Long Ball Stories

There was a Sale at the ball park in Chicago, but no bargains on offer for the Blue Jays, as Chris Sale dominated for seven innings while the White Sox nibbled away at a fifty-percent-better Marcus Stroman to secure a 5-2 victory, and a series win against our heroes.

In certain jurisdictions, primarily the UK, what we generally refer to as a garage sale or a yard sale is called a “tag sale”. If the Jays were to have any hope of eking out a series win against these tough Chicagoans, tagging Chris Sale was exactly what they had to do, but it didn’t happen.

Once again, we could write reams about the Marcus Stroman saga. Whither? Why? When? Everybody seems to have an answer, regardless of the question. I’ll add my two cents to the discussion, but the topic isn’t worth much more than that, because, frankly, today we lost to Sale’s performance, not because of Stroman’s. He gave up four runs in five innings. The newly-arrived Bo Schultz coughed up one more in the eighth. In June the Jays have averaged over six runs a game. By my calculation, six runs for and five runs against equals victory, so let’s get the Stroman watch report out of the way, and move on to the other aspects of the quick and merciful dispatch the Sox administered to the Jays today.

The word before the game was that Stroman had been working on simplifying his delivery, primarily by giving up the high, hands-together position he has shown just before rocking into his motion. The change was evident from the first pitch, and for one inning it seemed a miracle cure. Three easy ground-balls on seven pitches and he was bounding back to the dugout in fine spirits. But in the second he wavered significantly, giving up two hits, a stolen base, and a walk, and only escaped without a run scoring because Melky Cabrera came off the bag at third on a steal attempt, and Brett Lawrie grounded into a double play.

In the third the Sox took the lead by scoring two runs with the help of Stroman himself and the usually sure-handed Edwin Encarnacion at first. With one out, Stroman issued a walk to number nine hitter Tyler Saladino. I don’t want to abuse your patience by referring to this as a pitcher’s cardinal sin, but it really is, isn’t it? (And for those of you who have no idea what the Baltimore Catechism is, a cardinal sin is an act grave enough that if unforgiven condemns the perpetrator to the fires of hell. No doubt there are a number of pitching coaches and managers who would happily subscribe to this practice.) With Saladino on first, one out, and the effective rookie leadoff hitter Tim Anderson at the plate, the possibility of a hit and run was clearly on the minds of the Jays’ brain trust. So Stroman made the customary “check-in” toss. It was a perfectly fine toss, if not really necessary, but Encarnacion didn’t reach enough for it, it ticked off his glove, and Saladino was off to second on the error, erasing the double play possibility.

Anderson followed with a slow bouncer to short which he beat out while Saladino came to third. After showing bunt twice, Adam Eaton did exactly what everyone in the world knew he was going to do, and dropped a decent one to Stroman’s left. Stroman fielded it quickly, threw it quickly to the plate, but a little to Russell Martin’s right, and Saladino smartly slid to his left and scored. Meanwhile, of course, Anderson was on to second on the play. Melky Cabrera, whose hitting was certainly not the reason that the Jays did not re-sign him at the end of 2014, predictably delivered Anderson with a two-out single to right and the Sox had the lead.

Now, a number of analysts this morning have parsed every mini-second of Stroman’s handling of the Eaton bunt, but my question is, why even try for the out at the plate? Even if you are facing Chris Sale, who’s already knocked down nine in a row without breaking a sweat, don’t you always concede the first run of the game to get an out at first? Eaton’s bunt was a good sac bunt, but not a base hit. If Stroman throws him out at first, the subsequent strikeout of Jose Abreu ends the inning and takes the bat out of Cabrera’s capable hands.

It looked like Stroman had braced in the fourth, retiring the side on twelve pitches. He gave up an infield hit to J.B. Shuck with two outs on a ball that caromed off his glove and trickled toward first, but handled Saladino’s subsequent comebacker cleanly to end the inning. At this point, he was at 61 pitches through four, and down 2-0. So far so good for him, pitching-wise, though the big two on the board behind Sale was ominous enough for the team.

But then came the fifth, in which Stroman sealed his own, and his team’s, fate, by personally allowing the White Sox to double their lead for Sale. He grooved one to Tim Anderson leading off, and Anderson didn’t miss it. He then walked Adam Eaton, but struck out Abreu again. Too bad the rules didn’t allow for Abreu to have some extra at-bats against Stroman. Melky–who else?–singled to right, sending Eaton to third, whence he scored on a Stroman wild pitch. After another walk, to Todd Frazier, Stroman fanned Alex Avila and Brett Lawrie, but Sale now had four runs to work with, and that was plenty enough for him on this day Having taken 30 pitches to navigate this mini-mess, Stroman was through after five, on 91 pitches.

So the jury’s still out on Stroman, though there were definite signs of improvement. While I wouldn’t want to make too big a thing of this, I would think that the emphasis for him should be as much on his composure as on his mechanics. When he was blowing everybody away, it was so easy to overlook his relative inexperience, but surely it must play a part in his ongoing saga.

Everybody says that a pitcher’s win-loss record doesn’t mean much (just ask R. A. Dickey about that), but there’s good reason why Chris Sale went to 13 and 2 with today’s win. His ERA of 2.79 coming out of the game is a contributing factor, but his ability to get the ground ball when he needs it, meanwhile conserving pitches, is the real reason for his success. In short, he’s doing well because he’s pitching like Marcus Stroman at his best.

Today the air came out of the Jays’ balloon on the second play of the game. After Devon Travis led off by skying to right, Josh Donaldson went with the pitch and dumped a ball over first that bounced toward the corner, seemingly a sure double. But Adam Eaton played it aggressively and, showing off his strong arm, nailed Donaldson at second so decisively that the Jays didn’t bother to challenge the call. Would the Jays have followed with better at-bats against Sale if Josh had beaten the throw to second? Sadly, we’ll never know.

The next Jay batter to reach was Travis, leading off with an infield single in the fourth. Donaldson hit into a double play. Encarnacion walked, but Sale struck out Michael Saunders to end the “threat”. Saunders, who “hits left-handers really well”, say all the pundits, went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts and a popup against Sale. It wasn’t until the seventh that a Jay hitter reached base again. Donaldson led off with a single, again to right. Encarnacion hit into a double play. Saunder struck out.

Going into the eighth, Sale’s dominance was complete: no runs, 3 hits, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, on 79 pitches. To say he had cruised through seven is an understatement. But in this day and age, even a pitcher like Chris Sale, pitching like he was today, goes to the eighth looking for the wall that he is about to hit. Two solo homers, by Troy Tulowitzki and Junior Lake’s first as a Jay, a walk to Darwin Barney, a sketchy strikeout of Kevin Pillar and twenty more pitches later, and Sale was done for the day. David Robertson breezed through the ninth on ten pitches for his twentieth save, and the win was in the books for the Chisox.

Joe Biagini and Bo Schultz picked up Stroman, with Biagini throwing two effective innings, striking out two and allowing no baserunners, and Schultz striking out the side in the eighth, though he did allow a solo homer to J.B. Shuck that effectively spiked any hope the Jays may have had of sparking an uprising against Robertson in the ninth. This is such a game of emotion, isn’t it? Today, mostly sad, I’m afraid.

Tomorrow night we start a rare visit to Colorado, with Marco Estrada getting the ball first. It will be interesting to see how Estrada’s usual fly-ball-inducing regimen fares in the bandbox confines of Crummy Beer Produced by a True American Fascist Park.

(Not to be repetitive, but if you’ve just jumped on board with this chronicle, I need to explain from time to time that I refuse to acknowledge the annoying corporate names of contemporary major league ballparks. And if you don’t realize what an awful person Joseph Coors, the heir to the Coors brewing empire was, you should look him up. Maybe then at least some of you will stop drinking his swill just because it’s on draught everywhere, and it’s name is easy to remember. Amen, brothers and sisters.)