ALCS GAME ONE, CLEVELAND 2, JAYS 0:
HITTERS STRAND ESTRADA,
LET KLUBER OFF HOOK
Note about team names: In solidarity with Jerry Howarth, Mike Wilner, and the many other Canadian broadcasters who have pledged not to use the Cleveland team name or the term “the Tribe”, I will refer to the team from Cleveland only as “Cleveland”. From time to time I have referred to various teams by the name of the city in the plural, such as, for example, “the Clevelands”. This is a very old usage in baseball reporting, which may go back to the nineteenth century. In order to avoid the static repetition of “Cleveland” I will be using this old form a bit more frequently while covering this series.
Just one pitch. For Cleveland, it was a changeup, down and in, on the edge of the plate, that Francisco Lindor golfed into the first row of seats in centre field, scoring Jason Kipnis, on base with a walk ahead of him. The Lindor homer would produce the only runs of the night off either pitcher, and was the difference in the game.
As for the Blue Jays, you could say that it was also just one pitch that could have changed the entire course of the game. We can take our choice on this one, because it could be any one of the eight pitches that Jose Bautista and Russell Martin did not take for a base hit with runners on second and third in the first inning. Toronto’s best chance, though not their only chance, died early, with Martin’s bouncer to first following Bautista’s strikeout in the opening inning.
After that, watching this game only provided clinical observaton of the scientific hypotheses that, one, it is not a good idea to let Corey Kluber off the hook, and two, you definitely do not want to let Cleveland’s starter turn a slim lead over to the back end of their bullpen after the sixth inning.
Marco Estrada demonstrated in spades tonight why he was a good choice to start the first game of the ALCS in Cleveland. He pitched a complete game, gave up only two runs on six hits, with one walk and five strikeouts on 101 pitches. His only mistake came in the sixth inning, with one out. Two mistakes, actually. He issued his only walk to Jason Kipnis, and then gave up the home run to Lindor. The extra run from the walk might as well have been Mount Everest looming behind K2 to the Jays’ hitters once Andrew Miller came into the game.
Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the hitters to sweep all the spiders out of the bat rack, and the middle part of the lineup was unable to capitalize on six base runners against Cleveland starter Corey Kluber in the first three innings, five reaching on base hits. After that, Kluber settled in and kept the Jays in check just long enough to benefit from Estrada’s gopher ball to Lindor, and hand the ball over to Andrew Miller.
If the general perception that there was far more pressure on Cleveland to win the first game of the series was extant before today, this morning’s news out of the Cleveland camp made it all the more imperative that they carve out a win behind Corey Kluber.
Since the season-ending injuries to their numbers two and three starters, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, predictions about the early demise of the team’s playoff hopes have been rife. They were fortunate indeed to get past Boston in the first round behind Kluber, Josh Tomlin, and Trevor Bauer, and even more fortunate that the series didn’t go to a fourth game, because now that the team is facing a seven-game series, the issue of who is available, let alone strong enough, to be a fourth playoff starter has become critical.
Cleveland’s original projection was that the first three would be followed in game four by Mike Clevinger, who hasn’t even been stretched out as a starter, and Manager Terry Francona is referring to game four as a “bullpen day”; a term you don’t really expect to hear used about a game in an LCS. I have no doubt that if Cleveland were to lose two of the first three games, that Clevinger would be bypassed to bring Kluber back on short rest.
But today, on the very day of game one, we hear the news that Trevor Bauer, who was slated to start game two, will have to be pushed back until at least game three in Toronto on Monday, after the travel day. The reason for the delay is hard to credit, and in fact seems to fall into about the same level of strangeness as the long-ago ankle sprain suffered by one-time Blue Jay Glenallen “the Thrill” Hill. For those among you who don’t go back that far, Glenallen Hill, a big, strapping guy with loads of power, had an inordinate fear of spiders. One night during the season he experienced a very troubling nightmare that prominently featured his least favourite creepy-crawlies. Waking in a panic, he leapt out of bed and started stomping around, presumably trying to dispatch his tormentors. Unfortunately, he lost his balance, tripped, sprained his ankle, and had to go on the disabled list.
Funny, huh? How about this: Trevor Bauer, who pitched so well against Toronto to get the win in the epic Canada Day 19-inning marathon, is a great fan of drones. He owns them, flies them, and fixes them when they need fixing. So, the night before his team is to open its ALCS against Toronto, he is working with one of his drones, trying to fix it, and somehow, he’s not saying, at least publicly, he slipped with something sharp and gashed the pinkie on his pitching hand, to the tune of “stitches”, rather than just one stitch. Thanks to this bloody incident at Bauer Drone Services (“you fly ’em, we fix ’em, and mind the blood stain on that chair—it’s fresh!”), Tomlin gets moved up to game two, Bauer (maybe) pitches game three, and now there is uncertainty about the Cleveland rotation for game three as well as game four. Anyone betting against Kluber getting the game four start is really eager to lose money on the deal.
Toronto wouldn’t go into a game facing Corey Kluber with quite the same awe and respect that they would facing, say, a Rick Porcello or a Chris Sale, or even a Yu Darvish. They’d faced him only twice this year, a consequence of the unbalanced schedule in the American League that saw Cleveland and Toronto only meet for a single series in each city. They’d cuffed him around in his shortest outing of the year in Toronto in July, and then he’d held them to two runs over six and two thirds innings in Cleveland in August in a no-decision that Cleveland eventually pulled out late.
And after three Jays’ hitters in the top of the first, it was clear that Kluber would be getting little respect from the visitors tonight. After Zeke Carrera struck out to lead off the game, Josh Donaldson lashed a single into centre on a 2-2 pitch, and Edwin Encarnacion followed, also on a 2-2 pitch, by going the opposite way, pounding the ball over the head of a frantically retreating Lonnie Chisenhall. The ball short-hopped the fence and just died there, without much of a carom, allowing the Cleveland right fielder to get to it quickly and get it back in, holding Donaldson at third.
Surely, Jose Bautista would at least plate the first run of the game. But in an appearance that would set the tone for the rest of the game, Bautista took a suspect called strike on a slider that was down and in, and then swung over two curve balls that dove into the dirt off the outside corner for a strikeout. It would be up to Russell Martin to come up with a two-out base hit, which has been less of a rarity for Toronto since the start of the month. But Martin reached out for another low outside curve ball and tapped it meekly toward Mike Napoli at first for the third out.
For a scoreless game through five and a half innings, it seemed like Kluber’s efforts to keep the Jays off the board sucked up all the oxygen in the stadium, leaving Marco Estrada to toodle along in relative obscurity, doing what he does best: efficiently keeping the opposing hitters off balance and off the bases.
Leading off the bottom of the first, Carlos Santana pulled a little surprise out of the bag for the Blue Jays by steering a bunt down the third base line, which of course was vacant because Josh Donaldson was playing shortstop in the shift. No problem, though. Jason Kipnis grounded into a double play started by Travis, and Francisco Lindor grounded out to Travis to end the inning.
Estrada gave up three hits by the end of the fifth, stranding a single by Lonnie Chisenhall in the third, a single by Lindor in the fourth, and a leadoff single by Chisenhall, his second hit, in the fifth. Chisenhall in the fifth was the only Cleveland runner to advance past first base. Coco Crisp bunted him to second, Tyler Naquin advanced him to third on a comebacker to the mound which Estrada had to play on to Devon Travis covering first. Estrada then calmly threw three off-speed strikes to catcher Roberto Perez, who didn’t offer at any of them, to end the inning.
The great Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell popularized the phrase that characterizes a hitter taking a called third strike as “standing there like the house by the side of the road.” Maybe I should coin a usage here for taking strike three. It could be that the ineffectual hitter has been “ernied”, or “harwelled”. What do you think?
On Naquin’s comebacker to the mound, Edwin Encarnation had to try to play the ball, which was eventually handled by Estrada, so Travis had to cover ground quickly to get to first to take the throw from Estrada. As he came off the bag after the out, it was obvious that whatever “bone bruise” they had been treating while he sat out two games in the division series had either recurred, or was significantly worse than they had let on. Travis was hobbling and unable to continue. Ryan Goins came in to replace him for the last out of the inning. At this point it is unclear what the young second baseman’s status will be for the rest of the post-season, but the team management must have had an inkling that this might happen, since they had opted to include Goins on the LCS roster, at the expense of Justin Smoak.
Estrada was through five innings on three hits but only two left on base, with a pitch count of only 59, though no one was noticing, mainly because the attention of most fans was riveted by the spectacle of Corey Kluber dancing around on the mound, dodging bullets and escaping from traps set by the Blue Jays’ hitters.
In the second inning, Kluber got a double-play ball off the bat of Travis to escape after Michael Saunders had singled and he had walked Kevin Pillar with one out. In the third, with two outs, Edwin singled to left and Jose Bautista walked, but Kluber fanned Russell Martin. In the fourth the Cleveland starter got a big boost from Jason Kipnis after Saunders had crossed up the shift and singled to left. Kevin Pillar hit a hard bouncer into the hole off first base that seemed destined for a base hit to right. But Kipnis ranged far to his left, fading back as he went for the ball. He dove, and snagged it when it seemed already past him, leapt to his feet, and fired out Pillar at first. The diving Kipnis had erased a likely first and third with one out, and Kluber was able to end the inning by retiring Travis on a fly ball to centre. In the fifth inning, though, Jays’ fans had to be getting a little worried that Kluber was finally able to retire the side in order: was he settling in? Was that all there would be? After four innings Kluber had struggled to 69 pitches, but he only needed eleven more for the fifth, taking him to 80.
Through five innings Estrada clearly had the best of Kluber. But baseball is a funny game, and the funniest (sorry, in this case not funny) of them can be the low-scoring pitchers’ duel, since it can turn on almost anything. Much like a fight between two unevenly matched boxers, sometimes the wrong guy loses. You can have one fighter miles ahead on points, even with a couple of knockdowns, where the decision is a foregone conclusion, but the guy who’s losing manages to line up one magnificent punch, and wins with a knockout.
While the analogy is not perfect—Estrada and Kluber were not throwing directly to or at each other, obviously—it still serves to explain how Marco Estrada might give up the only runs of the game. Maybe Carlos Santana foreshadowed what was to come as he smashed a one-hopper directly at Ryan Goins in short right field to lead off the sixth. Goins played it like a goalie, blocking and dropping to cover the rebound, though in this case picking it up and firing it to first for the out, rather than smothering it. Estrada then walked Jason Kipnis, his only walk of the game.
This brought up Lindor, who already had one of the four hits to this point off Estrada. On an 0-2 pitch, Lindor went down and in to hit a ball hard to the power alley in right centre. All you needed to know about the hit was what you could read in Kevin Pillar’s back, as he raced over and back for the ball, then, shoulders sagging, slowed and watched it clear for the only two runs that would be scored in the game.
Estrada quickly retired Mike Napoli on a popup to second, and fanned Jose Ramirez, but we headed for the top of the seventh with a sinking feeling in the pits of our stomachs: regardless of how much longer Kluber lasted, we were well within the range of the possibility of Andrew Miller and the closer Cody Allen picking him up without any other bullpen help needed. We would need a quick strike right away, or we were probably looking at the end, well before the end would be played out.
We were encouraged when Kluber came back out to start the seventh inning, but Manager Terry Francona was too smart for the Jays, and too smart for our taste. He let the right-handed Kluber face the right-handed Kevin Pillar. This gave us one last shot at Kluber, which at best would only yield a single run to shorten the lead. And when Kluber got Pillar to ground out to short, his day was over, and so was ours, if we couldn’t create any chances against Miller and, eventually, Allen.
Well, we couldn’t. Francona brought Miller in. John Gibbons pinch-hit Darwin Barney for Goins and Melvin Upton for Carrera. Miller struck them both out, to end the seventh.
For the Clevelands, the Lindor shot was the only damage against Marco Estrada. After finishing the sixth, he gave up Chisenhall’s third base hit in three at-bats against him to lead off the seventh. Coco Crisp sacrificed Chisenhall to second, and then Estrada struck out Naquin and got Perez to fly out to centre.
Ironically, Gibbons sent Estrada back out for the eighth, and he responded with a final three-up, three-down inning on 13 pitches. Carlos Santana popped up, Jason Kipnis flew out to centre, and in an almost Quixotic gesture, Estrada struck out his tormentor Lindor after going to 3-0, throwing 3 straight fastballs. The first was a called strike. Lindor fouled off the second, and he swung and missed at the third.
So for the first time all season, a Blue Jays’ starter pitched a complete game. For the first time in Marco Estrada’s career, he pitched a complete game. In the opening game of the 2016 American League Championship Series. In a losing cause.
Oh, and the Jays’ hitters? The last-minute dramatics? The tying run dying on third? Huh. Josh Donaldson ripped a single to centre off Miller to lead off the eighth and hopes soared. But Miller “ernied” Edwin (struck out caught looking), fanned Bautista, and fanned Martin, Donaldson withering on the vine at first.
Cody Allen threw eleven pitches in the ninth. Troy Tulowitzki grounded out. Michael Saunders struck out. Kevin Pillar grounded out. End of game one of the ALCS, Cleveland two, Toronto no score.
We can take any number of consolations from this game. The Indians absolutely did not beat up on Marco Estrada, and won’t be facing him with a lot of confidence if his number comes up in the series again. Corey Kluber didn’t exactly blow the Jays away; it was rather that they beat themselves for the most part: no need to be intimidated if we face him again. Then again, it’s a seven-game series, and a split in Cleveland at the start would be an excellent result. Then again, the Cleveland rotation is very much up in the air from this point forward, starting with Tomlin replacing Bauer tomorrow afternoon. Then again, Miller threw 31 pitches tonight.
So let’s not get all bent out of shape over this. It’s one game, folks, and Cleveland needs four to win the series. No big deal. Only a shutout in game one of the LCS, that’s all.
Ask me if I feel better now. No, don’t. I have to go pull some blankets over my head and not sleep.
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