Long Ball Stories

The first rule of writing about baseball is that nothing is ever foreordained.

The second rule of writing about baseball is that the first rule is not always right.

For someone who believes in omens and portents it was obvious that the Blue Jays, and not the Yankees, would come out this afternoon and administer a calm and efficient dispatch of their opponents, which is what happened as Toronto, behind an in-control Jay Happ, took an early lead on the Yankees, who never really threatened to challenge the Jays’ eventual win.

There was, first and foremost, the question of momentum. After the 1-0 shutout by Chad Green et al., on Monday night, the Yankees had come out Tuesday night and scored five more unanswered runs off the Jays, taking an apparent stranglehold on a series win, before the predicted downpour scattered the players to their respective clubhouses. After the rain they added one more, for a 7-0 score in the previous sixteen and a half innings, before the Jays suddenly shifted gears, or rather found a gear that actually engaged, and stormed back to score twelve straight runs for a stunning 12-6 comeback win. If momentum means anything, the prophets would say, it had to mean something now.

But there were sound practical reasons to foresee a Jays’ win today as well. In the expanded starting rotation now in effect, it was Jay Happ’s turn to take the ball today. Nothing has been a better predictor of Jays’ success than having Happ on the hill. Going into today’s start, Happ had won 16 of 19 decisions, and more significantly his win total equalled exactly 23.5 % of the Jays’ wins on the year. Yes, I know that win totals for starting pitchers don’t mean all that much. But when one starter gets the win in such a high percentage of a team’s victories, it’s not exactly rocket science to figure out that there must be some sort of a connection beyond simple correlation.

Another reason to think that the Jays would have the advantage today was that their bullpen was relatively fresh and unused compared to the Yankees’. In the topsy-turvy Tuesday night win, Toronto had used only long man Scott Feldman, setup man Jason Grilli, and mop-up guy Ryan Tepera out of the pen. Meanwhile, in a futile effort to stop the Blue Jays’ post-downpour onslaught, Manager Joe Girardi had used six different pitchers. He would not have much choice when he went to the bullpen today, as opposed to the situation Manager John Gibbons found himself in, looking down at a relatively well-rested relief corps.

Finally, today was one last game in Yankee Stadium III for Russell Martin, who’s been on a tear recently, and has virtually carried the team on his broad back. He particularly likes hitting in this ball park, which he called home for two years when he hit a total of 39 home runs for the Yankees.

So it’s one thing to go all mystical-like and say “Oh, we’re gonna win today, I feel it in my bones”, but another thing altogether to say “I like our chances today because of A, and B, and C.” In any case, the Jays emerged into the sunshine of mid-day in the Bronx, broke in front, and were never really headed by the Bombers, as they scored their sixth consecutive series win and retained their slim lead in the American League East.

Despite his won-loss record (“but they don’t really mean anything—blah, blah, blah!), C.C. Sabathia has returned to the status of his best seasons as a big workhorse. He won’t throw a shutout any time soon, or ever, but he will eat up some innings, limit the damage by the other team, and strike out a fair share of hitters. Of course, with the Blue Jays make that more than a fair share. Though he went into today’s game with a 7-9 record, he also had a 4.20 ERA, which is certainly good enough to be over .500 in wins.

So against a guy who’s capable of sticking around for a while, and amassing a lot of strikeouts, it was good that the Jays got on him early, scoring three in the second, and banishing the spectre of getting stoned again in the Bronx. (Sorry, no doper jokes today; I only indulge in bad humour once per topic.) With a little help from his buddy Didi at shortstop Sabathia had breezed through the first, retiring Devon Travis on a short fly to left that Gregorius made a great running catch on with his back to the plate, then fanning Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnaction.

Jay Happ has had much better success than some of his rotation partners in starting off with a clean slate, and today was no exception. He got Brett Gardiner and Starlin Castro out on easy fly balls to left field, and in between struck out Chase Headley. Happy to be still looking at a scoreless game in the second, the Jays’ ramped up the pressure on Sabathia. After Russell Martin struck out, Troy Tulowitzki, continuing his smart, all-fields hitting, singled to right. Sabathia then issued his only walk of the night to Melvin Upton—interesting how a starter can only walk one, but it comes at just the wrong time—to put runners at first and second for Zeke Carrera, who was in right field today. The Jays hadn’t been getting much production from the bottom of the order recently, especially with Kevin Pillar on the sick list, so it was good to see Zeke and Darwin Barney make an appearance today and contribute.

Nobody read the book on Carrera, so the Yankees were playing him pretty close in the outfield. After a couple of mediocre—did he mean it?–bunt attempts, Zeke was ready to swing away, and Brett Gardner wasn’t ready for him. Carrera pounded the ball over Gardner’s head to the wall in left, scoring Tulo and sending Upton to third. Darwin Barney ripped the ball past Headley inside the bag at third into the corner, and both Upton and Carrera scored. Darrell Ceciliani and Travis struck out to up Sabathia’s strikeout total to four, but the only number that really counted was a big fat 3 next to Toronto’s name on the scoreboard.

Jay Happ may be having a great year, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t let down after being handed a lead to work with. Gary Sanchez, the rookie catcher who’s never seen a fast ball he wouldn’t swing at, blasted the first pitch of the inning from Happ over the fence in centre to cut the Jays’ lead to two. To his credit, that was sufficient to get Happ’s attention and bring him back to the business at hand, as he struck out the side to dispose of the Yankees’ 5/6/7 hitters.

Both pitchers stranded singles in the third inning, and in the top of the fourth Sabathia benefitted from a fine play by Starlin Castro to get a force on Melvin Upton at second after he had led off with a single. Zeke Carrera hit a ground ball into the hole between first and second. Castro went to his left, picked it, and instead of taking the easy out at first, going with his momentum, he twisted back around and threw off balance to second to nip Upton, who does not run with concrete booties on his feet. Buoyed up by this, Sabathia managed to strand Carrera at first. In the bottom of the fourth the Yankees edged a little closer on the second solo homer given up by Happ.

One of the great traditions in baseball is that a player who’s made a good play in the field always leads off the next inning. I always thought that it was because the fielder is cranked up and hyper alert thinking about his at-bat, and this makes him focus better on the ball. Or not. One theory is as good as another, but the cliché does seem true, doesn’t it? So Castro leads off against Happ and turns on a two-one pitch, his first homer against the Jays this season. After he deposited the ball over the fence in left, Happ walked Gary Sanchez (as who wouldn’t?) on a 3-1 pitch, but then he struck out Aaron Judge, and teased a double-play grounder out of Gregorius.

The Jays’ lefty got some breathing room again in the top of the fifth, as his mates took advantage of some shoddy fielding by Yankee third Baseman Chase Headley to pick up run number four, and then celebrated with Melvin Upton as he really padded the lead with his first homer as a Blue Jay, a big opposite-field three-run job with two outs.

Devon Travis led off with an infield single to short. Josh Donaldson then hit a grounder to Headley at third that wasn’t hard to handle, but wasn’t really a double-play ball. He went for the force at second, and the plain truth is that Travis really hustled down the line, and Headley didn’t hustle his throw, so both hands were safe.

Headley must have had that play rattling around in his mind, because Edwin Encarnacion hit an easy double play ball to him that he totally botched, opening up the inning for the Jays to storm ahead. He picked up the ball close to the bag, stepped on third, and threw to first, to get the not-so-fast Encarnacion. But he really air-mailed it and it went out into no-man’s land down the right field foul line. Result: instead of two outs and Donaldson on second, Travis was out at third for one out, but Josh came around to third and Edwin was safe at first. Russell Martin, who’s going after RBIs these days like a blood hound after a possum, ran the count to 3-1 and then bounced the cripple into right to score Josh and send Edwin to third.

For once in this series Troy Tulowitzki didn’t do his part in the Russell-Troy show, and struck out on a foul tip for the second out. This brought Melvin Upton to the plate, and admit it, all you Blue Jays’ fans out there, your hearts sunk a little bit, anticipating another big whoosh from Upton striking out, though he has been comin along of late. Then he came around a lot, went to right centre with an 0-1 pitch, cleared the wall and cleared the bases for a 7-2 Toronto lead. Welcome, finally, to Toronto, former B.J. now bona fide Blue Jay. Upton’s record for 2016 is now 16 home runs in San Diego, where it’s really hard to hit homers, and one with Toronto in the AL East, where all the ball parks look like sandboxes compared to San Diego. Behind by five now, it was anti-climactic that Sabathia struck out Zeke Carrera to end the inning.

This time Happ didn’t need a reminder to tend to his knitting, dispatching the bottom third of the Yankees’ order. He struck out Tyler Austin and Austin Romine (is there a trend here? Could we put together an All-Austin team? Would they play in . . . Austin, Texas?) Then Aaron—not Austin—Hicks grounded out to Barney at third to end the inning.

In the modern game it’s pretty unusual to see a starting pitcher stay in the game past the fifth inning when he’s down 7-2. But Sabathia came out for the top of the sixth, and why not? Consider that he had given up three runs in a single burst in the second, and then cruised to the fifth, when he gave up a run that stemmed from an error, even though it was earned, and three more on a single blow. Consider also that he had thrown only 82 pitches through five, and Girardi didn’t have much left by way of alternatives. So Sabathia came back for one more inning, gave up a leadoff single to Darwin Barney, then struck out the next two hitters, and ended the inning by getting a force on Barney at second. He finished the six innings with 7 runs, 9 hits, 1 walk, and twelve strikeouts, on 98 pitches. Like I said, a workhorse.

Kirby Yates and a couple of the retreads from Tuesday night’s craziness, Tommy Layne and Anthony Swarzak, wrapped things up for the Yankees, and managed to keep the Jays off the board for the last three innings, while their mates at the plate managed to creep a little closer, but not enough.

Like Girardi, John Gibbons kept his fingers off the hook for Jay Happ for longer than he usually manages to do. He didn’t pull Happ in the sixth after Chase Headley, trying to make up for his fielding gaffes, hit one out to left, and was followed by base hits by Castro and, eventually, Aaron Judge. Happ rewarded his manager’s confidence by working a very quick 7-pitch seventh, getting him to only 87 pitches over seven innings, so Gibbie ran him out again in the eighth, which turned out to be a pitch too far.

Happ’s starting the eighth inning resulted in a disjointed handoff to the bullpen which in turn resulted in Roberto Osuna’s early arrival on the mound, as he was asked to retire one batter in the eighth before locking down the save quickly in the ninth. Happ was pulled with one out after Chase Headley had reached on an infield hit to short, on a ball that Troy Tulowitzki came up with, but couldn’t make a play on. Joaquin Benoit was brought in but couldn’t quell the mini-rising, eventually giving up a hit that scored Headley and added a fourth run to Happ’s ledger. Enter Osuna in the eighth, to work the relatively rare four-out save.

Jay Happ’s record went to 17 and three tonight, a ratio that speaks for itself. His ERA climbed back up over 3 to 3.05, yet despite the runs he gave up, there never seemed any doubt that he, not to mention the Jays, would end up with the win.

We go on to Cleveland for the weekend after an off-day tomorrow. In a curious twist, next up in the Jays’ starting rotation is Francisco Liriano, a left-hander acquired from the Pirates, who follows of course the left-hander Jay Happ who also came to us from the Pirates via the free agency route. I hope that Liriano can live up to Happ’s level of achievement in his post-Pittsburgh career.