Even the best of teams is allowed one stinker of an outing a month. The Jays’ stinker for August came tonight, and it’s only the ninth, so they’ll have to be on top of their game for the remaining eighteen starts in August.
So far this month Toronto has won five games by a total of nine runs, and lost two games by a total of three runs, so they’ve maintained a pennant-winning pace over seven games, all of which were very close. Now, some clever fella out their with a calculator is going to point out that prior to tonight’s game the Jays had actually played eight, not seven, games in August. As an old guy I worked with years ago in a factory used to say when I had backed him into a corner in an argument, that’s true enough, but . . ., which he followed with a lame and irrelevant response. Yes, they’ve played eight games, not seven, but I’m not counting the 7-1 loss to the Royals on Sunday in this analysis, because it was an outlier, a game whose score was irrelevant and not reflective of the play. The Jays lost 7-1 to the Royals on Sunday plainly and simply because Manager John Gibbons failed to follow baseball tradition in letting Brett Cecil pitch to Kendrys Morales in the seventh inning. The score should never have been 7-1. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
But tonight’s 9-2 loss was another story indeed, a real downer and a definite stinker of a game, in which the Rays did everything right and the Jays did everything wrong. The only recourse for the players and those of us among their fans who try to keep some perspective on things, is to record the sordid details for posterity, put them behind us, and find solace in the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, “tomorrow is another day”.
On record, the pitching matchup looked overwhelmingly favourable for the Blue Jays. Marco Estrada, the big game master, who carves up opposing lineups into little strips with the pitching equivalent of a tiny filleting knife, was going against left-hander Drew Smyly, who has had a rough year in general (3-11, with a 5.14 ERA), and had a history of rocky outings in particular against the Jays.
But, just like hitting, good pitchers sometimes struggle, and pitchers who are generally struggling will sometimes come up with a sterling effort. And so it went tonight.
It’s in the nature of the way he plies his trade, just as it is with R.A. Dickey, that Marco Estrada will sometimes be susceptible to the long ball. It usually comes with nobody on, and that’s all you can hope for. So Logan Forsythe’s leadoff homer in the first inning should have been no big deal, but it kind of came with the crack of doom. Dickey couldn’t get this guy out last night, and now he goes deep on Estrada? In the first inning? After Forsythe, Estrada retired the side on a popup, a ground ball, and a strikeout, but he did give up a ground ball single to Evan Longoria, who died on first, and he did throw 20 pitches, the precursor of a five-inning outing .
When a team faces a pitcher they’ve dominated in the past, it’s always a good idea to step on his throat early, to let him know that nothing’s changed. Hell, it’s always good to step on the throat of the other team’s starter early in any case. But with a pitcher you’ve roughed up before, if he gets the idea that this time could be different, you’re running the risk of letting him gain some momentum.
The Blue Jays had two of the first three batters aboard in the bottom of the first, but let Drew Smyly off the hook. This was not good. After Devon Travis flied out, Jose Bautista doubled to centre, and Josh Donaldson walked. But Smyly struck out Edwin Encarnacion, and teased a fly ball to right out of Russell Martin to protect the Rays’ one-run lead.
Smyly certainly did gain some momentum. After the first-inning walk to Donaldson, he retired eleven Jays’ hitters in a row, taking him into the fifth inning, by which time the Rays had added two more runs to the Forsythe homer off a clearly labouring Estrada.
While there’s no question that Estrada was not sharp tonight, to my mind there’s also no question that his strike zone was squeezed early and often by home plate umpire David Rackley. For a pitcher like Estrada, who relies on deception and pin-point control, not getting the strikes he throws is devastating, because as soon as he starts working to the heart of the plate, he doesn’t have enough to overpower hitters.
He did look like himself in the second inning, retiring the side with two called third strikes on twelve pitches, but found himself deep in the soup in the third, with the help of a strange error charged against Jose Bautista, and ended up throwing another 28 pitches to keep the Rays off the board. Catcher Luke Maile led off with a single to centre, and after Forsythe hit a short fly to Melvin Upton for the first out, Kevin Kiermaier hit a dribbler through the right side, Maile stopping at second. But Bautista came in, picked up the ball, started into his throw, and somehow caught his spikes in the turf, going down awkwardly as he tried to flip the ball to Devon Travis. But the ball shot by Travis, and by the time he retrieved it Maile had cranked up again and gone on to third. Estrada then walked Evan Longoria to load the bases, before striking out Brad Miller and getting Mahtook to pop out to Travis at second. All of this took him to 58 pitches in only three innings.
Another 28 pitches for Estrada in the fourth and another uncharacteristic error by the Jays led to the Rays’ second run. Leadoff hitter Corey Dickerson walked. Estrada retired the next two hitters, and then walked Maile. I should mention that this Luke Maile who was on base all night came into the game hitting .159. Logan Forsythe hit a grounder up the middle that Travis made a nice play to get to on his backhand, setting up an easy force on the plodding Maile at second. But the ball rolled out of his hand as he transferred it for the throw, and bounced out into no man’s land, allowing Dickerson to score from second on the play. Kiermaier flew out to right to end the inning, and the Rays were up 2-0 on Estrada, now up to 86 pitches. I should mention that Smyly’s pitch count stood at 48 after the same four innings.
Estrada’s last inning was more of the same, two baserunners on and two outs when Steven Souza hit a bloop single to centre to plate Brad Miller with Tampa’s third run. More hilarity, if you’re a Rays’ fan, ensued. With Mahtook holding at third, Souza wandered too far off first, and Russell Martin had him dead to rights with a quick throw. Smoak, seeing Mahtook venturing toward the plate, threw behind him to Donaldson, but Mahtook beat the tag at third while Souza finally made it to second. Then Estrada walked Tim Beckham to load the bases before Maile fanned to end the inning. All of this took another 27 pitches, and at 113 pitches for five innings, Estrada was done like dinner.
In the bottom of the fifth Smyly finally wavered, and the Jays started to claw their way back to respectability. The Jays struck quickly, so quickly that you wondered what they’d been waiting for. The sad part was that they got within one of the Rays, and had the possibility of much more, but the threat ended with Jose Bautista grounding into a double play. Troy Tulowitzki led off with a single to left. Michael Saunders singled to right. Smyly walked Justin Smoak to load the bases. Melvin Upton cashed his first Blue Jay RBI with a sacrifice fly for the first out, moving Saunders to third while Smoak stayed at first. Devon Travis scored Saunders with a single to right, and then the Bautista double play ended it.
If the Jays were looking to continue their charge against Smyly after the fifth inning, the Rays’ top of the sixth served to deflate their hopes, as they came back and scored two against rookie Danny Barnes to restore the three-run lead. After two effective outings, Barnes started well in his third, striking out the tough Forsythe, but by the time he got Corey Dickinson to ground into a double play to end the inning, the Rays had combined a walk to Kiermaier, a double by Longoria, a walk to Brad Miller, and a single by Mahtook to notch the two runs.
The outcome was firmly carved in stone by the Blue Jays’ failure to score in the bottom of the sixth despite loading the bases with nobody out. After singles by Donaldson and Encarnacion and a walk to Russell Martin, Rays’ manager Kevin Cash stayed with Smyly, and his confidence paid off in spades: Tulo popped out to first on the infield fly rule, Saunders struck out swinging, and Smoak popped out to the catcher in foul territory. That big sucking sound you heard in Toronto about that time of the night was the collective, pained exhalation of hundreds of thousands of Jays fans, as many of them, but not yer humble scribe of course, turned to the coverage of the Olympics, or David Suzuki, or something.
If there was any hope left in the Jays’ hearts, Scott Feldman came in and thoroughly drained it away by giving up four runs on six hits. Consequently, when Erasmo Ramirez came in to pick up Smyly, there wasn’t much left to pick up. He breezed through the seventh, eighth, and ninth, retiring nine batters in a row to earn the relatively rare save under the rubric of pitching three or more innings in relief and finishing a winning game. After his terrible seventh, it hardly mattered that Feldman had a terrific eighth, striking out two and getting a ground ball to short to retire the side in order. Brett Cecil mopped up well in the ninth , with a strikeout, a ground ball out and a fly ball out, on only ten pitches.
Tomorrow night Jay Happ will try to nail down the series win against the young rookie Brett Snell, who’s had a good start to his career as a starting pitcher for Tampa Bay.
Nothing to do but go home, get a good night’s sleep, and forget all about it. Tomorrow night’s game, as always, starts with the teams even, regardless of how much the Rays won by tonight. Not only is there no crying in baseball, there’s no carryover either. Well, that’s a good thing.
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