With 64 games in the book as of today’s stirring 11-6 Blue Jays’ victory over the Baltimore Orioles, there are still 98 games left on the schedule for the home town heroes. Borrowing a term from the TV news desk people, I believe we have enough results in now to make a projection about the outcome of the American League East divisional race in 2016, which looks once again to be the tightest division top to bottom in major league baseball.
I believe that the race this year will play out between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox. Leaving aside the Tamp Bay Rays, who don’t look to be more than a good 500-level team, I don’t think that the recent surge by the Yankees is sustainable, partly because their starting rotation is suspect, but mainly because their aging lineup is not going to produce enough runs over the long haul to bring their awesome triple closer bullpen into effect. Boston will hang in to the end, conversely, on the obvious strength of their batting order coupled with good-enough pitching to stay in the hunt. The emergence of Stephen Wright, the continued effectiveness of Rick Porcello, and the expected consistency of David Price over the whole season, despite his less-than-stellar start, should keep the Sox in most games long enough for their bashers to give them the chance to win. And they have a significant trump card in Craig Kimbrell as their closer.
And what of Baltimore, the team that has held first place in the division for most of the season so far, and now sits in a dead heat with Boston at the top of the table? Any team that can run Adam Jones, Hyun Soo Kim or Joey Rickard, Manny Machado, Chris Davis, Mark Trumbo, and Jonathan Schoop out every day as their one through six has a lot going for it. But I think that so far their starting pitching has only just barely held them together, and that it’s not strong enough to keep them in the race the whole way without making a major acquisition from somewhere. Chris Tillman, whom we luckily miss in the current series, has been great, enjoying the best season of his career so far. Kevin Gausman’s deceptive won-loss record belies how well he has pitched, as we saw Friday night. Major off-season acquisition Yovani Gallardo has spent much of the spring on the disabled list. Ubaldo Jimenez, unlike Tillman, is suffering through his worst season at this point, though, knock wood, he’s always effective against the Jays, so we’ll see about tomorrow’s Jimenez-Aaron Sanchez matchup. And who else do they have to run out there regularly? We’ve seen a couple of journeymen named Tim Wilson and Mike Wright, who’d better get a whole lot better if the Orioles are to hang in there. So for the Orioles it’s Tillman, Gausman, and pray for rain, which doesn’t rhyme but you get the point.
And why do I put the Jays up there with Boston? Especially with the prolonged hitting woes they’ve experienced this year in comparison with last year? Because the recent record would suggest that even though they’re not bashing the cover off the ball like last year, they will produce enough runs to support what is pretty clearly the best rotation among the four contending teams. Even if you relegate Marcus Stroman to the status of number five starter based on his recent struggles, including a disappointing outing on Thursday night, his relative lack of success needs to be seen in context. For example, on Thursday when he went out in the sixth, he had given up four runs on eight hits, and left with a 5-4 lead. Above him you have Marco Estrada at the top of the rotation closely followed by Aaron Sanchez, with Jay Happ and R.A. Dickey providing consistent quality starts in most of their assignments. No arm problems evident, the second lowest ERA in the American League, the second most innings accumulated by a rotation, the third lowest opposing team batting average, all of these things mean something, and to me they mean that the Jays will be in it to the end, and as the season winds down the only question to be answered will be whether the Jays’ starters as a group will be able to keep the Boston lineup in check. I say yes.
Jay Happ’s outing today is a case in point. Though he’s slipped a bit recently in general estimation behind Estrada and Sanchez, he certainly pitched well enough to win today. Besides giving up the go-ahead homer to Manny Machado in the sixth inning, he had only one bad inning, the fourth, when the Orioles hit some ropes off him and erased an early Jays’ lead. After the Jays piled on reliever T.J. McFarland in the bottom of the sixth to counter Machado’s home run and take the lead for good, Happ returned for the seventh and retired the O’s on 8 pitches to keep his foot on their throats. With the help of his lineup breaking loose, Happ managed to turn a “meh!” into a W, ate up seven full innings, and left with his record at 7-3 and an ERA of 3.70, still good enough for twenty-first place in the American League. Just ahead, I might add of Rick Porcello and Justin Verlander. Not bad for a guy holding down a three/four slot in the rotation.
The game was tied through five today. The Orioles for their part erased a three-run Toronto lead in Happ’s rocky fourth inning, when Joey Rickard, the upstart rule five kid who’s been wearing the Jays out all season, Machado and Chris Davis went homer, double, homer to lead off the inning. They weren’t done at that, as Jonathan Schoop followed with a one-out double, but Happ managed to strand him at third, then breezed through the fifth with the help of a double-play from the bat of that same Rickard, which erased Adam Jones’ infield single.
Meanwhile, the Jays had built up the early 3-0 lead on some sound hitting without leaving the yard, but aided and abetted by the inability of Mike Wright to throw strikes. Though he only gave up six hits for the four runs eventually charged to him, he also walked five and hit a batter, ballooning to 103 pitches in five and a third innings before being pulled after a Kevin Pillar leadoff single in the sixth. In the first he gave up a two-out walk to Edwin Encarnacion and then was lucky that Michael Saunders’ deep fly to centre only drove Jones to the wall for the catch. In the second, he seemed to have worked his way out of his own jam by inducing Darwin Barney to hit into a double play after walking Justin Smoak and hitting Pillar. But with Smoak on third Ryan Goins hit one to the deepest part of the park that Jones tracked but could not squeeze. It went for a triple, scoring Smoak, and the Jays were on top.
Just a word here about Goins: Manager John Gibbons seems to be getting the most out of his three-headed keystone combo with Troy Tulowitzki still out of commission. Goins, Devon Travis, and Barney have all contributed when they’ve been in the lineup. Goins has had the least playing time, but his impact was significant just in the first two innings. Besides driving in the first run, he provided the pivot for a beautiful double play started by Barney in the first that got Happ off the field in short order. Barney went hard to his right to flag a shot from Machado on the backhand, made the awkward throw to the outfield side of the bag, where Goins caught it as he crossed the bag toward right field and fired a strike to first. Karen Kain couldn’t have done it any better.
In the third a Wright leadoff walk to Zeke Carrera opened the door for two more runs for the Jays. Josh Donaldson followed with a single to centre, passing the baton to Encarnacion, who doubled into the corner in left to score Carrera, with Donaldson stopping at third. Michael Saunders then delivered Donaldson with a sacrifice fly.
Happ carried the 3-3 tie into the sixth, but it didn’t last long, as Machado hit his dinger to left leading off to give the Orioles a lead that was thankfully short-lived. Chris Davis, obviously not concerning himself with conventional wisdom about hitting lefties, followed with a double to centre, but Happ escaped the inning without further damage.
In the bottom of the sixth Manager Buck Showalter called on left-hander T.J. McFarland to pick up Wright after the latter allowed Pillar’s leadoff single. But McFarland not only didn’t pick Wright up, but he shoved him down, stomped on him a few times, and left him spluttering in the mud. Which is exactly what the Jays did to McFarland. Barney moved Pillar to third with a single to right. Travis, hitting for Goins, hit a shot to the wall in left for the sacrifice fly that tied the game, and McFarland then loaded the bases by walking Russell Martin hitting for Josh Thole, and Carrera. Donaldson’s bases-loaded sac fly put the Jays in a lead that they never relinquished. Are you counting? Did you notice that this was their third sac fly of the game, with one more to come? Are we impressed?
All of which set the stage for a mammoth homer to left by Encarnacion that put the game out of reach for the Orioles, even though they did pick up a couple of runs in the eighth to make it a little closer. So Happ was able to finish his seventh inning in the comfort of an 8-4 lead. Before the Orioles picked up two more in the eighth off an uncharacteristically wild Joe Biagini, who did not retire any of the four batters he faced, though, the Jays had added a ninth run in the seventh. They utilized another combo of leadoff base hits by Pillar and Barney, who seem to specialize in this sort of thing, with a deep fly by Travis that moved Pillar to third, and the fourth sac fly by Martin.
After Gavin Floyd bailed Biagini out with minimal damage, the Jays came to the bottom of the eighth leading 9-6, which never really looks good enough when you’re talking the Orioles here. Showalter, who was running really short in the bullpen and trying to save somebody, anybody, for Sunday, went to the lefty Brian Duensing to match up with Saunders. Unfortunately, because there was no one else home for the Orioles, Duensing had to navigate through Donaldson and Encarnacion to get to Saunders. He managed Donaldson on a fly out to centre, but couldn’t get past Encarnacion, who hit his second homer of the game, this time a liner to right. Then Duensing threw a gopher ball to the lefty he was supposed to get, and Saunders added the eleventh run. Don’t these guys know that Saunders has more homers off lefties than righties?
Senior citizen Jason Grilli, obviously relishing the chance to pitch in meaningful games before big crowds, friskily struck out the side around a single by Adam Jones, and gleefully fist-pumped his old Pittsburgh teammate Martin after fanning Machado to close out the Jays’ win. This was a win that seemed to revive a lot of the feeling of last year’s pennant run. This could be the start of something big.
When I compared the Orioles’ pitching with the Jays’ at the beginning of this piece, I was only talking about starting pitching. But with three games of this weekend series in the books, it seems that the bullpens are becoming critical to the outcome, and going into game four it’s clear that Manager John Gibbons will have more, and fresher, arms available to him for tomorrow than Showalter. The much-maligned Jays’ pen has eaten more innings more effectively this weekend than we ever might have expected, and it’s starting to show.
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