Long Ball Stories

A question we never asked: what if Marco Estrada came out to pitch and forgot to bring his good changeup?

Today, we found out. All pitchers will have a bad outing from time to time. The difference between a power pitcher and a finesse pitcher is that when a power pitcher has a bad day, he comes out and can’t find the plate, is all over the place, and it’s very easy for the manager to put it down to control problems and pull the plug, because you can’t sit there and watch him miss the strike zone all day.

But with the finesse pitcher who is having a bad day, the problem is usually location within the strike zone, which means that he’s still hitting the strike zone, but not where he wants to, or without the same kind of spin that he usually has. In the case of the finesse pitcher having a bad day, the results can be pretty ugly. In fact, only a masochist would seek out a broadcast of the “Blue Jays in 30” to go over the highlights of tonight’s game.

On the second pitch of the game, Brett Gardner doubled to right. Because of Marco Estrada’s recent tendency to give up one booming hit in the first inning and then settle down, it was easy enough to mutter imprecations and move on. It was easy to ignore the pop in Gary Sanchez’ bat when he lined out to Kevin Pillar in centre for the first out, which moved Gardner to third. Doesn’t he always throw fly balls, sometimes to hard contact?

It was less easy to ignore the single that Aaron Judge hit through the left side to count Gardner with the first run, though, of course Judge is a beast at the plate, it was only one run, a DP ball will finish it off, and all that.

Not so easy to ignore that Darwin Barney, spelling Devon Travis at second because of a “sore” Travis knee, maybe played a possible double-play ball off the bat of Matt Holiday into a single into no-man’s-land that let Judge storm around to third. Sometimes you need stellar defence to help a pitcher settle down, and it doesn’t help if you don’t get it.

A little more worrisome still was the four-pitch walk to Starlin Castro, though somehow I always feel like there’s hardly any difference between first and third and one out and bases loaded and one out. It’s easy to rationalize while the storm clouds gather. We breathed a little easier when Estrada struck out Didi Gregorius on what was actually a very good Estrada changeup.

But then switch-hitter Aaron Hicks, swinging port-side like Gardner, showed us the difference between two on and the bases loaded: when somebody hits a bases-loaded double, an extra run scores, and even though number eight hitter Chase Headley and the Yankees were retired on a short fly to centre, Toronto was down 4-0 before ever swinging a bat in this early-season “crucial” series. And curiously, for Estrada, the ball never left the yard.

As the Jays came up for the first time, the question was whether this was going to be one of “those” games, with runs scoring willy-nilly on both sides, or whether it was essentially over already. But when C.C. Sabathia came out and went groundout-strikeout-strikeout on Kevin Pillar, Josh Donaldson, and Jose Bautista, all on thirtees pitches, we kind of had the answer.

Oh, and that thing about the ball not even leaving the yard? That didn’t last very long for Estrada. Despite the fact that he emulated Sabathia in going groundout-strikeout-strikeout in the second inning, with two outs already in the bag the ball finally did leave the park, courtesy of the bat of Gary Sanchez, and Aaron Judge reached base again, this time on a base on balls.

As Toronto led off the bottom of the second, the question about one of “those” games arose briefly, but wasn’t sustainable against the crafty slants of the portly, aging lefty Sabathia. Kendrys Morales got a base hit. Justin Smoak got a base hit. With those two on base, the Jays weren’t going to run themselves into a rally, so it was up to the lineup to keep putting the ball safely in play. But Troy Tulowitzki flew out to right, Darwin Barney hit a short fly to centre, and Zele Carrera struck out. Morales and Smoak never budged off first and second.

You can always hope, of course, but sometimes it’s just a bunch of wasted emotion. This was one of the days when we should have put the hope away early. It would have been easier.

But then there was the third that made us hold on a little. Estrada got Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorius on popups and Chase Headley on a grounder to Smoak, even though Aaron Hicks had a two-out single. Only fourteen pitches, too. Now, if we could only solve Sabathia. And after two outs, a glimmer: a solid double by Donaldson to right. Unfortunately, Jose Bautista followed by driving Headley to the track in left, but still, they hit the ball hard, Josh and Jose, didn’t they?

There’s nothing worse when you’re going on faint hope to see the other team go in the opposite direction before you can even get untracked. In the fourth inning the Yankees pushed the lead to seven on a home run by Gary Sanchez after a single by Headley. Let it be noted here that plate umpire Gabe Morales had stiffed Estrada on a called third strike on Sanchez—look at pitch four on the chart if you don’t believe me. Now maybe if these were the first Yankee runs you might go all ballistic about this, but when it’s New York’s sixth and seventh it’s another story.

After the Sanchez homer Estrada fanned Aaron Judge, an event worthy of its own special line in the box score in a just world, and then gave up a single to Headley, the last batter Estrada faced.

John Gibbons brought in Leonel Campos—remember him?–to pick up Estrada, and he got a ground ball for the last out.

Just in case you haven’t figured it out, yes the Jays designated Mike Bolsinger for assignment, and brought Campos back up for a one-day guest appearance, since he’ll be going back to Buffalo after the game to make room for Francisco Liriano, who’s finished his rehab stint and will start tomorrow night.

It’s interesting that this shuffling of pitchers between Triple A and the majors, while it’s always gone on, and despite that it seems more common these days with the advent of the ten-day disabled list, still has its advantages both for the team and the individual pitcher. Whoever picks up Mike Bolsinger has a body of recent work to look at on his resumé for reference. When, not if, Toronto recalls Dominic Leone they will know exactly what they are getting, and he will come up knowing he can do his job. And so with Campos, the 29-year-old Venezuelan who had appeared in 25 games over three seasons with the Padres prior to being picked up by the Jays off waivers last November.

Gibbie got a nice night’s work out of Campos, and this outing just adds another name to the list of possible replacement pieces that the team’s management knows can be relied on.

After Campos finished off the fourth for Estrada, he retired the side in order in the fifth

and fanned Hicks and Headley. In the sixth he walked Cris Carter leading off and then fanned Gardner and Sanchez before getting Judge to hit into a fielder’s choice. In the seventh, he got three straight ground balls and should have been out of the game with a final clean inning, except that with two outs Darwin Barney failed to handle Didi Gregorius’ grounder to second, and the error opened the gates to two unearned runs that reached on the only two base hits he allowed.

Yet after weeks of starters averaging less than six innings a game, overtaxing a bullpen that has been shortened by John Gibbons’ lack of confidence in J. P. Howell and the transition of Joe Biagini to the rotation, Campos’ contribution was huge tonight, and his line was pretty darn good as well: three innings pitched, two unearned runs, two hits, one walk, four strikeouts, and a wild pitch that didn’t figure in the scoring, on 48 pitches. He’ll go back to Buffalo all right, but with an open ticket to return to Toronto at the next opportunity. In the meantime, that’s not a bad Buffalo bullpen with Leone and Campos in the back end.

Gibbie had to go back to the ‘pen before the end of the seventh, because he had to look at pitch count for Campos after the inning was prolonged. Now down 9-0, it was an opportunity to give the ball to J.P. Howell and see what he might do.

Howell quickly finished the seventh and then encouragingly pitched a tidy eighth, retiring the top of the order on eleven pitches, striking out Sanchez, who may have hit a homer today but went down on strikes for the second time here, and Judge, who also went down for the second time. I might mention that for all his talent, Aaron Judge can still look as foolish as the next guy chasing a breaking ball with two strikes on him.

After Howell had picked up Campos in the seventh, the Jays finally got on the board in the bottom of the seventh, as C.C. Sabathia’s fine outing was winding down. After Kendrys Morales broke the shutout with a leadoff homer, Manager Joe Girardi gave the veteran lefty one more batter, and he benefitted from a terrible call from plate umpire Morales to catch Justin Smoak looking. Again, you can look it up: the pitch was one full grid square outside. Morales must have had an early dinner reservation after the game.

Chad Green came on to finish up for the Yankees, and with the lead they were sitting on, he could be pretty sure that he was going to carry it home for the Yanks, unless somebody nailed him with a line drive. Green finished off Troy Tulowitzki and Darwin Barney on seven pitches, then came back out for the eighth to face Zeke Carrera, who homered off him to put the score at 9-2. Luke Maile singled to left, and Kevin Pillar stirred some hearts by hitting it hard, but right at centre-fielder Aaron Hicks, and then Josh Donaldson grounded into a double play.

So Howell came back out for the top of the ninth, hoping to finish off a good audition for further work. But he ran into trouble of his own, and to his great frustration had to be rescued himself by Ryan Tepera, a move John Gibbons surely did not want to make.

Matt Holiday led off with a single, and then Howell fanned Ronald Torreyes, who had been inserted at second for Starlin Castro at the start of the eighth. Didi Gregorius singled Holliday to second, bringing Aaron Hicks to the plate. With all the attention that the other Aaron has been getting, this Aaron has been flying a bit under the radar. But with Jacoby Ellsbury out under the concussion protocol, Hicks is getting a chance in the sun and he’s taking full advantage. It was his double to left, plating both Holliday and Gregorius, that finished off Howell, and brought him into the dugout exploding with frustration.

Tepera gave up a single to Headley which finished Howell’s record with three earned runs before retiring the side. But there have to be consequences for a bullpen that has to heat up a major late-inning arm and use him for ten pitches to finish off the ninth in a blowout. Somewhere off stage the sound of an axe chunking into a tree is heard.

The television cameras were quite fascinated to observe J.P. Howell’s mini-tantrum in the dugout, an intrusion that I would prefer they not make. But the focus on Howell in the dugout gave us an interesting insight into the Jose Bautista that you don’t normally see. After stomping around for a while, and looking for innocuous things like paper cups to crush and fire against the back wall, Howell finally sat down and dropped his head into his hands, the picture of misery. Bautista came over, stood near him, and just put his hand on Howell’s shoulder and left it there for a moment before moving away. But then the camera caught him coming back to Howell, twice, and just resting that hand on that shoulder for a moment before walking off. It was an intimate moment of a kind you don’t expect to see in the midst of a sports engagement.

Chad Green gave the rest of the Yankee bullpen a break by finishing off neatly, with the added flourish of striking out Morales and Smoak to end Toronto’s misery, and any hopeful dream of sweeping the Yankees, and radically altering the landscape of the American League East in one dizzying weekend.

Now the best they can do is three out of four, and that starts tomorrow night with Francisco Liriano returning to the hill.

But first, for Leonel Campos, not good-bye, but see you soon.