On a bright, sunny Saturday at Mobile Phone Park in Chicago, the Blue Jays held on for a 10-8 win in a crazy slugfest of a game, of a kind that you may never see again in your lifetime.
Here’s a question for you about the relative value of poker hands: do seven homers beat five doubles? Wrong! I don’t know if it happens every time, but on this day in Chicago, the Jays’ five doubles trumped the White Sox seven homers, and gave them the win on the day. The explanation for this conundrum lies in a single word: baserunners. Besides the seven homers, the Sox had one double and four singles for twelve hits, and of six Blue Jays’ pitchers, only starter R.A. Dickey issued a single base on balls. Of the Jays 13 hits, besides the doubles they had one homer themselves, off the bat of Devon Travis in the second inning, and seven singles. But they also received five walks from the five Chicago pitchers. (Though he might have lost the ball game Sox Manager Robin Ventura won the Who-can-use-the-fewest-pitchers? sweepstakes, small consolation indeed.)
Yes, the weird thing about today’s power outburst by the White Sox is that they were so busy hitting home runs that they neglected to put anybody on base before hitting them: all seven homers were solo shots, and who would like to figure the odds on seven homers producing the minimum of seven runs? Well, if you only have seven baserunners in the game, one reaching on an iffy throwing error laid on Ryan Goins for a throw from third that pulled Edwin Encarnacion off the bag, plus the four singles, one double, and one walk, it’s easy to see that though an anomaly, it’s not out of the question that there was never a runner on when a home run was hit.
On the other hand, besides the Travis homer, the Jays reached base 18 times, via the twelve other hits, the five walks, and a particularly cement-handed error by Brett Lawrie on an easy ground ball. I have no regrets about insulting Lawrie here, after the ungrateful wretch from Langley, B.C., sporting his new, fanged vampire look, single-handedly attempted to tromp on his former team’s tra-la-la to the tune of going three for four with two (solo) homers and three RBIs. But the nice thing about doubles is that when somebody hits a double, whether or not it knocks in a run or two, it always leaves a baserunner in scoring position for the next guy coming up. With homers, they’re just so over, when they’re over.
It was a jet stream at the ball park today, and this obviously provided the optimum conditions for the White Sox’ power display. Here’s a strange statistic for you: Besides the seven homers and the double, and disregarding the singles, only two balls hit by Chicago batters were lofted to the outfield but stayed in the park for outs: ten fly balls produced only two outs. For the Jays, it seemed that the effect of the prevailing winds was to push possibly catchable balls out of reach of the fielders, without sending them over the fence: the White Sox’ fly ball outs turned into homers, and the Jays’ fly ball outs turned into doubles. As we have seen, advantage Jays.
When Toronto’s batting order lined up for the first go-round today they must have been salivating a bit at the prospect of facing their old buddy Miguel Gonzalez. When the Baltimore Orioles found themselves forced to trot out Gonzalez against the Blue Jays, it never turned out well for them, and today there was no reason to believe it would be any different just because Gonzalez was wearing a different shirt. And it wasn’t. Though he only threw 17 pitches, Gonzalez gave up three runs on five hits, three of them doubles to the four-five-six hitters, Encarnation, Michael Saunders, and Troy Tulowitzki. And the damage could have been worse, as Josh Donaldson was thrown out for the second out of the inning trying to score from first on Encarnacion’s double to centre. Only a perfect relay from centre fielder J.B. Shuck to Lawrie to former Jays’ catcher and all-around nice guy Dioner Navarro was able to cut down Donaldson cleanly at the plate. The out at the plate could have given Gonzalez the lift he needed to stem the bleeding, but it didn’t. The second and third consecutive doubles, with Encarnacion parked at third as a result of the throw to the plate, netted two more runs, and the Jays had a tidy three-spot posted.
Gratified, R.A. Dickey came out in the bottom of the first and shrugged off an infield hit by Adam Eaton, a little dribbler to his right that knucksie tried for, but probably should have left for a charging third baseman Ryan Goins (how that man gets around!) to retire the Sox on only 15 pitches, a real rush-fest by Dickey, when you consider how many pitches he usually throws in the first innings of his starts.
Then the Jays went right back to work against Gonzalez in the second. Devon Travis made him pay for walking number nine hitter Josh Thole by hitting a no-doubter to left to extend the Jays’ lead to 5-0. Despite all expectations of Dickey dying of lack of run support again, there he was going into his second inning of work with a big cushion. Unheard of in this strange and crazy world.
The strange and crazy would only get worse, though, as Dickey reported for his second inning of work, to experience what he later termed the “bizarro world” of this game. How about giving up back-to-back-to-back jacks, to Lawrie, fellow ex-pat Blue Jay Navarro, and Shuck, while striking out the side, making Todd Frazier, catcher Alex Avila, and shortstop Tim Anderson look utterly foolish in the process? Well, there it was, it happened to Dickey, and I sat there and watched it, happy beginning to miserable middle to relieved end, every pitch of it.
After a tumultous series in Fenway where his charges won three out of four from the Red Sox, and their close win over the Jays the previous night, manager Ventura was obviously aware that his bullpen was gassed coming in to Saturday. There can be no other reason, unless he just plain doesn’t like the guy, for Ventura to leave Gonzalez out as long as he did, wracking up 8 runs on ten hits with two walks over five and a third innings, while only throwing 81 pitches.
Despite his misgivings about his bullpen, Chris Beck and Dan Jennings went an effective two and two thirds innings, shutting the Jays down on only two walks issued by Beck, and giving the Sox the opportunity to climb back into the game, which they did by reviving Dickey’s dinger demon in the fourth, courtesy of Lawrie’s second on the night, which cut the lead to 8-4. Like Gonzalez, Dickey departed after five and a third, leaving runners on the corners for Gavin Floyd with one out. Floyd gave up an RBI single to that crazy guy Lawrie, the only Sox run of the day not plated by a homer, with Alex Avila coming to third. Then Floyd got Navarro on a fly to medium left on which Avila played it safe and held at third while Lawrie hustled to second after the catch. Then, worryingly, after throwing two balls to Shuck, only his third and fourth pitches of the inning, Floyd called for the trainer and was lifted with shoulder tightness. We haven’t heard anything yet on the extent of Floyd’s problem. Manager John Gibbons called on Jesse Chavez, who induced a ground out to end the threat.
The power assault by the White Sox continued against the Jays’ pen, as Tim Anderson hit one in the seventh off Drew Storen, and Avila hit one off Jason Grilli in the eighth, while Beck and Jennings held the Jays in check. As we came to the ninth, then, the Jays clung to an 8-7 lead. Bend but don’t break was coming perilously close to breaking.
Next up out of the bullpen for Ventura in the top of the ninth was Michael Ynoa, and he failed to hold the Jays at bay, in effect costing Chicago a chance at a tie, which would have been achieved by Adam Eaton’s solo (what else?) homer in the bottom of the ninth off Jays’ closer Roberto Osuna, in for the save. But Eaton’s shot was too little and too late, and Osuna hung on for the save, all because Ynoa in quick order had given up two insurance runs in the top of the inning. Donaldson led off by crossing up the shift with an easy single to right centre, and promptly scampered around to score on Encarnation’s second double of the night and fourth RBI, giving him an MLB-leading 66 on the season. Troy Tulowitzki would eventually plate Encarnacion with a single, ensuring that Eaton’s homer would go for naught, and sealing what would be a 10-8 win against all reason for the Torontos. Osuna got the save, number 15 out of 17 chances, and Dickey, for once getting support, saw his record improve to 5-8, though his ERA dipped slightly to 4.23 from 4.08.
Marcus Stroman will have to seriously brace up tomorrow to keep his team in the game as they go up against the formidable Chris Sale in an attempt to take two out of three in Chicago.
It truly is an ill wind that blows no good, but no harm, no foul, right? Sorry for mixing the imagery, but it was that kind of a day.
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