar went back to the wall and made a great, if typical Pillar, catch on.
Mikael Franco led off the fifth and followed Altherr’s drive at the end of the fourth with the second straight shot hit off Garcia. But this one, a line drive to left, cleared the fence for the first run of the game, a run that would stand up until Martin broke up Nola’s no-hitter in the seventh with his RBI single.
After the Franco drive, Garcia settled right back down and generated two more groundouts and a strikeout. At the end of the five innings he’d still thrown only 52 pitches. I was going to say that this was something of a minor miracle for Jays’ starters these days, but that would be understating the significance of his feat.
After a brief rain delay in the middle of the sixth, Garcia dismissed the Phillies on two more groundouts—seven to this point—and a popup. Another nine pitches, to 61 for six.
Not only did Garcia have to wait out the rain in the sixth, he had to wait out the Jays’ top of the seventh, when they took a good while scoring the tying run and seeing Nola pulled for the reliever.
Even so, he got the first two outs in the Phillie’s seventh so quickly that when he gave up two base hits with two outs John Gibbons left him in to retire the side and finish seven complete innings. He finished as he started, efficiently: he fanned Santana, retired Altherr on a grounder to third, gave up a base hit by Franco and a bunt single by Kingery, before ending the inning on a weak comebacker by Alfaro. All of this took twelve pitches. That’s twelve pitches.
So, Aaron Nola’s line was six and two thirds innings, one run on one hit with three walks and ten strikeouts, throwing 113 pitches.
Jaime Garcia’s line was seven innings pitched, one run on five hits with no walks and five strikeouts, throwing 73 pitches.
Was that 73 pitches over seven innings? A tad over ten pitches per inning? For Jaime Garcia? Yup!
After all that beautiful pitching, the denouement of the game came off a bit flat.
Seranthony Dominguez, who finished off the seventh for Aaron Nola, gave up a one-out infield hit to Kevin Pillar, who was hitting for Garcia in the eighth, and then threw a double-play ball to Curtis Granderson to end the inning.
Joe Biagini came in to start the Philadelphia eighth inning for Toronto, his first appearance in his new role as definitely a reliever. His first appearance, nay, his first batter, was a rude comeuppance for his aspirations.
Nick Williams hit for Dominguez, and, unlike in his starts, Biagini started him off with a well-placed fast ball for a strike. In fact, he started out all three of the hitters he faced with a strike. Would that he had done so in his starts!
Unfortunately, Williams turned on Biagini’s second pitch and deposited it over the centre-field fence for the run that would be the only thing differentiating these two teams on this day.
Biagini quickly retired Hernandez on a first-pitch fly ball to centre, and Hoskins on a grounder to first. Then John Gibbons put in Aaron Loup to pitch to the left-handed Odubel Herrera. As often happens, Loup plunked the man he was supposed to get, but then retired the switch hitter Carlos Santana to end the inning.
Luis Garcia came in to close out the game for the Phils, and only took ten pitches to finish it off. Donaldson started things off with an infield hit, but Smoak fanned and Teoscar Hernandez grounded into a double play to end the game.
So John Gibbons hit for Jaime Garcia in the seventh inning, but the Jays didn’t take the lead in the inning. The Phillies scored the winning run in the eighth off Garcia’s reliever Biagini.
The question might arise, then, should Gibbie have let Garcia hit for himself and let him start the eighth, since he had only thrown 73 pitches? It’s fun to play with, and we can all have our opinions, but here’s the bottom line: after about 100 years of baseball tradition having set certain things in stone, any manager playing National League rules letting his pitcher hit in the seventh inning in a tie game: just ain’t gonna happen, no way, no how.
So, no point in talking about it. Their relievers didn’t give up a run, our only reliever gave up one, and that’s why we lost this beautiful pitchers’ duel.
RUBBER GAME SUNDAY? GIVE THE BALL TO THE HAPP-STER!
After hanging on through a hair-raising ninth inning on Friday night, and losing a close pitchers’ duel on Saturday, it seemed like some of the elements that had been missing from Toronto’s approach were starting to fall into place.
First of all, their starting pitching was pretty darned good, compared to all recent experience. Sam Gaviglio left with a three-run lead, one out short of a quality start on Friday night, and Jaime Garcia threw arguably one of the team’s best starts of the season Saturday afternoon in a losing effort.
Secondly, effective and productive hitting suddenly showed up for the first five innings Friday night, showing that it really was possible for this Blue Jays’ team to jump out in front when the opportunity was made available to them.
Then they shut down, almost totally blanked from the sixth inning Friday night through the entire game Saturday, with the exception of Russell Martin’s RBI single that broke up Aaron Nola’s no-hitter in the seventh inning.
Finally, they needed effective work from the bullpen, something they didn’t get Friday night, though they did barely cling to a lead that should have been good enough, and something they didn’t get from Joe Biagini on Saturday afternoon when he served up the game-winning home run to Nick Williams, the first batter he faced after coming on in the eighth for Garcia.
So, how about a game in which they put it all together? What would that look like?
Well, first it would look like grabbing an early lead on the Phillies’ starter, rookie Nick Pivetta.
Curtis Granderson had ensured that Toronto wouldn’t be no-hit for a second time this season by a Canadian boy (Pivetta is from Victoria, B.C.. What’s with these B.C. guys making it to the Show as starting pitchers, eh?) Grandy led off the first with a line single to left over the head of the shortstop Scott Kingery, but Pivetta kept the Jays off
the board and stranded him at third after throwing the ball away on a pickoff attempt at first, an error that allowed Granderson to move all the way around.
But in the second it was Pivetta’s wildness to the plate that cost him two runs. After third baseman Mikael Franco took a double away from Kevin Pillar by snatching his hot shot and throwing him out, Pivetta walked the next two batters and then wild-pitched them into scoring position.
Enter Devon Travis, who really needed a pick-me-up at the plate and got it as he lined a double to the wall in left centre to notch the two baserunners and give the Jays a 2-0 lead.
Doubling back to Kevin Pillar for a moment, this would prove to be an incredibly frustrating day for him, as he absolutely tattooed the ball in all four of his plate appearances, and never hit it out of the infield, robbed four times. Anybody out there who thinks that Pillar is into his early-summer reversion didn’t see him swing the bat on Sunday. But, just an 0 for 4.
After the second inning Pivetta settled down nicely and ended up going five innings, giving up just the two runs on four hits, while walking two and striking out seven on a fairly high 86 pitches for five.
Tommie Hunter came on for the Phillies in the top of the sixth, and the Jays once again picked up a crucial solid base hit, an opposite-field double to left with the bases loaded by Dwight Smith Jr. that brought home two more runs, doubling the Toronto lead to 4-0.
That was it for Hunter, as Phillies’ manager Gabe Kapler went to his bullpen, with two outs, first base open, and the eighth hitter, right-handed Devon Travis standing in. He brought in the right-hander Edubray Ramos to face Travis, whom the Phils immediately waved to first on the intentional walk, bringing Happ’s position in the batting order to the plate.
Kapler was trying to force John Gibbons’ hand and pull Happ for a pinch-hitter, but given the effectiveness of Jay Happ on this afternoon (see below) it was no surprise that Gibbie let Happ hit, since he was throwing a two-hit shutout through five innings.
Sadly, there was no further display of Happ’s hitting prowess as we saw against the Mets earlier in the season. Faced with the chance to break open his own game in a significant way, Happ made contact off the reliever Ramos, but skied out to right field to leave the sacks loaded.
The second thing it would look like for Toronto to put it all together would be a second consecutive quality start, and they got just that from the increasingly confident and effective Happ.
Through three innings the big lefty allowed only a second-inning walk to Aaron Altherr. He gave up a walk and a single with one out in the fourth and then fanned Altherr and Williams. With a couple of popups and another strikeout in the fifth he was breezing, on a modest 69 pitches.
But Happ’s defense let him down in the sixth, leading to three Philadelphia runs, making a lot of throats a lot tighter around the ballpark.
With one out, Mikael Franco hit an opposite-field single to right beating the shift, a tactic that we seem to see used an awful lot more by our opponents than by us. Carlos Santana, not the swiftest bunny in the den, hit a little teaser to third that Josh Donaldson barehanded and threw away.
Franco ended up on third and Santana on second, credited with an infield single and advancing on the error. Aaron Altherr grounded one up the middle for a base hit that scored Franco, but Kevin Pillar, hoping to hold Santana at third, overcharged the ball and left it on the grass behind him, allowing Santana to score the second Philly run and Altherr to advance to second.
Nick Williams singled to right to score Altherr, before Scott Kingery popped out to bring the inning to a merciful end. Altherr’s run was unearned because he should not have been on second when Williams came to bat.
After Adam Morgan retired the Jays with a walk left on in the top of the seventh, Happ came back to record two quick outs in the bottom of the inning. John Gibbons decided not to let him face the young right-handed slugger Rhys Hoskins again with the slim lead, and brought in Seunghwan Oh, Happ finishing up with six and two thirds innings, two earned runs, six hits, two walks, and eight strikeouts on 100 pitches.
Needed a quality start to put together a good game? Check.
Oh retired Hoskins on a grounder to third, and then after Luis Garcia put down the Jays in order in the top of the eighth, he came back out for the bottom of the eighth.
The third element needed for a win is good relief work. Oh gave the Jays four outs without allowing a baserunner, striking out two and inducing a popup in the eighth. He only needed fifteen pitches for the four outs.
Gabe Kapler sent Hector Neris out for the top of the ninth to try to hold the Jays within one run. He almost made it, striking out Devon Travis and the pinch-hitter Kendrys Morales. But he couldn’t get by Curtis Granderson, who homered to right on an 0-2 pitch to extend the Toronto lead to 5-3 before Neris fanned Josh Donaldson to finish striking out the side.
If you wanted to add a little sub-element to starting pitching, timely hitting, and shut-down relief as the key factors in a win, it might be the ability to pick up an insurance run. Check that box too.
Ryan Tepera has clearly supplanted Tyler Clippard as the closer in the absence of Roberto Osuna, and he picked up the save for the second time in the series. This time it was significantly easier than Friday night.
Tepera started badly, losing Nick Williams on a 3-2 pitch for a leadoff walk, enough to make the milk curdle in my teacup. But two ground balls to third later and the game was over. Scott Kingery’s grounder was converted into a forceout at second, and then the catcher Jorge Alfaro’s grounder went round the horn for a double play to end the game.
Effective relief pitching as the third element of success? Check, and check.
So we had to go on the road to win a series for the first time in how long?
Fenway Park next. Batten down the hatches!
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