So home again to Toronto for the last ten games of the season, seven here, and the final big three games in Boston next weekend. It was a winning road trip, though we needed it to be more. The Red Sox, more aptly called the Red Tail Lights as they pull away in the distance, sit in first by five games. We hold the first Wild Card slot by one game over Detroit, who are charging hard, and a game and a half over Baltimore, who are fading fast after the Sox beat up on them at Camden this week.
We face the Yankees, whose playoff hopes became a lot fainter this week after being swept by the Red Sox and winning two of three from Tampa Bay. They come in to Toronto looking to turn around that recent two and four record. On the other hand, let us recall that the Yankees initiated the recent slide of the Blue Jays by sweeping their series at Yankee Stadium at the beginning of September.
But the Yankees arrived with their pitching somewhat in disarray after the announcement on Thursday that Masahiro Tanaka would miss his scheduled start in the series against the Jays. Meanwhile, now that it has been determined that Francisco Liriano will be slotted in to the fifth starter’s spot for Toronto, the Jays are looking at a set rotation right to the end of the season. It’s organized so that Aaron Sanchez will get a regularly-scheduled start against Baltimore Tuesday night, and then be available for a crucial game in Boston on the last weekend, or a start in a wild card game.
It’s one thing to have your pitchers all lined up, but it’s another thing to have them perform up to expectations. In that regard there doesn’t seem to be much reason for concern. If there was one part of Toronto’s game that did not fail to live up to its assignment during the west coast swing it was the pitching, starters and relievers both. With the ongoing hitting woes suffered by the Blue Jays, the pitching has been the team’s only salvation, and the reason that it’s even in the running for the playoffs.
While Manager Joe Girardi’s decision to start Brian Mitchell tonight in the series opener might have the air of a stopgap measure, it’s not exactly a bad move, given Mitchell’s last start against Toronto. Against the Jays in New York on September seventh Mitchell was just one in a string of starts against the Jays by pitchers just returning after major time on the DL, pitchers auditioning for spots in next year’s rotation, pitchers promoted from the bullpen for a spot start, most of whom utterly stymied the tepid bats of the Jays’ sluggers. He went five innings for the win, shutting out Toronto on four hits with two walks, on only 80 pitches. I would think by now that the Jays’ hitters have learned to stop salivating when they know they’re facing a pitcher not named Tanaka or Tillman or Porcello.
Francisco Liriano has been a revelation for the Jays since coming over right (that’s literally right at 4:00) at the trade deadline. He had been scuffling badly in Pittsburgh this year, and the hope on the part of Toronto’s management was that a change of scenery and a reunion with his favourite catcher Russell Martin might turn things around for the lefty, and what a bonus if they did, to have two solid left-handers in the team’s rotation. Though he’s suffered somewhat from lack of run support, and has had the odd patch where he’s laboured with an elevated pitch count, he’s been 2-2 with an ERA of 3.35 over 43 innings with 42 strikeouts since his arrival.
Tonight after surviving a rocky first inning was as good as Liriano has been in his short time with Toronto, utilizing a nasty slider and some well-set-up fast balls to keep the Yankees well in check. He retired the side in the second, fourth, and fifth innings, and gave up only a leadoff single to hot rookie Gary Sanchez in the sixth, before retiring the next three batters to close out six innings of 3-hit shutout ball, with two walks and six strikeouts over 100 pitches.
Liriano started the game well by getting Brett Gardner to ground out to second, and fanning Jacoby Ellsbury on a really nasty 1-2 slider. But then he suffered from the two-out yips, which seem to be becoming much more common these days, and not just for the Blue Jays’ pitchers. In fact, I’d like to see the analytics geeks make themselves useful and look into this. Is it indeed a relatively new phenomenon, this business of pitchers cruising through the first two outs and then running into difficulty? The follow-up question would be why this might be so, and it’s a question that could lead us into some interesting considerations about the mental and emotional makeup of the modern-day pitcher.
Well, anyway, after two quick outs on only 8 pitches, Liriano and Zeke Carrera in left were smoked by Sanchez, the rookie phenom who munched his way through the Toronto pitching staff the first time around like a Toronto squirrel feasting on telephone cable. The hot-hitting youngster roped one over Carrera’s head that bounced out for a ground-rule double. Liriano then walked both newly-arrived Billie Butler and Didi Gregorius, before dramatically fanning Chase Headley on a slider low in the zone, after he’d buried one on the 0-2 pitch. Heart-pumping stuff, but the big worry was those 28 pitches he needed to get out of the first.
Liriano retired the side on 18 pitches in the second inning, but had a spot of trouble in the third, thanks (or no thanks) to a surprising fielding error by shortstop Troy Tulowitzki on an easy grounder by Brett Gardner leading off the third. Tulo went down for the ball, started to come up with it, but then left it behind on the dirt. Probably in a state of shock at Tulo’s gaffe, Liriano gave up a single to centre to Ellsbury and a deep fly to centre by Sanchez that let Gardner take third with only one out. But Liriano quickly regained control, fanning Billie Butler and inducing a popup to second by Gregorius.
After surviving the third with a pitch count of 60, Liriano only allowed the single to Sanchez in the sixth, rolling through his last three innings by retiring nine out of ten batters on only 35 pitches.
We’ll never know if Brian Mitchell would have been able to replicate his earlier start against the Jays, because he was victimized by Butler, playing first for only the third time, who booted a one-out grounder by Josh Donaldson, allowing Donaldson to reach in the first inning. Edwin Encarnacion shot one to right against the shift for a single, with Josh moving up to second. When Mitchell struck out Jose Bautista for the second out, it looked like he had a shot at getting out of the inning unscathed.
But then he walked Russell Martin to load the bases, bringing Tulo to the plate. Visions of a bases-loaded, two-outs situation in the first inning going a-glimmer yet again, I anticipated another disappointing strikeout, especially after Tulo took a called strike on the first pitch from Mitchell. But, lo and behold, the intense shortstop hit the next pitch into left field for a two-out, two-run single, the Jays had broken on top, and we could marvel at how nice it is to get a base hit with the sacks drunk. I probably haven’t used that expression before, but it’s common parlance in baseball dugouts. If the bases are loaded they’re “drunk”, like the guy down at the end of the bar is loaded.
The Jays bid fair to put Mitchell out of the game and the game out of reach in the second, but their hopes were stymied when Jose Bautista grounded into an inning-ending double play, and they were only able to add one run to their lead. It was a promising start as second baseman Ronald Torreyes couldn’t make a play on Kevin Pillar’s testy grounder, and it went for an infield single. Zeke Carrera followed with a single to right, and once again the bottom of the order had set up the stand and mixed the lemonade for the big boys. Devon Travis, or in fact Manager John Gibbons pulling the strings, surprised everybody in the park by dropping down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runners up. Mitchell proceeded to walk Donaldson to load the bases, and Edwin Encarnacion to force in a run before Bautista rapped into the double play that ended the inning and kept Mitchell in the game, though his team now faced a three-run deficit.
After the first two innings, Mitchell settled in and looked like the Brian Mitchell of old. Can you even say “of old” of a guy in just his fourth major league start? He gave up a leadoff single to Russell Martin in the third, but then threw a double-play ball to Tulo. He gave up Kevin Pillar’s second hit to lead off the fourth, but he held the ball long enough to see Pillar break early for second, and Pillar was out in a rundown, another base-running gaffe for the Jays . . . He pitched a clean fifth, and stranded a two-out walk to Michael Saunders in the sixth. He finished with a quality start, six innings, three runs but only one earned, thanks to Butler’s error in the first, walked four, and struck out two while throwing a reasonable 93 pitches.
The reliable Joaquin Benoit pitched a good seventh, initiating another appearance of BenGriNa, and gave up a leadoff walk to Aaron Hicks, but then inducing the pinch-hitter Brian McCann, hitting for catcher Austin Romine, to bounce into the odd-sounding 3-5-3 double play. An odd-sounding play, but one that should become more common. With both Travis and Tulo on the right side of the bag in the strong shift for McCann, Donaldson, alone on the left side, was stationed roughly at the shortstop’s normal position, and obviously best positioned to take the throw from Encarnacion and make the pivot back to Edwin. While he didn’t emulate the grace of a less-muscled middle infielder, Josh handled the job with emphasis and aplomb: Now I cross the bag, and now I get out of the way, and now I plant and throw. You could almost see him counting off the steps in his head. Well done, but good job it was McCann running from the plate.
Not that he would necessarily have used them when he was down three-zip in the seventh, but Joe Girardi must have been muttering to himself about the loss of Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman as he contemplated his next mound move. It’s gotta be tough when management says to an intense and competitive manager, “Look, we’re going to shop two-thirds of our high-leverage back-end bullpen, but you just keep managing like you’re in a pennant race.”
Girardi’s finger pointed to Blake Parker, he of the twitchy come-to-set-position mannerisms. This was not a good choice, though what could Girardi do? At least Parker seems to have learned to bring his palsied fit to a full stop before coming to the plate with runners on base, which he had, instantly. Zeke Carrera led off with a cheeky bunt single to third, and, yes, this is the second appearance of the word “bunt” in this post—what wonders the world holds for those who have faith! Gibbie then started Zeke on a 3-2 count to Travis (more wonders!) and Travis singled to centre, Zeke taking third. Josh flew out to right, too shallow to score Carrera, but he drew a throw from Aaron Hicks anyway that skipped away from McCann, allowing Travis to take second.
Girardi sensibly chose to walk Edwin to load the bases, hoping for an inning-ending grounder, which Bautista frequently offers, but this time he didn’t oblige, and rattled one past Headley at third and into the corner, Carrera and Travis scoring and Edwin coming around to third on the double. Parker walked Martin, loading the bases again, but Tulo promptly unloaded them with his second bases-loaded single, for 4 RBIs on the night, and a now comfy 7-0 Blue Jay lead. That was enough for Girardi, who brought in lefty James Pazos to face Michael Saunders, who was lifted for Melvin Upton, who singled to centre to load the bases yet again, but Kevin Pillar bounced into the first-to-home force out and Pazos fanned Zeke Carrera to put an end to the Jays’ bases-drunk bacchanalia.
With the expanded lead, Jason Grilli and Roberto Osuna got to relax, and Brett Cecil, who has been quietly building a more respectable CV of late, and Danny Barnes finished up, each pitching a clean inning with one strikeout.
Instead of sticking with Pazos, who’d only thrown 12 pitches, Girardi brought in Ben Heller, which resulted in another couple of runs as the Jays for once were the team to pile on. Travis led off with a double to left, and Donaldson followed with his 36th jack of the year. With that out of the way, Heller retired Edwin on a comebacker to the mound and fanned Martin and Ryan Goins hitting for Tulo to close things out. There was one sketchy moment when Heller smacked Jose Bautista with a high hard one, eliciting a classic Bautista scowl, but the guy’s a rookie, and we’re sure he didn’t mean it, right?
So it was a good start all the way around for this four-gamer with the Yankees. Three two-RBI base hits with the bases loaded, a Donaldson dinger, and shutout pitching from Francisco Liriano, Joaquin Benoit, Brett Cecil, and Danny Barnes. Who could ask for anything more? We can’t do anything about Boston, but we can win every game that’s left, and go from there.
Tomorrow afternoon it’s a 4:00 baseball network game, Marcus Stroman against C.C. Sabathia. Like King Felix, Sabathia is now relying on a variety of breaking balls rather than flame-throwing. Marcus Stroman has improved every outing lately. Should be a good one. Just call us Pitching Duels ‘R Us!
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