Marcus Stroman has quietly established himself as Toronto’s number one starter, in terms of results, in the forced absence of Aaron Sanchez.
While not as spectacular as some of his end-of-season outings after returning from injury in 2015, his recent starts have been consistent and solid, if a little adventurous from time to time. He has kept his team in almost every game he has started.
What has been more than a little different about Stroman this year to me is that there have been less dramatics accompanying the consistent, but less spectacular, outings. I’m not sure if he’s emoting less, or if the opposing teams just aren’t rising to his bait as much as they used to. But there’s more businesslike efficiency to his carriage and attitude than we’d come to expect from him.
Yesterday I mentioned Sam Gaviglio’s effective appearance for Italy in the World Baseball Classic as possibly a final marker in a maturing process he needed to go through before being ready to be a major league pitcher. I also mentioned that Stroman’s fine leadership performance for the U.S. team in the WBC might have had a similar maturing effect on him. The evidence for this seems to grow with every Stroman start.
Tonight Toronto was facing the left-handed Cuban Ariel Miranda, who had already turned in one impressive, if short, outing against the Blue Jays at the TV Dome in mid-May, giving up one earned run on three hits over five innings with three walks and eight strikeouts in a game that Seattle’s bullpen would eventually lose. Why so short? 100 pitchs in five innings, that’s why.
So Miranda started with a rush tonight, fanning Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista, sandwiched around Josh Donaldson flying out to centre on the first pitch he saw. Nine pitches and have a seat for Mr. Miranda.
Stroman brought his can of Guaranteed Worm Kill* to the mound against the Mariners, retiring the side on two ground balls to second and an easy hopper back to him by Robinson Cano.
*Old baseball expression: “worm-burner”: a ground ball.
Miranda continued to cruise in the second, though his pitch count ballooned . . . from nine in the first to ten in the second. This time it was contact in the air, Kendrys Morales popping up and Justin Smoak flying out to right. Troy Tulowitzki was the first to hit the ball hard off Miranda, but he scorched it down third where Kyle Seager made a fine play diving to the line to cut off a double and throw Tulo out at first.
Then Stroman ran into a spot of the ground-ball-pitcher’s most common enemy, the ground ball that snakes through for a base hit. He didn’t help his own cause, though, when he wild-pitched Nelson Cruz to second after Cruz had led off with the first base hit of the ball game, a grounder up the middle. Here’s a note on Cruz: when he hits safely and the ball stays in the yard, it doesn’t look like a mistake. He doesn’t get cheated out of good swings at the plate.
With Cruz at second, a 2-2 count on the batter and the Toronto defence having left the shift to play straight up, Kyle Seager hit a grounder past a diving Darwin Barney into right for a single that scored Cruz. Stroman fanned Taylor Motter and popped up Jarrod Dyson, but Carlos Ruiz also reached base behind Seager with a line-drive base hit to right field before Stroman fanned Tyler Smith, playing shortstop tonight, to end the inning with the M’s having taken a 1-0 lead. Almost as concerning as the run was that Stroman had to throw 24 pitches to retire the side, putting the length of tonight’s outing at risk right off the bat.
In the top of the third Miranda needed another sparkling play by Mr. Everything over there at third, Kyle Seager, to emerge from a jam caused by Miranda’s own temporary descent into the madness of loss of control. With one out, he walked both Barney and Zeke Carrera on eight straight balls, and then took nine pitches to dispose of Kevin Pillar on a fly ball to centre. Then Josh Donaldson, with the two walks aboard, looked to have singled to left on a hard liner through the left side, but Seager laid out to his left to make a diving catch of a ball that was already past him. The Seattle lead was preserved and the Jays were still looking for their first base hit.
Stroman reverted to form in the bottom of the third, throwing three more worm-burners to the top of the Seattle order.
Then in the top of the fourth the Jays finally got their first hit, and it made up in distance and suddenness for its rarity in this game for the Toronto lineup. Unfortunately for Miranda he had just issued his third walk of the game, to Josh Donaldson, and was facing Toronto’s DH Kendrys Morales, who turned on a 1-1 fast ball up in the zone and caused it to leave the park with some urgency, as if it had a hot date with a comely foul ball, and couldn’t wait to get it on.
The 2-1 Toronto lead stood up for three innings, and it was up to Stroman to hold on while his mates failed to dent Miranda for any insurance runs. He gave up a base runner in each inning, bu nothing further. He hit Seager with a pitch with one out in the Seattle fourth, but then fanned Taylor Motter and Jarrod Dyson to strand Seager. In the fifth it was a two-out wrong-field slap single to left by Ben Gamel, but Cano hit into a fielder’s choice to end the inning. In the sixth it was a two-out Texas Leaguer by Seager, but he died at first when Darwin Barney made a nice grab of a liner by Taylor Motter to end the inning, the only point before the seventh that Seattle could be seen to be putting up any threat at all.
And the pitch count issue for Stroman? You can make up a lot of ground (sorry) when you throw ground balls: after ballooning to 38 after two innings, he went 9/12/8/12 over the next four, so headed into the seventh at a very comfortable 79 pitches.
Meanwhile, after Morales’ homer with nobody out in the third, Miranda faced the minimum of Blue Jays’ batters through six, the only blemish a walk to Donaldson in the sixth that was erased when Bautista hit into a double play. By the end of the sixth, despite his early wildness, Miranda was sitting even with Stroman at 81 pitches for six innings.
Miranda got three batters into the seventh and recorded one out before his night came to an end; were it not for a great play by shortstop Tyler Smith he would have left in much worse shape. Justin Smoak singled to right to lead off, and then Troy Tulowitzki hit one into the hole at short. Smith made a sparkling diving stop and managed to get the ball to Cano at second for the out on Smoak. Miranda then walked Russell Martin, and it was time for manager Scott Servais to call on Tony Zych, who took exactly one pitch to get Barney to ground into a double play to end the inning.
Still clinging to the one-run lead, and with plenty of gas left in the tank, Stroman came out and made the biggest mistake you can make with these Mariners, giving up a base hit to Jarrod Dyson. With Dyson on first and nobody out, you kind of knew that he was going to end up scoring to tie the game. What you didn’t know was how quickly it would happen, and how much the Toronto defence, which has become far too shaky lately, would contribute to the affair.
The first thing that was going to happen was that Dyson would absolutely steal second, which he did, but he ended up scoring without further effort on Seattle’s part. Russell Martin’s throw was right on the bag but short-hopped Tulowitzki, who never touched it. Dyson bounced up and headed for third. Kevin Pillar charged the ball that was rolling towards him and simply over-ran it, allowing Dyson to score standing up. The Mariners had tied the game on a single, a stolen base, and two errors, with Martin charged for the throw and Pillar for missing the catch.
Interestingly, manager John Gibbons chose to leave Stroman in the game, and with the bases clear he retired the side on two more ground balls and a strikeout. So he finished up after seven, apparently with a no-decision, having given up one earned run on six hits with no walks and six strikeouts on 95 pitches.
After such a disappointing ending to his night, it was only poetic justice that Stroman had to wait just four pitches into the Toronto eighth to have his hopes rejuvenated, and from one of the less likely Toronto sources, at that. Tony Zych having thrown only one pitch to get out of the seventh, naturally came back out for the eighth, facing Zeke Carrera leading off. On a 1-2 pitch, Zych made the crucial mistake of throwing a sinker that didn’t, and Carrera hit it hard and straight and deep to right, and the Jays had the lead again and Stroman was suddenly in line for the win.
That was all the Jays would get in the eighth, but the inning had a strange footnote to it. Zych quickly closed the door after Carrera’s homer. Kevin Pillar grounded out softly back to him, and Josh Donaldson struck out on a foul tip. Then as he will do, Jose Bautista worked Zych for a walk on a 3-2 pitch, and then pulled off a particularly cheeky Bautista trick.
Zych, annoyed with himself for issuing the two-out walk, stood off the mound, looking disconsolately at the ground. As Bautista arrived at first, he noticed that both Seattle middle infielders were holding their positions and paying no attention to him, so he suddenly broke for second and went in standing up with no attempt being made on him. Not only did this turn of events cause consternation for Mariners’ manager Scott Servais, whose incredulous look was easy to read on camera, but it created quite a bit of confusion for scorekeepers everywhere, and it wasn’t officially determined that Bautista should be credited with a stolen base until the next day.
‘Twas much ado about nothing, though, as the presumably furious/embarrassed Zych retired Kendrys Morales on a grounder to short.
With the lead restored, it was now officially Joe Smith Time. We don’t have Andrew Miller, and Joe Smith isn’t a beer, but he’s good enough for us. Though a little adventurous sometimes.
Like today, for example, when he initiated proceedings by giving up base hits to Guillermo Heredia and Robbie Cano, bringing Nelson Cruz to the plate with runners at first and second. No problem. Crus hit into a 5-4-3 double play, with Heredia checking in at third with two outs. Er, check that. The Mariners asked for a review of the out call on Cruz at first, and New York overturned it, so, runners at first and third with one out. Once again Boog—not son of—Powell ran for Cruz. And once again Joe Smith did what he does best, and blew Kyle Seager away with a high outside fast ball to get the second out. Taylor Motter then grounded into a fielder’s choice and Heredia died at third, carrying the last hope of a tying run.
Steve Cishek came in to pitch the ninth for Seattle to try and hold the Jays close. That mission went out the window when Justin Smoak, leading off, found an offering from Cishek to his liking, employed that sweet stroke of his, and hit his eighteenth homer of the season to right field.
I was delighted with Smoak’s insurance dinger. I was even more delighted with the comment that followed from Buck Martinez, to whom credit must be given. Obviously alluding to the fact that Smoak had spent five seasons in Seattle with the Mariners, he crowed excitedly, “It’s the return of the Ancient Mariner”. A home run, an insurance run for a win, and a great baseball/literary allusion from the source you’d have least expected it. Sweet!
After the damage was done, Cishek, of course, put the Jays down in order, and it was time to turn things over to Roberto Osuna.
There has been much notice given to how sharp Osuna has been lately, and tonight’s session isn’t likely to bring that talk to a close. He threw eight pitches, striking out Dyson, retiring Valencia on a fly to centre, and striking out Zunino to nail down his fifteenth save in eighteen opportunities.
One more win to go for the split on the road, but it’s gonna be a tough one, with James Paxton on the hill for Seattle. Forget the warm and fuzzies about him being Canadian and all. He’s been killing this year. Absolutely killing.
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