There, that feels better.
Not great, mind you, but definitely better.
All it took was a great effort from a little guy with big attitude and a bigger heart, and a prodigious blast from an intimidating newbie for the Toronto Blue Jays to break the jinx and ice their first win of the year.
And it all came to pass in the Orange Juice Dome of Tampa Bay, the unlikeliest of venues to host a Blue Jay breakout.
Mind you, this game hardly marked a real breakout for the Toronto bats. Tonight they had only five hits, their lowest total in the three games to date. But it sure was good to see five hits produce five runs, enough on average to have swept the first three games, given the strength of the Jays’ starting pitchers.
Like the night before in Baltimore, it was clear from the outset that the starting pitchers would have much to do with tonight’s outcome.
Lefty Blake Snell, the youngest member of the Rays’ rotation at 24, had the start for Tampa Bay. He did a good job for the Rays when he went into the rotation last year, going 6-8 with an ERA of 3.54. He was a little wild, with 51 walks in 89 innings pitched, but made up for that with 98 strikeouts. More to the point, I recall that he had at least one very good outing against Toronto late in the season, when our boys were struggling mightily at the plate. September third in Tampa, to be exact, when he gave up one run on two hits over six inning in a 7-5 Tampa win. Having suffered through too many of those poor performances against young/unknown/marginal starters, I found his long but very young face and lanky frame instantly recognizable when he took the mound.
Snell started the game by fanning Steve Pierce, then Kevin Kiermaier ran about five miles to get under a short outfield fly by Josh Donaldson. Jose Bautista worked Snell for a walk, but died on first when Kendrys Morales unleashed another one of his woulda-been-homers-at-home to Kiermaier in deep centre.
Then Marcus Stroman, the newly-minted MVP of the World Baseball Classic, took the mound for the Jays. Ever since the WBC, there has been even more bounce to Stroman, as if that were possible, but the energy hasn’t been at the expense of focus that is definitely much sharper than in the past.
All he did in the first was make the top of the Tampa Bay order look silly by fanning Corey Dickerson, Kiermaier, and Evan Longoria on 18 pitches. The only concern: it takes a lot of pitches to strike everybody out.
In the second, Snell stepped it up a notch, and carved through the Jays on just twelve pitches, popping up Troy Tulowitzki on a short fly to right, fanning Russell Martin, and freezing Justin Smoak.
In the home half, Stroman struck out Brad Miller to run his string to four, and then faltered for a minute. Steven Souza, who has worn out Jays’ pitching about as much as Kevin Kiermaier and the departed-but-not-lamented Logan Forsyth, went with the pitch, a low two-seamer on the outer portion, and grounded a single sharply through the gap opened by the shift into right field. Undaunted, Stroman called on his well-honed ability to coax ground balls, and got the left-handed Logan Morrison to roll one right to the bag at second, where Tulowitzki, in the shift, picked it up, stepped on the base, and finished an easy double play. Besides Stroman’s pitching and Kendrys Morales’ blast, coming up in just a moment, double plays were a major story for the Jays tonight. This was the first of four for Toronto’s infield, three turned behind Stroman.
Ever since the first radio broadcast of a major league game (Pirates-Phillies from Pittsburgh, August 5, 1921 on KDKA Pittsburgh, just to refresh your memory), commentators have taken it as their duty to work the sentence “Oh, those bases on balls!” into every broadcast. So, if Blake Snell’s main problem last year was too many walks, it would appear that he still has work to do in that regard. Tonight he walked five, and three came back to score on him.
So only two things separated the work of Snell and Marcus Stroman tonight: Snell’s walks and Stroman’s infield support. The only moment that made a difference in the game came in the third, when Snell issued two of his five walks. Kevin Pillar led off by hitting a hard liner right at Kiermaier in centre. Darwin Barney, inserted at second tonight to give him some at bats and to break up Devon Travis’ workload, ripped a liner to left for a single. Pearce fanned for the second out, but Donaldson and Bautista worked Snell for walks to load the bases for Kendrys Morales, who despite his deep fly ball outs had been hitless to this point for Toronto.
No longer! Morales took a called strike on a four-seamer on the outside corner, and then Snell made the mistake of throwing the same pitch waist-high on the inner half. Morales buried it in the walkway above the first twenty rows of outfield seats in left-centre, apparently some 444 feet away from the plate. The Jays had only two hits so far, but now they had four runs to show for it, and with Stroman on the mound things suddenly looked much, much better for our side.
Snell settled in, facing the minimum over the next three innings, aided by Steve Pearce bouncing into a double play after Darwin Barney worked Snell for a leadoff walk in the fifth. After his adventurous third inning, he only needed 46 pitches to navigate four through six.
Stroman actually allowed more runners in the four innings three through six, two walks that were followed by the second double play behind him in the fourth, and a Corey Dickerson single erased by the third DP in the sixth. But it was the Rays’ fifth inning that provided the biggest adventure for the diminutive righty. Steven Souza led off with a ringing double ripped into left centre. Logan Morrison moved him on to third with a ground-out to second. Then the Rays made a mistake that hurt twice over. Tim Beckham topped one back to the mound, and Souza unaccountably broke for the plate, either because of a misread of the ball, or an excess of recklessness. The athletic Stroman fired the ball high to catcher Saltalamacchia’s glove side, Salty caught it, and came down with one leg landing in Souza’s path. Souza slid into Salty’s pads, was called out on a fine tag, and shaken up by the play. Luckily, he was able to remain in the game, but unluckily for the Rays their appeal of the play, whether for a missed tag or an illegal block of the plate, was over-ruled, and the out stood.
Mallex Smith then grounded out to Tulo to end the inning and strand Beckham at first. Going Snell one better, despite his adventures, Stroman only expended 48 pitches in navigating the third through sixth innings.
As should be expected in early-season games, the seventh inning marked the end of the road for both starters.
For whatever reason, Rays’ Manager Kevin Cash gave Snell quite a bit of rope in his last inning, waiting until the Jays scored another run and got two outs before giving the lefty Snell a break from having to face Donaldson a fourth time, and bringing in the righty Tommy Hunter for the matchup that ended the inning.
Snell walked Russell Martin to lead off the inning, and gave up a base hit to Justin Smoak, with Martin alertly going to third. After Kevin Pillar hit a short fly to right, on which Martin had to be held at third, Darwin Barney brought him home with a push bunt up the first base line. Barney reached when first baseman Morrison bobbled the ball for an error, which also allowed Martin to score. Snell then got the second out when Steve Pearce flew out deep to right, with Smoak going to third. Finally, it was time for Manager Cash to bail out his young lefty, and Hunter came in to freeze Donaldson on a pitch both Josh and Pitchcast thought was outside.
So Blake Snell’s day was done, with a line of six and two thirds innings, 4 earned runs, only three hits, the damaging five walks and five strikeouts on 97 pitches. Perhaps he’ll sleep tonight, once he stops playing the pitch to Morales over and over in his mind.
Rather untypically, John Gibbons took his cue from Manager Cash and let Stroman work through a spot of trouble of his own in the bottom of the seventh before pulling the plug. It was an interesting call, because Gibbie’s usually very quick with the hook when his starter reaches the seventh. He may have wanted Stroman to stretch out a bit more, as he went into the inning at only 76 pitches. Again, he might have been worried about a bullpen bereft of its normal closer, and eager to get as much mileage out of the known quantity as he could.
So Stroman gave up singles to Evan Longoria, and Brad Miller, induced a fly-ball out to right from the dangerous Souza, and gave up an RBI single to Logan Morrison for the Rays’ first run of the game. That was it for Stroman, who went six and a third, gave up one run on six hits—three of them in the seventh—walked two, struck out five, and threw 89 pitches. Gibbons called on Joe Biagini to pick Stroman up, with one out and Rays on first and second. Biagini had to throw exactly one pitch. Tim Beckham bounced it to Donaldson, who was playing the line, and the latter stepped on the bag and fired to first to double up the quick Beckham, marking the Jays’ fourth double play of the game.
Hunter picked up right where he left off in the seventh, getting Jose Bautista on a grounder to first, and then fanning Morales and Tulo. Four outs, three strikeouts, and 18 pitches for Hunter. Not a bad night’s work for the veteran Tampa righty.
Biagini was cruising along in the bottom of the eighth, getting Mallex Smith on a fly ball to right and “Sweet Jesus” Sucre on a grounder to short, but then Corey Dickinson got his attention by going down to get a 2-1 pitch at the bottom of the zone and pulling it into the right-field corner for a double. Not to worry, though, as Kevin Kiermaier grounded out to Smoak to end the inning. Not one to waste pitches, Biagini recorded five outs and gave up one hit, for extra bases, on just 12 pitches.
The ninth was a bit messy for both sides. Danny Farquhar replaced Hunter on the hill for the Rays, and quickly got the first two outs before giving up a sharp single to centre by Pillar that raised his average to .333. But then he got Zeke Carrera to fly out to right to end the threat.
Biagini was followed by the new submariner Joe Smith, who got the first out when Evan Longoria lined out hard to Baustista in right. But then he walked Brad Miller, and gave up yet another double to that guy Souza, apparently none the worse for wear after crashing into Saltalamacchia’s pads. Down by four and the Rays playing for a big inning, Miller was stopped at third.
This brought Logan Morrison to the plate, John Gibbons to the mound, and Jason Grilli, the de facto closer in place of Robero Osuna, into the game. Perhaps a bit overly-pumped (ya think?) Grilli overthrew a slider to Morrison, allowing Miller to score Tampa’s second run, and Souza to advance to third. But Grilli went on to fan Morrison and then Tim Beckham to seal the deal and bring on the famous Grilli victory pump.
So we can’t say that Toronto’s bats have really broken out yet, but thanks to a strong start by Marcus Stroman, a much-needed blast to the stratosphere by Kendrys Morales, flawless infield defence, and solid relief work by Joe Biagini and Jason Grilli, our Torontos lifted that ohfer monkey off their back and put a big black “1” in the win column for 2017.
Three games, three great starts, what’s to complain about? The bats will come around, and if the rotation continues to deliver, we’ll soon put the opening visit to Baltimore firmly in our rear-view mirror, where it belongs.
Francisco Liriano, over to you!
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