Let’s pretend we’re on a game show, one of those shows where the contestant gets to pick one of three doors and gets to have whatever is hidden behind the door chosen. We’re going to put surprises from tonight’s game behind each door, and you get to pick and see if you got your fave.
Behind one door is the Marco Estrada surprise. In the two starts he has made since it was revealed that he has been pitching for most of the season with a herniated disk in his back, this is what he has done: he’s had one win and one no decision. He’s pitched seven innings in both games. He’s given up a total of five hits in the fourteen innings. He’s given up one earned run in fourteen innings. He’s walked five and struck out fifteen in fourteen innings.
Behind another door is the Kevin Pillar/Zeke Carrera Bunt Extravaganza. For the second time in three games I get to write about the Blue Jays bunting. Is that fun, or what?
Behind another door is Edwin Encarnacion’s surprise walk-off hit, which did not leave the infield.
Now, it just occurred to me that my posts are not interactive (who knew?), and you can’t actually choose which surprise for me to write about. So I guess I have to choose for you, don’t I? And since all ball games are straightforward narratives, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, I choose to start with Marco Estrada because, well, he was the starter, right?
Last Monday in Seattle, Estrada set a Blue Jays’ record by striking out the first five batters of the game, and went on to fan one more, for six of the first nine he faced. Tonight he didn’t have his strikeout mojo going quite as well, but that worked out just fine because he was able to cut down on his pitch count. In the first inning he popped up Brett Gardner to shortstop. He popped up Jacoby Ellsbury to second. He fanned Gary Sanchez on a cutter up in the zone on a 1-2 pitch. It maybe be that the Jays are on to something with Sanchez and the high hard ones. (Well, with Estrada “hard” is always relative, isn’t it? Who else has a really effective 88 mile-an-hour fast ball?)
This game wasn’t the lights-out through the first five innings affair that the Seattle one was, though, and Estrada had quite a trial in the second inning. Once he passed that one he was “good to go”, and retired fourteen batters in a row, which took him all the way to the top of the seventh, when Didi Gregorius shocked everyone out of their wits by hitting a leadoff homer to tie the game at one.
Let’s go back to the second, though. In his first at bat, Gregorius, hitting cleanup tonight, popped out to Josh Donaldson, giving Estrada three popups in his first four batters. Then Mark Texeira, winding down his career with the Yankees, performed a feat that we may never see again. Estrada started Tex off with a cutter taken for a strike. Since the pitch worked, he tried it again, on the inner half, and absolutely sawed off Texeira, the handle still in his hand, the bat head off on its own adventure. But the ball—get this, now, it’s the truth—rocketed to right on a line over the head of Michael Saunders, and hit the wall for a double. Never before. Probably never again.
A little stunned, perhaps, Estrada walked Brian McCann on a 3-2 count, and gave up a soft flare of a base hit to left by Chase Headley to load the bases. Now that the Yankees had his attention, Estrada set to work. He fanned rookie right fielder Mason Williams on four pitches. Then on a 1-2 pitch he threw his famous changeup to Ronald Torreyes, who popped out to Donaldson at third. Estrada might not have had his strikeout mojo tonight, but he sure had his popup mojo. Torreyes was his fifth popup in the first two innings.
After the second, Estrada was masterful through six innings. Fourteen batters in a row, as I mentioned, and only 39 pitches to navigate the third through sixth. Unfortunately, he ran into trouble in the top of the seventh, trouble named Didi (I wonder how Derek Jeter feels about being replaced by a guy named Didi? Actually, the Yankees should dump Starlin Castro at second and find a second baseman named Dick, so their double-play combination would be Dick and Didi. And if you get that one, you really know your early sixties R and B!)
It seems like in these days of rigid pitch-count control, when the Trump Border Wall of the game is the end of the seventh inning—you shall not pass to the eighth—it’s a common phenomenon that a pitcher who’s had a good outing struggles in his last full inning. Another one is that if your starter does breeze the seventh, and the manager decides to extend him, it is written in stone that the leadoff hitter in the eighth will get a base hit, if not a home run. There’s something dangerous about being almost back to the barn.
So as Marco Estrada came out for the seventh with a pitch count of only seventy two, visions of a complete game festooned with sugar plums danced in our heads. But then, on an innocuous 1-1 pitch, Gregorius took it over the fence in right centre to tie the game. (We’ll get to the Jays’ run in a minute, just be patient. Marco Estrada is the story here, and we need to usher him out with some respect.)
Now, if Marco had just shut down the side after that, on another, say dozen pitches, Manager John Gibbons might have sent him out for the eighth, to try to get him a W.
But after he struck out Texeira on a 3-2 pitch, Brian McCann singled to right. Eric Young ran for Texeira and stole second while Chase Headley was striking out for the second out. Then Estrada walked Mason Williams on a 3-2 pitch, before finally fanning Ronald Torreyes to end the inning. No further damage, but the inning had cost Estrada 31 pitches, and dreams of a complete game died a-glimmering.
The Yankees started Michael Pineda, who pitched much better than his record of 6-11 and a 4.89 ERA coming into today’s game. Pineda has had a funny September. In four previous starts this month he has only gone four innings twice, four and two thirds once, and into the sixth, five and a third, only once. He’s given up 18 hits but only four earned runs in his 18 September innings. So why the short starts? The problem with Michael, the poor boy, is that he just works too hard. He struggles to find his spot. He pitches from behind. He fidgets and fusses while the pitch count climbs. 87 in four complete. 82 in four complete. Only 77 in four and two thirds—must have gotten a good night’s sleep before that one.
Tonight’s performance by Pineda was another pea from the same old pod. In five and two-thirds innings he gave up one run on three hits with three walks and two strikeouts, and threw 97 pitches. Watching the game was like interval training. We sprinted through Estrada’s innings, and then walked, stretching it out, through Pineda’s.
All that being said, Toronto didn’t do much damage to him. The Jays wasted a one-out double by Josh Donaldson in the first, followed an out later by a walk to Jose Bautista, and then only two more Jays’ hitters touched base before the sixth, Pineda’s last inning.
The way he’s been going the last few games, if you had to pick one guy who’d hit one out for the only run of a six-inning 1-0 pitcher’s duel, it would have to be Bautista. After Edwin Encarnacion led off the inning by grounding out to short, Pineda started Bautista out on a slider, low and away. Then he threw him three straight fast balls at 93 mph, the first one a high strike, the second low and away, and the third thigh-high, inner half of plate. Uh-oh. Bye bye. Bautista didn’t miss it, and for the fourth game in a row he had a crucial RBI, and the Jays a 1-0 lead, which held until the seventh when Gregorius matched Jose’s heroics.
By the seventh, though, Pineda was gone, his string of good innings broken in the sixth. The sixth started with a walk to Travis, but Donaldson hit into a double play that should have eased things for the Yankee starter. But Edwin blooped a single into right, moved around to third on first a wild pitch and then a passed ball. Pineda walked Bautista, and his start was over, at 97 pitches, as Manager Joe Girardi brought in Adam Warren, who got Russell Martin to ground out to end the inning.
After Gregorius tied it up in the top of the seventh, the Jays immediately set to work to try to untie it in their half of the inning with some textbook baseball that unfortunately didn’t pan out in the end. Troy Tulowitzki led off with a first-pitch single to centre. Michael Saunders, who had grounded out to third-baseman Chase Headley behind the bag at second in the shift, smartly took advantage of the same positioning to poke one through the open left side into left for another hit. Kevin Pillar followed with a nice sacrifice bunt that pulled the pitcher toward first, and the runners moved up. (Did I just write ‘sacrifice bunt” again??) But unfortunately the textbook couldn’t turn Carrera and Travis into contact hitters against Adam Warren. He fanned them both, and the inning was at an end.
In the top of the eighth Brett Gardner also attacked the shift against Joaquin Benoit, and bounced one past the non-existent third baseman, a ball that just kept rolling while Gardner steamed into second. But like the Jays’ efforts in the seventh, it went for naught as Benoit fanned Gary Sanchez and the ubiquitous Didi to keep the game at ones.
Comes the bottom of the eighth and a quick display of bold base-running by Donaldson that enabled the Jays to take the lead. Having no other choices, the other big guys being gone, Girardi brought in Dellin Betances to take yet another shot at shutting down the Jays. And yet again he didn’t do it. Josh Donaldson worked him for a walk on a three-two count to lead off. Then Betances’ leisurely delivery and focus on the batter Encarnacion handed Donaldson an easy if surprising stolen base. Edwin followed by grounding the ball to the left of Gregorius at short, and Josh, sensing the shortstop’s momentum going the other way, broke for third and didn’t draw a throw. He was on third with one out and who else but Mr. Clutch, Jose Bautista, at the plate. Bautista worked the count to three and two, then lined one cleanly up the middle to score Donaldson with the lead run.
Betances settled down to strike out Russell Martin and Tulo, but not before some messy defence by the Yankees created a further scoring opportunity that went for naught. Gibbie put Dalton Pompey in to run for Gibbons, and he promptly got picked off, breaking too early for second before the pitcher committed to the plate. Betances threw behind Pompey to Texeira, Pompey dashed straight on for second, and Texeira had a little trouble getting the ball out of his glove, and presto, change-o, Pompey’s pickoff had turned into a stolen base. But then the strikeouts ended it and we went to the ninth with Roberto Osuna coming in to protect the one-run lead and make a winner out of Benoit.
Osuna ended up with a blown save on the worst imaginable luck as the Yankees scored two runs to take the lead and threaten to ruin a nice, close Blue Jays’ win. Mark Texeira was down 0 and 2 leading off, laid off on a four-seamer that was low and inside, and then muscled off a high and inside four-seamer and singled to centre. Rob Refsnyder was sent in to run for Texiera, and Billie Butler hit a two-strike broken bat blooper to left for a single, Refsnyder stopping at second. Donovan Solano came in to run for Butler. Chase Headley hit a come-backer to Osuna, but there was no chance for a play at third, and the Yankees had runners at second and third with one out. Mason Williams then scored Refsnyder with yet another two-strike hit, this one opposite field, and the game was tied with Solano at third and still only one out. On two strikes, Torreyes hit a sacrifice fly to Pillar in centre, and the Yankees had the lead. Four contacts with two strikes. Two sawed-off base hits. Two cheap runs on good pitches. Gardner popped out to third, but the Yankees had the lead and it was gut-check time for the home team.
There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about the “lack of production” from the bottom of the Jays’ batting order—as if the top was producing all that much—but I wrote some time ago that there have been a number of times when the chemistry of gritty at bats and speed on the bases emanating from Kevin Pillar, Melvin Upton, Zeke Carrera, and, when he’s in there, Darwin Barney has led to good things, and the team’s rally in the bottom of the ninth to pull out the game was the best example thus far.
Free-swinging Melvin Upton led off and promptly whiffed on the first two fast balls from Betances, who was still in the game. After fouling one off, he patiently watched Betances miss with four in a row. Upton was on first, Betances out of the game, and Tyler Clippard in. Clippard went up 0 and 2 on Pillar as Pillar fouled off two bunt attempts (am I actually saying this? It’s not a figment?) Then Pillar took a ball, fouled off two more, the second with Upton going on the pitch, and finally rifled a grounder through the open right side of the infield, as Upton raced around to third.
This brought Zeke Carrera to the plate, fast runners on the corners and nobody out, and one of the most dramatic plays of the season was about to unfold. On the first pitch from Clippard, without warning, and without a sign, as we learned later from Gibbie in his post-game, Carrera pushed a bunt up the first-base line. Upton, who didn’t know it was coming, broke for the plate as soon as he saw the ball was down, making it a safety squeeze. Clippard was closest to the ball, and he unwisely tried to whack it toward catcher Gary Sanchez when it was already too late to make a play on Upton with the tying run. Unfortunately for the Yankee reliever, he hadn’t passed glove-whacking 101, and his foolhardy attempt sailed past Sanchez, allowing Pillar to reach third and Carrera second on the error.
Clippard then fanned Devon Travis on a 1-2 fast ball, the first and only out of the inning. With Donaldson due up and first base open, the intentional walk to Josh was a given, bringing Edwin Encarnacion to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. With Edwin, you had three possibilities: he’d drive in the run, one way or another; he’d strike out with a mighty wind; he’d hit into a double play. Big Eddie didn’t waste any time, smoking a grounder up the middle that the second baseman Torreyes made a valiant effort on, diving on the backhand to keep it in the infield, but there was no chance for an out anywhere, Pillar waltzed in from third, and the game was over.
The “little” guys set the table with zest and panache, and one of the big guys served up the main course, chef’s surprise, a really big walk-off win.
That makes three straight over the shell-shocked Yankees, Toronto’s September swoon seems to be over, and the Jays just keep on truckin’ not conceding a thing to anyone.
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