Look at it this way: we won the wild card game, right? Sudden-death, one-and-done and all that rot. But, we won. This afternoon we won another wild card game: win and you play on, lose and you’re done. Now we just have to do that three more times. Gulp.
On the other hand, if I were in the Cleveland camp right now, I wouldn’t be feeling all that positively, and the reasons are, first, that they’re hardly hitting better than we are, and, second, their pitching, both starters and bullpen, has achieved well above reasonable expectations, and it becomes increasingly questionable whether or not the Cleveland management is going to be able to keep patching together a starting rotation with little more than spit and bailing wire.
Consider tomorrow’s game, which the Jays’ win today has put on the menu. The great Cleveland rotation from mid-season is now down to two starters: Corey Kluber and Josh Tomlin. The mangled Trevor Bauer has to be out of commission at least for the rest of this series, however long it may go. Kluber pitched today on three days’ rest and didn’t blow anybody away, throwing five innings on 89 pitches and taking the loss. Josh Tomlin, who pitched game two, isn’t being asked to pitch on the same short rest as Kluber, so he is pencilled in for a possible game six in Cleveland. Terry Francona has to find a starter for tomorrow. Pitching Kluber today was a bit of a gamble: if Cleveland won for the sweep, the staff would have a full week to recover, which would bring Bauer, probably, and Danny Salazar, possibly, back on line. If they lost, they’d be up 3-2, with only Tomlin and question mark left in the tank.
But they had to get past Aaron Sanchez and a restive Blue Jay team, playing in front of even more restive fans, to earn a respite. Today was the last stand for Toronto in so many ways. Yes, first, it was the game we had to win to avoid the sweep. But it was also a chance for redemption after the overwhelming embarrassment of Monday night’s loss to a string of Cleveland relievers.
Although you had to be concerned about the Jays’ return to the hitting doldrums seen in the first two games of the series, and it’s never good to start out in the hole, losing both games in Cleveland hardly seemed fatal. After all, they’d experienced even worse last year in the division series against Texas, by losing both games at home in a five game series, before prevailing. They even made a series out of last year’s ALCS, coming so close to taking it to game seven, after losing the first two in Kansas City. And they were returning to their home digs in the TV Dome, a venue that has proven especially friendly to them in big games over the last two seasons.
Moreover, the Cleveland pitching was in apparent disarray. After two serviceable starts in Cleveland against Toronto bats gone silent again, there was a major question about their game four starter, not to mention the fact that it was altogether uncertain as to whether Bauer would be able to make a go of it in game three. There’s no need to reiterate the gory details (for once the adjective is, if anything, understated here) of last night’s 4-2 Cleveland win. The fact that the Jays could only score two runs in eight and two thirds innings off a string of six Cleveland relievers speaks for itself; but the angst created by this sad exhibition hung over the stadium like a bad smell at the end of the game.
So the Blue Jays needed to come up big, stop their own bleeding, and give themselves at least a ghost of a chance in this series that had suddenly gone so very, very wrong.
And if anything has gone right for Toronto in the last week, it has been the way manager John Gibbons and his pitching coach Pete Walker have manipulated the pitching rotation. Faced with the need to control as much as possible the number of innings pitched by Aaron Sanchez, yet recognizing that he has become without question their stopper, their best chance in a must-win game, it had to have been some sort of divine providence guiding the decisions that led to his being ready to start today.
The fact that he would face off against Cleveland’s only recognizable ace, Corey Kluber, was of little concern. The Jays had, after all, let him off the hook in game one of the series, and in some respects he was fortunate to have survived the first inning. Today this less-than-intimidating presence would be taking the mound on only three days’ rest, an almost unthinkable assignment in the contemporary game.
Can you imagine we’re talking about the same sport that saw both Bob Gibson and Mickey Lolich start three games each in the 1968 World Series? And both pitch three complete games? With the same ERA of 1.67? And Lolich, in one of the greatest pitching performances in World Series history, pitch a complete game win in game seven, giving up one run on five hits, on October tenth, after pitching a complete game win in game five on October seventh? Denny McLain, who won 31 games in 1968 and entered the series as the team’s number one, had started games one, four, and six, but went one and two. The only reason he started game six on the same rest as Lolich had for game seven was that he didn’t get out of the third inning in game four, which ended up a 10-1 rout by the Cardinals.
Back in 2016, when iron horse pitchers are just a dim memory, neither team managed much of a threat in the first two innings, but the Jays touched up Kluber with a two-out single by Edwin Encarnacion in the first, and a one-out single by Michael Saunders in the second. On the other hand, Sanchez got the results that the Jays were looking for through the first two. Three strikeouts and three ground ball outs, with only a leadoff walk to Mike Napoli in the second inning. If anything, he had a bit too much movement, resulting in a higher number of pitches outside the zone, especially in the first inning, when he went 3-2 on two of the three hitters. But after the walk to Napoli in the second, he set Cleveland down on just twelve pitches.
The first threat came from Cleveland in the top of the third, and from an unlikely source, as Tyler Naquin drove a ball into the alley in left centre to lead off with a double. Robert Perez nicely bunted Naquin to third and a Cleveland chance to take the early lead again was staring Toronto in the face. In an unusual move (for him) Manager John Gibbons brought the infield in. Normally, Gibbie would concede an early run for an out, trusting in his offence to be able to overcome a one-run deficit. But with his team in such a hitting funk, it was a smart move, and it paid off.
Carlos Santana hit a bullet to the right side. Ryan Goins, on the edge of the grass, was able to snag it before it got past him, the momentum of his reaction to the ball bringing him to his knees. Still kneeling, he stared Naquin back to third and threw Santana out at first for the second out. Back at normal depth, Goins handled Jason Kipnis’ routine grounder to end the inning.
Kluber looked to be getting stronger, striking out Goins and Jose Bautista to start the third, but then two hard shots put Toronto in the lead and showed that the Cleveland ace was hittable after all. He hung a two-two curve ball to Josh Donaldson, who was all over it and deposited it in the seats in left centre. This was the shot we had been waiting for since the beginning of game one, a lightning strike that would give us our first lead in the series. Then Edwin punished a waist-high slider on the outside corner, going with the pitch and driving right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall back to the wall for the third out, but the relief in the stadium, not to mention living rooms around the country, was palpable.
Sanchez came out for the fourth and presented a gift to the Jays’ multitudes, swiftly dispatching the heart of the Cleveland order, Francisco Lindor, Napoli, and Jose Ramirez, on only nine pitches, giving us the shutdown inning we needed after finally scoring the first run of a game for the first time.
Kluber’s fourth inning suggested that the strain of pitching on such short rest was starting to tell on him. He walked Troy Tulowitzki on four pitches. He went 3-0 on Russell Martin before battling him back to a full count, but then lost him on the eighth pitch. Kluber braced up to fan Michael Saunders, but then Zeke Carrera, moved up to seventh in the order to face the righty (and as a sort of reward for the contributions he has made this post-season; who can not see Carrera as a candidate for the left-field starting position next year if Saunders signs elsewhere?) yet again put the ball in play with little fanfare on the first pitch. He lofted an easy little bloop single into centre which Tulo read perfectly off the bat, got a great jump on, and scored easily from second. Though Kluber fought back to fan Kevin Pillar and Goins for the second time, that big 2-0 on the scoreboard was looking pretty good with Sanchez throwing so well.
But Sanchez notwithstanding, this Cleveland team has a lot of grit in it, and the two-run lead lasted only a little longer than the interminable network commercial break, Sanchez helping out as Cleveland cut the lead in half. But the fact that the visitors’ comeback was stopped at one is a measure of the determination of the Blue Jays to reach a different outcome from the first three games of the series. It was also a measure of how much Josh Donaldson means to this team.
This time, though he did get Lonnie Chisenhall to ground out to short for the first out, Sanchez didn’t achieve the desired shutdown-after-scoring result. He walked Coco Crisp, then struck out Naquin, but in the process threw a wild pitch that advanced Crisp to second. Then he threw a 95 mph two-seamer to Roberto Perez on a 1-2 count that Perez must have thought was a nice round vanilla ice cream scoop, waist high over the heart of the plate. He doubled to left centre to knock in Crisp, bringing Carlos Santana to the plate, the cue for Donaldson to take centre stage.
With two outs and the switch hitter Santana hitting from the left side, the Jays’ infield was in a modified shift, with Donaldson playing in what would have been the hole, rather than at straight-up shortstop, as in a full shift for a left-handed pull hitter. Santana managed to make contact with a 2-2 curve ball that broke well outside on him, and lashed it toward left centre, to Donaldson’s left. It skipped once and looked like it was already by him when he dove and pulled it back from the outfield. He leapt to his feet and barely was able to plant before firing it to first, just in time to nip Santana, who, despite his bulk and the fact that he has caught nearly as many games as he has played first base, is pretty fast down the line. The 2-1 lead was preserved, which was important enough, but even more significant to me was the fact that the play broke the back of a dangerous threat posed by the Indians, and was truly their last gasp at the plate.
In his last inning of work, the sixth, Sanchez worked quickly through Cleveland’s dangerous two-three-four hitters, Kipnis, Lindor, and Napoli, on 13 pitches. Given the start in a game that his team had to win, Aaron Sanchez gave his mates six innings of one-run ball on two hits, with two walks and five strikeouts on 95 pitches; he had done his job, and it was up to his mates to pad the lead and the bullpen to protect it.
Terry Francona decided not to risk another inning with Kluber, and brought in Dan Otero to pitch the sixth against Toronto. Although they touched him up for two hits, a rocket off the wall in right that Chisenhall played well to hold Tulo to a single, thereby saving Cleveland a run, and a Michael Saunders single to centre, he held the lead at one, thanks to the unfortunate GPS coordinates Zeke Carrera imparted to the bullet he hit to right field that was right at Chisenhall, and drove him to the base of the wall to reach up and make the catch. Funny that. Zeke hits a soft touch into centre that falls in for a run-scoring single, and then crushes one right at an outfielder, and gets nothing for his pains.
Aaron Sanchez was followed on the mound by Brett Cecil in the seventh, Jason Grilli in the eighth, and Roberto Osuna in the ninth. Did I mention that when Donaldson robbed Santana to end the fifth it was Cleveland’s last gasp at the plate. Well, it was. Sanchez finished up with a clean sixth, making for his last four outs in a row. Then the Indians went nine up, nine down against the relief trio. Cecil got a fly ball and fanned two. Grilli got a fly ball, a grounder to first that Edwin made a nice pick on, and a popup to Russell Martin. Osuna got a grounder to second and two strikeouts. Thirteen batters in a row and four strikeouts, on 46 pitches. Remember way back when, when we all said that the Jays wouldn’t get anywhere with such a leaky bullpen?
While the Jays’ bullpen was stonewalling Cleveland, the offence set to work to try to add a little cushion to their slim lead. In the seventh, with Brian Shaw on for Cleveland, Ryan Goins, hitless for the series so far, fell behind one and two leading off, but Shaw left a 96 mph cutter out over the plate and Goins rifled it to left for a solid base hit. Shaw then committed his team’s first error of the series, and dug a pretty deep hole for himself. Jose Bautista hit a little squibber up the right side, between the pitcher and first. Shaw got to it first, and very energetically threw the ball right past Napoli’s frantically outstretched glove. Bautista was safe at first, and Goins came around to third on the play. In an unusual but not terribly surprising move, Francona elected to put Donaldson on, even though first was occupied, to load the bases for Edwin. Edwin produced for the first time in this series, pounding a grounder right back up the middle and through to centre.
Goins scored easily, of course, with Bautista following, but Donaldson as he rounded second, with the throw going to the plate, suddenly broke for third, forcing Napoli to cut the throw to the plate from Rajai Davis and firing to third, where Jose Ramirez easily put the tag on Donaldson for, oh no, the first out of the inning at third base, as Bautista scored. Those of you who might be wondering if Donaldson had made some sort of blunder probably didn’t notice that, as he popped up from his slide and headed for the dugout, he gave two short, sharp little claps of his hands. He had purposely drawn the throw to third to protect Bautista from being thrown out at the plate. Securing the fourth run to give your team a three-run lead in the seventh inning is clearly a good trade for being thrown out at third.
Mike Clevinger came in to replace Shaw and ended the inning without further damage by getting Tulo and Martin to ground out, even though he bounced one in the dirt that allowed Edwin to move to second with only one out before retiring the side.
Francona left Clevinger, who had been considered a possible starter for this game, in for the eighth inning, and he gave up a fifth run that truly sealed Cleveland’s fate. After he struck out Saunders to lead off the inning, Clevinger gave up two really hard hit balls that produced the fifth run for the Jays. Zeke Carrera swung at and missed the first changeup from Clevinger, took two more for balls, and somehow managed to pull the fourth one, which was on the outside corner, sending a shot into the right centre field alley that ran to the wall, and by the time it was recovered he was on third with a triple.
With one out Cleveland suspected a squeeze play because it was Kevin Pillar at the plate. They threw a pitchout on the first pitch, then Pillar fouled off a four-seamer at the bottom of the zone. The next four-seamer was up and in, and like Carrera Pillar managed to hit it the wrong way, a rocket of a line drive right at right-fielder Brandon Guyer in medium-deep right. Carrera scored easily, and Clevinger should have been relieved that there wasn’t more damage.
So riding behind a fine start by Aaron Sanchez, perfect bullpen stints by Cecil, Grilli, and Osuna, fine power, base running smarts, and scintillating defence from Josh Donaldson, and some clutch at bats, Toronto finally managed to break the horse collar that Cleveland had hung around their necks. They still have a really tough hill to climb, but they do play on, tomorrow afternoon behind Marco Estrada, going up against we-don’t-know whom.
Stay tuned at eleven for further details.
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