As great a game as Toronto turned in tonight, you have to start with Edwin.
I’ve always thought it was about his face, this love we Blue Jays’ fans have for Edwin Encarnacion. It’s a wise face, philosophical. It’s a sweet face, cherubic. It’s a face that lights up the whole stadium when it breaks into a smile.
As much as we respect the work ethic and achievement of Jose Bautista, his is the face of a warrior. In the heat of the moment or not, there’s nothing warm and fuzzy coming from Jose’s mien. But Edwin’s is the face of a friend, a brother, a beloved uncle.
For me, the best moment of last night’s emotional return to Toronto by Edwin as a member of the Cleveland team belied some typical inanity from our blathering broadcast crew.
It was the second inning, his first at bat, and Edwin, after being saluted by the crowd, had stepped into the box, lashed at the first pitch from Marcus Stroman, and hit a vicious shot off the pitcher’s glove that deflected to Ryan Goins at short, too late to get Edwin at first as he reached on an infield single. Buck and Tabby had just finished agreeing that, all sentiment aside, these guys were all pros, and once they got between the lines and the umpire called “play ball”, they’d be all business on the field.
Then Edwin and his old pal Jose Bautista turned the announcers’ platitudes upside down. Jose Ramirez stepped in on the left side and bounced one past Justin Smoak into right for a single. As Bautista raced in to pick up the ball, Edwin improbably rounded second and took a few steps toward third, as if to challenge Bautista’s arm. Of course he pulled up short while Bautista rifled a one-hopper dead to the bag at third. Trotting back to second, Edwin beamed a big grin out to Jose, and Jose’s fierce beak cracked into an answering laugh.
Not everything stops between the lines.
There was, of course, a ball game to be played last night, and leaving aside the significance of Edwin’s return to the house where he became a star, important story lines were rife.
How would Marcus Stroman perform after his tightness-abbreviated last outing in New York?
Would the Blue Jays continue their puzzling batting slump, which is so easy to relate back to their complete power outage against these self-same Clevelands in last year’s ALCS? (In fact, of course, the slump has endured unabated since at least the beginning of September last year.)
Would Toronto recover a measure of over-all respect after the humiliating elimination by Cleveland?
Would Trevor Bauer’s pitching overshadow the lingering gory image of his sliced digit drip-drip-dripping blood down his pant leg to mix in a ghoulish paste with the red earth of the pitching mound?
Interestingly, for a match steeped in such moment, and one that was never a given for the Jays, this game was somehow less fraught than so many of the close ones have been.
Sure, Stroman was having a bit of trouble getting his pitches down to his safety zone, and sure Bauer’s curve ball was at its mesmerising best.
But hard-hit balls by Santana and Kipnis found gloves deep in the field in the first, and the Encarnacion/Ramirez base knocks in the second were followed by a weak opposite-field fly from Lonnie Chisenhall, and a tailor-made double play ball by Yandy Diaz, and by the third Stroman was starting to cook, 2 grounders and his only strikeout of the night on thirteen pitches.
And he was pitching on the lead by the third, thanks to Ryan Goins seriously punishing a two-out mistake by Bauer. Bauer had started the third with a gift punchout of Steve Pearce by home plate umpire Mark Ripperger, whose faulty and biased outside corner, favouring Bauer and punishing Stroman, was continually shown up by PitchCast. Then Devon Travis did what he does best, line one into the gap in the opposite field for a double. Darwin Barney hit the ball on the nose, but right at Bauer who flipped to first for the second out.
This brought up Goins, who, as of tonight, has now started more games at shortstop than the injured Troy Tulowitzki. Despite his relative lack of success on balls in play, Goins has never swung harder and with better purpose than in this recent string of games. And when Bauer left one up and in, Goins pole-axed a two-run tater, and when he pole-axes a tater (messy image, that), he does a real job on it. StatsCast had it projected to 439 feet, more than enough insurance to reach any part of the park, let alone dead right field.
After the enlivened Stroman mopped the third, his boys went at it and picked up a couple more for him in the bottom of the inning. Kevin Pillar, who was fighting Bauer’s curve unsuccessfully all night, led off with a walk. Bautista popped up again; will his nightmare never end? Kendrys Morales followed with a double to right, Pillar stopping at three. This brought Justin Smoak to the plate, and I have to say it: at this time, in this crazy season, is anyone now seriously questioning the decision to resign Smoak for two years in the middle of last year?
Smoak, facing that crazy extreme shift to the right that they put on when he’s hitting left, turned in a veteran at bat, a pro right to the end. Sawed off on a high, inside 2-1 fast ball, he muscled a broken bat dying quail into short right for a single. Pillar trotted home easily, of course, but what about the ponderous Morales, steaming around third with a daring green light from Luis Rivera? Abraham Almonte was charging fast, and things looked dire for Morales, so Smoak forced Cleveland’s hand by heading for second, giving himself up to the easy cutoff, Almonte to Santana to Lindor, to protect Morales’ run.
Well done, Smoaky, and as it turned out we were damned glad to have that run!
There was no more to be had off Bauer for the night, as he toiled on through the sixth racking up the amazing total of 125 pitches. He had to pitch around some defensive sloppiness in the fourth, when the usually sure-handed Lindor bobbled the transfer and missed a sure double play on a good feed from his pitcher, and then Almonte, losing it in the lights in his first game under the TV Dome, had Luke Maile’s liner clank off his glove for his first hit as a Blue Jay. Not to worry, though, because that brought Kevin Pillar to the plate, and three tantalizing hooks later the inning was over.
For all of his six innings of shutout ball on only 94 pitches, Marcus Stroman needed a lot more help from his friends than Bauer, and boy, did he get it. There had already been the double play in the second. Then there was the fourth, when a sparkling grab of a Jason Kipnis liner by Goins almost led to Lindor being doubled off first. Stroman then got the ground ball to Barney he needed for the second DP behind him.
Sometimes it’s not enough to get the ground ball when you need it. Sometimes you need a little extra help, and Ryan Goins again provided it for Stroman in the fifth, when he found himself in another jam. Lonnie Chisenhall led off the inning by stroking a solid single into centre. Stroman compounded his problem by walking Yandy Diaz in a seven-pitch at-bat, and then bouncing one to Almonte, with Chisenhall taking third on a tough passed ball charged against Maile.
The pressure eased a bit when Almonte popped out to short for the first out. This brought the catcher, Roberto Perez, to the plate, and Goins back into the limelight. Perez hit a comebacker to the mound, a sure third double play for Stroman. But the pitcher, who usually fields his position like the shortstop he used to be, rushed a high throw to second. Goins had the bag, but the throw was high to his glove side. He calmly stretched like the first baseman he sometimes is, held the bag with his foot until he had the ball, cleared the sliding Diaz and, knowing his runner coming to first, finished the play with ease to Smoak. Cleveland manager Terry Francona briefly considered reviewing whether Goins had held the bag, but then waved it off.
Were it not for the heroics of Kevin Pillar to save Stroman’s bacon in the sixth, this would have been Goins’ night totally. But Pillar showed once again that a funk at the plate doesn’t mean you can’t give your all on the other side of the ball. As if Kevin Pillar ever failed to give his all in the field.
Protecting the 4-0 lead, Stroman was victimized right off the bat, the bat of Carlos Santana, that is. To be fair to Steve Pearce, he was never advertised as the defensive answer in left field for Toronto. A career infielder, his record in left was pretty thin coming in, but he’d passed every test to date, and had made some good plays, to boot. But Santana, hitting left against Stroman, sliced one high and deep toward the left-field corner. Pearce got a good jump on it, in fact, a great jump, as he over-ran the ball while hitting the wall. He reached back at the last minute in an awkward twist, but the ball hit the wall and bounced away for a double.
Stroman did his best to get out of it by himself. He got Francisco Lindor on a short fly to Pearce in left. He got Jason Kipnis on a groundout to Smoak at first, with Santana moving to third. Then he perhaps wisely walked Edwin. This brought Jose Ramirez to the plate with two on and two outs. No matter what, clearly Ramirez would be the last batter Stroman would face on this night.
The first pitch to Ramirez was down and in. The second one was a cutter, low and in but in the zone. Ramirez, who is as dangerous a hitter as Cleveland has, absolutely smoked it on a direct line over Pillar’s head. Pillar instantly turned in perfect line with the ball—I’m sure StatsCast’s “route efficiency” metric for his catch would be almost perfect. He raced back, appearing to be losing an impossible race with the flight of the ball.
Then, just short of the warning track, he launched, still in a direct line to the fence and with the ball. He sailed, he stretched, and the ball miraculously stuck in his outstretched glove as he landed chest down on the track.
Of course the place went crazy. The fans paid tribute with bows and salaams. Pillar back-bumped Stroman at the edge of the dugout, and was swarmed by his mates when he arrived.
If you were doing a top-ten all-time Super Kevin super play ranking, this catch, given the situation in the game and the pressure involved, would have to be top three. I leave it to the metrics geeks to sort that out. All I know is that it was a moment of pure beauty.
Sometimes, according to the deep thinkers, the past is prelude. In this case, the past was everything, even though there were some seriously tense moments still to be endured before the Jays nailed this one down.
We don’t need to spend much time on the Jays’ ups after Bauer left. Zach McAllister mopped up for Cleveland, and was quite the entertainer, wild, wooly, dangerous (just ask Bautista, who had to dive for his life in the eighth), and virtually unhittable. He walked two, struck out four, and only threw 22 pitches for six outs.
Danny Barnes took over for Stroman, and had a great seventh, retiring Chisenhall, Diaz, and Almonte on 13 pitches. Manager John Gibbons sent him back out for the eighth, and why wouldn’t he, but it just wasn’t the same.
While Buck and Tabby blathered about Barnes being a real “strike-thrower”, the pitcher was issuing a five-pitch walk to number nine hitter Roberto Perez. This brought Santana back to the plate, and this time he doubled to right, sending Perez to third and Barnes to the bench, as Gibbie brought Joe Smith in to put out the fire.
Which Smith did, but not before some very strange happenings happened at the ol’ ballyard. Smith jumped ahead of the left-handed Lindor, who fouled off two of his nasty sidearm down-and-aways, but then he tried to slip a slider by him on the inner half, and Lindor got enough of it to hit it safely into right.
Perez scored on the hit, but Lindor got hung up between first and second, while Santana held at third. It looked like the same tactic used earlier by Smoak, but it wasn’t, because of one big difference: this time there was nobody out, and with Kipnis and Encarnacion coming up, you don’t get hung up on purpose. This was a flat-out mistake, but Lindor got away with it, because once the Jays decided to concede Santana’s run, they made the one mistake they’d make in this game, and botched the rundown.
Somehow, Devon Travis sort of didn’t get out of Lindor’s way when he didn’t have the ball, and somehow, in the opinion of crew chief Vic Carapazza, he sort of impeded Lindor on the base path, though without making contact with him, so no how was Lindor going to be out on the play, but rather was awarded second base. And no how was John Gibbons going to stay in the game after that travesty, so he shouldn’t have bothered trying to be polite about it anyway. He did try, though, didn’t he? Didn’t he?
So with Lindor on second, nobody out, and the score 4-2 for us, Smith had to face Kipnis, Edwin, and Ramirez. Gulp. Isn’t this why we watch baseball? So Kipnis grounded out to Smoak at first and Lindor managed to find his way to third without bumping into anyone. And here came Edwin to the plate.
It was the best of times, the worst of times.
And how many times have we seen this quintessential matchup between a tough pitcher and the oh-so-still Edwin? And yet, this, this was all new, for he is not ours, no longer the repository of our hopes and dreams. His familiar classic stance is no longer dressed in royal Blue Jay blue, but in a darker, alien blue.
As much as we love him, we want him to lose this battle. Joe Smith is new to us, but he is ours, and we want him to prevail. It is a classic battle, one for the ages. Edwin swings over a sinker. He lays off a sinker. He swings over a sinker, and fouls one off. He lays off a sinker. 2 and 2. Then he fouls off three in a row, in the dirt, one of them off his foot; he walks around to shake it off. Finally, finally Smith throws him that killer, sweeping slider, the one that starts low in the zone and then just dives and dives, generally in the direction of Lake Ontario. That was the trick: a mighty, reaching whiff, and Smith had won the battle and sent Edwin back to the sad confines of the enemy dugout.
As much as Goins’ homer, as much as Pillar’s incredible catch, that moment was the ball game. It hardly mattered that Smith went on to fan Ramirez on a 3-2 pitch with the sinker that couldn’t fool Edwin. When the mighty parrot failed to appear, the game was done.
After Zach McAllister finished making mince meat of the Jays’ hitters in the bottom of the eighth, the rejuvenated Roberto Osuna came on in the ninth and, no drama this time, finished off Cleveland on nine pitches, fanning Chisenhall on a 1-2 pitch and getting weak grounders from Diaz and Almonte to Travis to ring down the curtain. There was, alas, on this night no Russell Martin to play the knock-knock game with Osuna.
Retribution for the dismal playoff loss last fall? Sure. Signs of hope for better days for Toronto? Absolutely.
But remember this: on Edwin’s night, he shared the stage with three young knights named Goins, Stroman, and Pillar, and some guy named Joe Smith.
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