For some odd reason, and despite the overwhelming emphasis on relief pitching in contemporary major league baseball, there is currently no major award allocated to the best relief pitcher in each league. This strange omission to the parade of post-season awards is likely to make little difference to Roberto Osuna, the Jays’ terrific young closer, this year. Not because he’s not one of the best in the league, but because the way things have been going he’d never get enough save opportunities to merit consideration for this award that no longer exists. Until the Blue Jays can find someone, or, better, three someones, who can come in from the bullpen carrying a fire hose rather than a gasoline can, the odds of a save opportunity being passed on to Osuna by the bridge guys are extremely long.
There was an award for relief pitching from 1960, when The Sporting News established the Fireman of the Year awards, through 1977, when sponsorship was acquired by the pharma company that produces Rolaids, the proprietary treatment for acid indigestion, They maintained what was renamed the Rolaids Relief Award until 2012, when their relationship with major league baseball came to an end. Anyone of a certain age will find it really hard to suppress the memory of their ubiquitous tv commercials in which various random characters posed the rhetorical question, “how do I spell relief?” and then spelled out the answer: “R-O-L-A-I-D-S”. You can thank me later for giving you your ear-worm for the day.
Tonight’s implosion in the Colorado Rockie’s seventh inning by Drew Storen and Jesse Chavez was only the latest, but perhaps one of the most (insert any negative adjective you choose here—we can call it a “write your own game story” experience) examples of the Jays’ pen letting down not only the starting pitcher, but the rest of the team. If they are to make the playoffs, a couple of pitchers have to step up, or be found, who can do a consistently better job than the current denizens of the bullpen. A number of the Jays’ relievers have had very good outings over the course of the year, but every night it’s a crap shoot for Manager John Gibbons as to whether or not he can depend on anybody for more than one good outing out of two, or even three, appearances.
To be fair to the team’s relievers, the crew has been beset with injuries since spring training. Veteran left-handers Aaron Loup and Franklin Morales started the season on the DL, and though Loup came back for a few outings he’s now out again, and Morales is only just now finishing up his rehab stint at Buffalo. Brett Cecil, who had a great season in 2015, and was expected to be one-half of a solid setup duo with Drew Storen, had a number of spectacular flameouts early in the season, and then, just as he seemed to be sorting things out, he was detoured by an injury, and is currently accompanying Morales on the rehab brigade in Buffalo. And it certainly didn’t help that Gavin Floyd, who has been solid in full-inning and longer appearances for most of the season, after an early period of adjustment to pitching out of the bullpen, recently pulled himself from a game because of shoulder tightness, and then joined the growing list of Jays’ relievers on the disabled list.
Pat Venditte, Ryan Tepera, and now Bo Schultz, just returned from off-season hip surgery, have been brought up from time to time from Buffalo to fill in and shore things up when the arms out there were getting tired, but the first two have had varying degrees of success, and the jury’s still out on Schultz, who struck out the side in his first inning of work for the season against Chicago on Sunday, but also yielded an insurance solo homer by J. B. Shuck that threw the last shovels of earth on the Jays’ coffin in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the White Sox. That leaves Joe Biagini, who has been surprisingly good, but is a rule five guy, whom the Giants didn’t think was ready for prime time, and Chavez, who’s been very good lately but was terrible last night. And of course poor Osuna, sitting down there praying for a chance to do some meaningful work.
Obscured in the general angst among the Jays and their supporters over the horrible six-run Rockie uprising in the seventh tonight were three other significant developments that occurred during the game. Not to mention an emotional reception of returning hero Troy Tulowitzki by the Colorado crowd when he came to the plate for his first at-bat in his first game back in Denver after last year’s shocking trade. The Rockies’ fans, many of them wearing his name on their backs, rose and gave full cry to their love for Tulo as he came up, and the generally reserved Toronto shortstop stepped out of the box and doffed his cap to the crowd, a gesture they deeply appreciated. They also appreciated it when Rockies’ starter Jon Gray struck him out on a caught looking a few moments later. Hey, it’s nice to see an old favourite return to the scene of his greatest moments, but baseball’s baseball, right?
Besides Tulo’s return, credit must be given to Marco Estrada for yet another excellent starting performance, to Devon Travis and especially Edwin Encarnacion for bringing out their heavy lumber, and for the 24-year-old Gray, who hung in there for six innings, giving up four runs and striking out eight while not walking a batter, to improve his record to five and three, and get his ERA under 5.00.
Estrada came into tonight’s game riding an amazing streak of eleven straight starts of pitching six innings or more while giving up five hits or less, a record that went back to 1913 until he broke it in his last start. He also led the majors in opponents’ batting average allowed. And it was all good for him tonight. He extended the streak to twelve games, and emerged from the game still maintaining an opponents’ batting average of .168, still comfortably ahead of Jake Arrieta, at .178. Except.
Except, remember that sore back issue he was concerned about, that apparently stemmed from one of his at-bats in Philadelphia? Well, the story is that it’s not as bad, but still a bit of a problem. He was accordingly on a short leash from Manager John Gibbons tonight, who said later that he was going to pull him after six innings. And that magical sixth was the wall for Estrada, though he did finish it and left with the lead, insulating himself from what seems like the inevitable loss that followed. Armed with a shiny 4-0 lead, thanks to an RBI single by Josh Donaldson and a huge homer by Edwin Encarnacion in the top of the inning, he walked Charlie Blackmon to lead off, and gave up a double to short left centre by Christhian (not a typo, by the way) Adames, that was gained by sheer hustle. In typical Estrada fashion, he fanned the imposing Nolan Arenado for the second time, but couldn’t get by the Rockies’ second basher, Carlos Gonzalez, who dispatched what Estrada later said was a good pitch into the right field seats, and the four-run lead was down to one shaky run. After a double by Mark Reynolds, Estrada got the last two outs, but, his pitch count ballooned from 63 to 91 and his lead shaved to one, he was done for the night. After Kevin Pillar hit a two-out double down the left-field line off Gray, Justin Smoak was inserted to hit for Estrada, which was at least neat and sensible since he was done anyway. But it didn’t work, as Smoak popped out in foul territory, Arenado coming in from third to take the ball over the first-base foul line, to save catcher Nick Hundley the bother.
At least Drew Storen appreciated being able to start the seventh instead of coming in already in trouble, right? Right?
Aaron Sorkin, who created, produced, and wrote most of the first four seasons of the series The West Wing, that changed series television forever, has a penchant for dropping a line that immediately becomes universally useful. One of my favourites is in the series pilot of Wing, when Rob Lowe’s character Sam Seaborn suddenly realizes that the attractive elementary school teacher that he’s trying to pick up while guiding a tour of her class through the White House is actually the daughter of his formidable boss, the president’s chief of staff. “Oh, this is wrong on so many levels,” he says, while squirming under the amused gaze of the young woman.
Well, the performance of Storen and Jesse Chavez in the seventh inning tonight was so wrong on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. So let’s say what you don’t do, if you have any control over the situation at all. You don’t let the number eight hitter lead off with a single. You don’t let Rockies’ manager Walt Weiss get away with the cheap National League trick of putting in a pitcher to pinch-bunt for your starter, who’s done pitching anyway, because the pinch-bunt pitcher is a better bunter than the starter that he’s pinch-bunting for. Pitch him high, jam him, don’t let him get the ball down. And if he does, you suck it up and don’t blow your cool by overthrowing and hitting the next two batters. This brought Nolan Arenado, smarting over his lousy night so far, to the plate with the bases loaded and nobody out. You try not to give up a two-run single to him, but some things are just out of your control, and that’s when you give it up for the next guy.
And when you’re Jesse Chavez, that next guy, you don’t give up a single to load the bases again, you don’t subsequently walk in the Rockies’ third run of the inning, and you don’t give up two more base hits and three more runs before getting the hook with only a second out achieved. What you do do, if you’re Ryan Tepera and you just arrived from Buffalo, and you come into this hot mess with six runs in and two runners still on, is you blow away the pinch hitter Ryan Raburn, sent in to hit for the pinch-bunter/pitcher, and end the disgrace. Thank you Ryan (both of you) for your gracious bounty.
The last notes of this farce that went from a 4-0 lead to a 9-4 deficit were at least a little encouraging. Tepera came back in the eighth and retired the side in order, racking up Arenado in the process for two strikeouts, no baserunners, and only 20 pitches in one and a third innings. Leaving aside the homer off Schultz last night, maybe the newest reinforcements from Buffalo will give us a bit of a boost. And Edwin Encarnacion led off the ninth with another smash out of the park, this time to right centre, off mop-up man Jason Motte, to continue adding to his impressive June totals, not to mention his major-league-leading RBI count.
One of the strangest facts to arise from the current series is that before tonight’s game there were 15 interleague games in history between the Blue Jays and the Rockies, 6 in Denver and 9 in Toronto. The home team had won every single one of those 15 games. Tonight extended the home-team dominance between the two to 16 games, and may it end right there. Jay Happ, over to you.
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