On the fourteenth of September, Marco Estrada had a rather strange outing against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Ever since before the All Star Game, for which he was named but could not participate, there have been issues with his back. This would explain why the quality of his starts had deteriorated somewhat since the break. His location was not as precise, a crucial problem for a pitcher who relies totally on location and spin to be effective. Because of control issues, he was falling behind batters, his walks were up, and his pitch count was up. The results were not great: he was pitching less effectively, and not going as deep into games.
Even so, the start against the Rays was most puzzling. For three innings he was perfect, and I am not using hyperbole here. Literally, he was perfect. Nine up, nine down, on 46 pitches. Five strikeouts on the first six batters for a Blue Jays’ record. In all, six strikeouts on nine batters.
But in the fourth something clicked over. He gave up a leadoff single to Logan Forsythe and a home run to Kevin Kiermaier. After getting the second out, he gave up a single, stolen base, and single for a third run. In the fifth he walked two batters, but kept the Rays off the board. In the sixth he gave up a leadoff single and was pulled from the game after 101 pitches—46 over three, then 55 over two and a third and a batter. The base-runner in the sixth scored, so he ended up giving up four earned runs in total.
The next day Manager John Gibbons finally confirmed that the back issue Estrada had been dealing with the entire season, ever since he famously tweaked his back trying a Bruce Lee exercise in spring training, was a herniated disk. His back was still bothering him when he joined the rotation on April tenth, throwing seven shutout innings against Boston on five hits. His back was still bothering him when he set a major league record this year with a string of twelve consecutive starts of six innings or more while allowing five hits or less. (I don’t know who makes up the categories for major league records, or if the creation of records follows the achievement of something remarkable, but it seems that this particular record marks the work of one damn fine starting pitcher.)
And his back was still bothering him when he took the mound tonight in Seattle, with the heavy weight of needing to stop the team’s bleeding after two awful losses in Los Angeles pressing down on his already-vulnerable spine.
Now you and I, ladies and gentlemen, if we were suffering from a herniated disk, would drag ourselves through our boring daily routines, gingerly changing position always with an eye toward not causing another painful twinge. We would awaken in the morning and spend a moment planning how we would get out of bed without the pain taking us back to the mattress. We would stuff ourselves with pain-killers and hope to accomplish half of what we would normally do in a day.
Here is what Marco Estrada accomplished today while suffering from his herniated disk: he pitched seven runless innings, gave up one hit, walked three, and struck out eight, on 97 pitches. As we say in Blue-Jay Land, he was re-Marco-able!
Of course, Estrada has access to the finest orthopaedic doctors and physiotherapists that big baseball bucks can buy, but still, how can you adequately assess a performance like that, on a day when the whole season appeared to be hanging in the balance for Estrada and his team-mates?
Beyond the pitching line itself was the manner of its execution. Once again he started the game with a perfect run, this time of eleven straight batters retired. When he stumbled in the fourth inning, issuing two walks after two were out, he received a truly supportive gift from Kevin Pillar in centre. With Robinson Cano on second and Nelson Cruz on first, Kyle Seager hit a low line drive to centre that bid fair to become a very damaging first base hit against Estrada. But Pillar raced in, slid, and plucked the ball cleanly just before it was to touch down in front of him. Estrada returned to perfection for the fifth and sixth innings, and then, on a 2-1 pitch to Robinson Cano, leading off against Estrada in the seventh, Cano grounded a single cleanly up the middle to end yet another no-hit bid for the Toronto pitching master. After the Cano hit, Estrada closed out the inning with three soft-contact balls in the air, then led off the eighth by walking Leonys Martin, and his night was done.
This is what Marco Estrada did with a herniated disk in his back. What did you do with your bad back today?
After Estrada’s remarkable outing was finished, Jason Grilli and Roberto Osuna managed—barely—to preserve the win for him, creating more tense moments in one and two thirds innings than Estrada had in his whole start.
Estrada’s starting the eighth was helpful to manager John Gibbons, because it gave him the chance to get both Grilli and Osuna ready. It’s a good thing he did. Coming in with a man on and nobody out, Grilli walked pinch hitter Ben Gamel, hitting for catcher Mike Zunino. Grilli then got the next two outs, fanning Ketel Marte and retiring Norichika Aoki on a liner to right. Martin advanced to third on the catch. Grilli now faced left-handed-hitting right fielder Seth Smith, and it’s a bit of a puzzle why Gibbie didn’t bring in Brett Cecil to pitch to Smith. In any case, you had the sense that Smith would be Grilli’s last shot. He walked him, and it was his last shot. Roberto Osuna, ready early, came in to face Cano with the bases loaded and the game seriously on the line. And did we hold our breath when Cano drilled one to right that Zeke Carrera, playing deep, scrambled back and just managed to run down. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t all that great that Osuna was ready . . .
The drama wasn’t over yet, either. Osuna still had to navigate Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager to get the save, and he almost didn’t get past Cruz, who crushed one, but luckily to dead centre, where Pillar tracked it down for the first out. Seager popped out to third for the second out, and we started to breathe a little easier, but not for long. Adam Lind hit a little flare single to right centre. Seattle’s manager Scott Servais sent Shawn O’Malley in to pinch run for Lind. Leonys Martin rendered the pinch-runner irrelevant by jacking one out to right on Osuna, and the lead was one. Osuna closed it off by fanning Ben Gamel for his very exciting 34th save in 37 opportunities.
Big right-hander Taijuan Walker started for Seattle. Walker’s won/loss record (but who cares, it’s “meaningless”, right?) was a mediocre 6-10 coming in to this game, but his ERA was an okay 4.28. Moreover, he had recently undergone major reconstructive work on his delivery, and his last couple of starts had been very solid. On the eighth against Texas he went 5 innings, gave up 7 hits and 3 runs, but on the thirteenth against the Angels he pitched the game that stands out, a complete-game, three-hit shutout, with no walks and eleven strikeouts. Who even pitches a complete-game shutout any more?
His start was solid tonight, too, despite the fact that Edwin Encarnacion tried his best to take him out of the game in the first inning. He started his day by striking out both Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson. But Edwin lashed one back through the box that deflected, hard, off Walker’s leg and into centre for a single. After attention from the trainer, he decided he could carry on, and walked Jose Bautista before retiring Russell Martin on a fly ball to centre.
Maybe inspired by Estrada’s work, Edwin’s single was the only base-runner Walker allowed in his first two innings. Meanwhile, he struck out four of six. He eventually had to get around to Edwin again, and it came sooner than he wanted, in the third. Kevin Pillar led off with an infield single. He promptly stole second, but looked to die there when Devon Travis struck out, and then Kyle Seager robbed Josh Donaldson of an RBI single with a diving stop and throw across for the out. But Edwin seemed to find Walker’s offerings rather tasty on this night, and pounded an 0-1 pitch into the seats in left for a 2-0 lead, his forty-first of the year.
Pillar was in the middle of some action in the next inning that resulted in the last run off Walker, that would prove to be the winner. This was another of those rare occasions when the Jays did the right thing and made sure of the one run on offer. Troy Tulowitzki led off with a double to left. Zeke Carrera promptly laid down a sacrifice bunt moving Tulo to third. After Walker caught Melvin Upton looking, Pillar cut his swing down on an 0-2 pitch and poked a base hit into right to score Tulo with the third Toronto run. Pillar, having a field day on both ends of the ball, promptly stole second, but was stranded there when Travis grounded out to third.
The normally cautious Jays must have figured out something about Walker’s delivery, because besides Pillar’s two, Jose Bautista had also easily stolen second after he walked after Edwin’s homer. But maybe it wasn’t Walker, because Travis also stole a base in the seventh off Evan Scribner. Whatever it was, I hope the Jays retrieved second base from the diamond for their memory box!
Walker stumbled twice on fielding plays, and by his demeanour it was hard to tell how much discomfort he was feeling from a possible injury to his foot/leg. In any case, he finished up reasonably well, pitching into the sixth, with a line of five and a third innings, three runs, five hits, four walks, and six strikeouts over 93 pitches.
That was it for the Jays, who didn’t need any more with Estrada in command, and Grilli and Osuna squeaking through. Drew Storen, the Jays’ big hope from Washington, who provided valuable capital to acquire Joaquin Benoit, which turned out to be quite the upgrade for the Jays’ bullpen, was brought in when Walker, with one out in the fifth, walked his second batter of the inning.
Storen showed what he never did in Toronto: the ability to overpower. With two on, he fanned Upton and Pillar on nine pitches to close out the sixth. He started the seventh by giving up an infield hit to Travis. Then he struck out Donaldson on a called third strike, and all hell broke loose between Donaldson and home plate umpire Chris Conroy. Josh had been incensed on the 1-1 pitch when Conroy called him for a swing and wouldn’t check with the base umpire. Then, after a ball in the dirt, he took another pitch nearly in the dirt, and was utterly apoplectic when he was called out on strikes. It didn’t take Conroy too long to toss him from the game, as the manager, and coaches failed to pull him away in time. Darwin Barney came in to finish up at third, and luckily Josh’s potential at the plate was not further needed in the game.
Scott Servais didn’t like the Storen-Edwin matchup, and so brought on Evan Scribner to finish up the seventh. Storen went out after an inning, with a hit and three strikeouts under his belt. Scribner came on and stifled a further threat. He struck out Edwin as hoped, but Travis stole second, and then Scribner walked Jose Bautista before also fanning Russell Martin to end a long but fruitless inning for the Jays.
Scribner had a quick eighth inning, and then Servais brought in Dan Altavilla in the ninth. Altavilla wavered a bit, giving up singles to Pillar, his third hit on the day, and Travis, though Pillar, trying for his third theft to match his three hits, was thrown out at second by catcher Chris Iannetta before Travis’ base hit. Altavilla then retired Michael Saunders and Edwin to finish the Jays’ night without scoring again, though thanks to the work of Estrada and company they already had enough money in the bank.
For a long time everyone has been saying that there’s lots of games left, it’s not time to worry too much yet, and such like, but that point has now been passed. If there was a crucial game that seemed like it had to be won, this was it for the Blue Jays. After the two demoralizing losses to saw off the series with the Angels, with Seattle playing strongly to try to get into contention for a Wild Card slot, if the Jays couldn’t declare their right to be in the mix right here, right now, it just might begin to slip away.
John Gibbons sent out Marco Estrada, bad back and all, to pitch this crucial game, and despite his recent struggles, he came through brilliantly, giving the Jays just what they needed, a courageous and effective performance that called out the best his team-mates had to offer. They responded with good defence, good relief pitching, and just enough timely hitting to save the day.
Thanks to Marco Estrada, the outlook for the Blue Jays tonight is much brighter than it was last night. It was only one game, to be sure, but it was a game we had to win. We look forward to seeing if the good vibes from tonight will carry forward. Are the Toronto Blue Jays a thing, or not?
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