152 years ago today, April 14, 1865, was also Good Friday. Abraham Lincoln defied the pieties of the day and attended the theatre in Washington that night. He was rewarded for his indiscretion by being assassinated in his box at the theatre.
Today, Good Friday 2017, the Toronto Blue Jays defied what little’s left of the pieties and played a professional baseball game before paying customers in Toronto. They were rewarded for their indiscretion by receiving another beating at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles, dropping their record for the young season to one win and nine losses.
While he wasn’t assassinated, Toronto starter Aaron Sanchez, last year’s American League ERA champ, was gravely wounded by three home runs off the bats of the visitors from Baltimore, and absorbed his first loss of the season after recording a no decision in a fine first start against Tampa Bay on April eighth. At no wins and one loss for the season, he is now half way to his loss total for all of 2016.
While Sanchez’ Good Friday outcome was considerably less serious (to say the least) than Lincoln’s, it remains to be seen whether his shaky performance on Friday was a one-off, or whether it is an indication of a more serious issue.
Things looked fine for Sanchez in the top of the first. Though leadoff batter Seth Smith hit the ball hard, he lined it right up the middle and right at Troy Tulowitzki, perfectly stationed behind second in the shift. Adam Jones hit a weak fly to left, and Mannie Machado went down swinging.
Ten pitches for Sanchez, and it was time for the Jays’ bats to start to work on left-hander Wade Miley who had the start for Baltimore. That drip-drip-drip you could hear while Miley was tossing his warmups was the sound of the Jays’ sluggers’ saliva hitting the dugout floor as they drooled over the chance to get at Miley, a junky left-handed journeyman who never blows anyone away.
Except that he did in this first inning. Fanned Kevin Pillar on junk. Fanned Steve Pearce on junk. Fanned Jose Bautista as catcher Caleb Joseph corralled his foul tip.
Uh-oh. Where have we seen this scenario before? Could we not have hoped that with the matchup of Sanchez versus Miley we might be the ones to set them back on their heels?
In the top of the second Sanchez made the mistake of falling behind 2-0 to cleanup hitter Chris Davis, who was leading off. He tried to throw a four-seamer for a gimme strike, but it was waist-high on the inside corner, and Davis hammered it into right field for a double. It looked like the young right-hander was going to work his way out of it when he fanned Mark Trumbo on another foul tip and Jonathan Schoop grounded out to short. But Davis read the play well and advanced to third on the groundout, where he was positioned to score when Sanchez threw a wild pitch to Hyun Soo Kim. One hit, one run.
How come the Jays haven’t been able to master this? How often do other teams score the run when their leadoff hitter doubles? How often don’t the Jays cahs in the leadoff double? Don’t answer. I don’t want to wallow in the sordid details.
Refreshingly, though, the Jays fought back right away in their half of the second, and took the lead, although the K bugaboo once again kept them from breaking the game open.
On a 2-1 pitch, leadoff hitter Kendrys Morales totally destroyed his bat, but still managed to muscle the ball into left field for a base hit. Troy Tulowitzki rifled the ball down the left-field line for a double, Morales stopping at third. Russell Martin hit the ball hard on a line, but right at shortstop J. Hardy for the first out. But Justin Smoak followed by pulling a hard grounder through the shift into left that scored Morales and moved Tulo to third.
The Jays then took the lead with help from a most unlikely source. Darwin Barney, inserted at third for Josh Donaldson, who, of course, was put on the disabled list after being taken out of Thursday’s game, hit an easy little dribbler to third that Mannie Machado charged and then shockingly fumbled while getting ready to make the throw. Barney was safe on first on the error but still credited with an RBI for plating Tulo, as with one out Tulo had broken on contact, and Machado clearly was conceding the run for the out he didn’t get.
Enter the dreaded K-man again. With Barney on first and one out, and the Orioles looking a little rocky, Miley stiffened and fanned Devon Travis and Pillar, the latter for the second time.
The inning ended on a downer, but the Jays had come back and taken the lead, and Sanchez was headed back to the mound, so it was all good, right?
And, by golly, it was, for a couple of innings, anyway. Sanchez retired the side in order in the third, and survived a couple of runners in the fourth, when Adam Jones reached on an errant Barney throw to first on an easy ground ball. He was erased when Machado, not showing any MVP chops yet this season, grounded into a double play. Sanchez perhaps wisely walked Davis on a full count, and then got out of the inning when Mark Trumbo grounded out to short on the first pitch he saw.
After the Jays went quietly in their half of the third, they even added a run in the fourth when, with two outs, Justin Smoak, who is quickly, I would hope, converting some of his detractors, belted one to left for his first homer of the season. Barney followed by hitting a grounder off Miley into centre for a base hit, but the inning died with another anticlimactic strikeout as Wiley fanned Travis. Again.
So cue the fifth, and we’re merrily rolling along, up 3-1 with Aaron Sanchez settled in and looking pretty good, if a little elevated in pitch count at 53.
Then the roof fell in on our young righty. Three smashes, and Baltimore had retaken the lead at 4-3. Sanchez threw Schoop a two-seamer right down Broadway on a 1-2 pitch, and Schoop got all of it, to dead centre. 3-2 Jays. He threw a 2-2 two-seamer right down Broadway to Kim, who doubled to right. He threw a much better pitch, a diving 1-1 curve ball, to J. Hardy, who went down and got it and parked it to left centre. 4-3 Orioles. However good the Orioles’ hitters are, there had to be a problem with Sanchez’ fine tuning.
Sanchez survived the fifth, despite having to strand a two-out bloop double by Adam Jones, but it was now up to Toronto to fight back. In the bottom of the fifth Pillar reached leading off when Miley nicked his foot with a pitch, but Pearce grounded into a quick double play on the first pitch he saw, and Jose Bautista popped out to Davis at first in foul territory.
Although Sanchez lasted two more batters after, Chris Davis essentially finished him off by belting a 1-0 fastball, left out over the plate, over the centre-field fence, to extend the O’s lead to 5-3. Once again Sanchez dominated Trumbo, who popped up to Travis at second, but when Schoop lined a single to left that was the end of the line for Sanchez. His day ended at five and a third innings, having given up five runs on seven hits, three of them round-trippers, with one walk and three strikeouts on 93 pitches. If not for the home runs, it would have been respectable, but . . .
Manager John Gibbons brought in Dominic Leone, who is rapidly becoming the bullpen’s mess-fixer. He could have been out of the inning in two pitches, as Kim hit an easy double-play ball to Tulowitzki, but Travis got tangled in his pivot, and never made a throw to first. Luckily for Travis, Leone got J. Hardy to fly out to left to end the inning.
Miley finished his outing with an easy sixth inning, sandwiching a fly ball to right by Tulo with strikeouts of Morales and Russell Martin. The Jays did a great job of helping Miley to a successful six innings pitched by fanning eight times against one of the least likely power pitchers in the league.
Leone went on to retire two in the seventh while walking Seth Smith and allowing a base hit to Adam Jones, and then lefty specialist Aaron Loup came on to freeze Chris Davis with a called third strike to end the inning.
The Jays repeated what’s become a frustratingly familiar pattern in their half of the seventh against reliever Darren O’Day as they went: out, base hit, out, base hit, out. This time it was Pillar and Ryan Goins hitting for Barney who collected the hits, but Justin Smoak struck out, Devon Travis struck out, and Steve Pearce popped out to end the inning and strand two. If they could just put the ball in play, these Jays who struck out 15 times in all tonight, some good things might start to happen.
Ryan Tepera managed a long and difficult delay in the top of the eighth, and was the beneficiary of a flashy Goins (who stayed in at third for Barney) to Travis to Smoak double play, to hold the Orioles off the board. In the midst of a leadoff walk to Mark Trumbo, home plate umpire Dale Scott took a direct hit on the mask of a Trumbo foul tip. Staggered and dazed, Scott fell to his knees and then was helped to the ground. There was no need to examine for a possible concussion: it was obvious. After being attended to, Scott was taken off with a neck brace on a back board on the EMS cart.
Attending to Scott and waiting for second-base umpire Brian Knight to suit up to go behind the plate took at least twenty minutes, during which time Tepera waited around on the mound, and then requested permission to go to the dugout.
When the game resumed, Tepera’s infield quickly erased Trumbo and Schoop, who hit a sharp hopper to Goins’ left at third. Goins scooped it, unloaded quickly to Travis, who made an excellent pivot, but unloaded a low throw to first. Not to worry, as Smoak was up to the task of digging out the throw to complete the DP. Kim’s fly ball out to left provided an anticlimactic ending to a strange inning.
Brad Brach came on for Baltimore to face the heart of the Toronto order, Bautista, Morales, and Tulowitzki in the bottom of the eighth. In keeping with the theme of the night, all three went down swinging futilely against the slants of Brach.
Jason Grilli gave up a solo homer to Seth Smith in the top of the ninth, the Orioles’ fourth homer of the game, to extend the Baltimore lead to 6-3. This should have been plenty for Zach Britton coming in to close out the game for the visitors.
But this isn’t 2016, and this isn’t the Zach Britton of 2016, so once again it was a bit of a roller coaster before he finished it off. For the fourth time this season Britton was in for the save against Toronto, and for the fourth time this season he pulled it off, but he edged even a little closer this time to being knocked out. This time he gave up a run on three hits, had to throw 21 pitches, and had to fan Steve Pearce to strand the tying runs on first and second to finish the game.
It was encouraging that the ninth-inning run was produced with the help of two of the Toronto hitters who have really been struggling. Russell Martin led off with a single to
left. Justin Smoak, who has been hitting, roped a shot to right, but right at Seth Smith for the first out. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, hitting for Ryan Goins, racked up the Jays’ fourteenth strikeut for the second out, but Devon Travis brought home Martin, who had taken second on defensive indifference, with a base hit. Kevin Pillar, Toronto’s most consistent hitter so far this season, singled Travis to second, setting up the Pearce K, the fifteeenth strikeout and final out of the game.
Don’t know whether Britton has a problem in general, or just a problem with Toronto so far this year, but he’s not dominating so far. Not at all.
A strange game, an exciting game, a troubling game, with the injury to Scott and the inability of Sanchez to keep the ball in the park, but, in the end, another loss. One and nine. How long, o favoured champions, will you abuse our patience?
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