For the first time in 2017 the Jay Happ of 2016 took care of business for Toronto against the Seattle Mariners this afternoon.
It was Happ’s third start after six weeks on the disabled list. Though his two previous starts were positive for the Jays in the sense that he reported himself pain-free after each of them, having thrown 81 pitches on May thirtieth and 98 pitches on June fifth, neither was exactly what you would call an esthetic success.
In the first, against the Cincinnati Reds, he went four innings and gave up two runs, both of them homers. In the second, in Oakland, he went five and a third innings and gave up five runs, all of them scoring on two home runs by Ryon Healy.
Today Jay Happ did not give up any home runs. In fact, taking the mound with a 2-0 lead provided by Kevin Pillar and Josh Donaldson in the top of the first, he did not give up any runs at all. The Jays were never headed after those first two batters in the first, and Happ pitched them to a 4-0 shutout victory to take the rubber game of the three-game series in Blue-Jay-happy Seattle.
He pitched six full innings, gave up no runs, scattered six hits, walked one and struck out eight. The strikeout total is perhaps the best measure that Happ has finally turned the corner on his very troubled start to the 2017 season. After his first two starts in April, he’d only amassed ten strikeouts in total, in his last start before going on the DL and his first two starts since returning.
In a strange sequence of events it took Toronto manager John Gibbons going through almost his entire bullpen to finish off the last three innings of shutout ball, but other than Danny Barnes, who threw twenty pitches in the ninth in manager Gibbons’ vain attempt to avoid using Roberto Osuna, only Ryan Tepera, who pitched the seventh and threw fourteen pitches, was in double digits for pitch count, so with the off day tomorrow the bullpen should be well rested for the start of Tuesday night’s two-gamer with Tampa Bay back in Toronto.
James Paxton was the Mariners’ starter today, and he brought to the fray a fine record of five wins and no losses, with an ERA of 1.69. He also came with an aura of dark overtones for the locals. Because the Toronto Blue Jays have a history with the big left-hander who was born in Richmond, British Columbia, and it’s a strange one.
Toronto originally drafted Paxton out of the University of Kentucky after his junior year, but after negotiations with the Jays didn’t work out he decided to return to Kentucky for his final year of NCAA baseball.
However, an inadvertant blunder in talking with reporters by then Toronto president Paul Beeston not only cost Paxton his senior year at Kentucky but also probably cost the Jays any chance of signing him after a subsequent draft. Asked by reporters what had happened with the negotiations with Paxton, Beeston let it slip that the team had been negotiating with well-known player agent Scott Boras, rather than with Paxton and his family.
Players lose their NCAA eligibility as soon as they sign on with an agent, so after Paxton had turned down the Toronto office, the NCAA announced he was ineligible to play college baseball. Paxton appealed the NCAA decision, even taking the mammoth athletic organization to court, but was unable to overturn the loss of his last year of college baseball. Having fallen betwixt and between, Paxton spent the 2010 spring season pitching in independent ball before being drafted by Seattle, with whom he has progressed slowly through the system, but always with promise. He made his MLB debut with Seattle in 2013, but has yet to spend a full season at the big league level.
And here he was, an imposing figure indeed on the mound, peering in at Kevin Pillar in the top of the first. He went 1-2 on Pillar, then came up and in, on the black, with a fast ball, and Pillar lined it into the left-field corner. For once there wasn’t a fielder stationed there to catch the ball, as he has so often experienced lately, and Pillar ended up at second with a double.
Man on second, nobody down. Sound familiar? What do we do, class? That’s right, ground ball right side, move the runner to third. Very good, class. Oh, but that naughty Josh Donaldson. He just won’t cooperate, will he? Paxton made the mistake of falling behind, throwing two outside and in the dirt. He had to come in with the third one, and what did Josh do? Oh, he hit it right side, all right, but the cheeky fellow didn’t hit it on the ground!
Oh, no, he just belted it over the fence in right centre for a two-run homer, and, as we would later see, all the runs the Blue Jays and Jay Happ and company would need on this beautiful sunny afternoon in downtown Vancouver, er, Seattle. So, more remedial work for young Mr. Donaldson and next time he’ll get that ground ball down when he’s supposed to.
(All kidding aside, the problem with Josh Donalson is, according to his own public statements, if he had struck out rather than homered, it would have been all the same to him whether he struck out trying for his launch angle, or grounded out to second. Then we have to ask: do the runs we get when the homer gets hit outweigh the runs we would have gotten from playing the game the “right way”?)
Understandably a little shaken, having given up only his second homer of the season, and only two batters in, Paxton wobbled a little before settling down to retire the side. He walked Jose Bautista, struck out Kendry Morales for the first out, gave up a line single off the shortstop’s glove to Justin Smoak, and retired Troy Tulowitzki and Darwin Barney to strand Bautista and Smoak.
Smoak’s infield hit created a conundrum for Bautista, and he was lucky to be able to hustle into second lest he turn Smoak’s hit into a fielder’s choice. The base runner’s first responsibility is not to be trapped off base on a line drive caught by an infielder. So when Motter reached for Smoak’s liner Bautista had to freeze just off first. Then when the ball ticked off Motter’s glove, Bautista had to release and make it to second before Motter could recover the ball and deliver it to second for the force.
Though Paxton kept the score at 2-0, his second inning consumed more pitches, thirty, than the first, and at fifty-four for two he wasn’t looking at a complete game here. Once again he had to pitch out of runners in scoring position with less than two outs, this time with the bases loaded, courtesy of the bottom of the Toronto order.
Zeke Carrera, hanging in against the lefty, worked Paxton for a walk. Luke Maile singled sharply to right, with Carrera checking in at second. Kevin Pillar, who obviously didn’t do his Baseball 101 homework, lined out to centre instead of moving the runners up. Which cost Toronto one run and possibly two, since Donaldson followed with a sharp single to left that only loaded the bases instead of scoring at least one. Then Paxton fanned Bautista and retired Morales on a ground ball to third to get out of the inning.
In the third inning Paxton retired the side in order for the only time in his short stint. The fourth inning finished his outing for the night, and was punctuated by Toronto cashing in on base runners this time, before he managed to get the side out. But at 94 pitches and down 4-0, there was little doubt that he’d come back out for the fifth.
Let’s pause and give credit to the Blue Jays for picking up these two additional runs without benefit of a home run. Sadly for Paxton, he started at the bottom of the order again with Carrera and Maile, and this time retired them both. But with two outs, Pillar was again the catalyst, doubling down the line in left for the second time. And for the second time Donaldson delivered him with a single to right. Bautista walked for the second time, moving Donaldson up, and Morales singled home Donaldson with the fourth run before Smoak grounded out to third.
Paxton was finished for the day, and as it turned out, so were the Mariners. Nothing to see here, folks, move right along.
Though that would be ignoring the fact that Jay Happ really did pitch well, despite the fact that he had to deal with base runners every inning through the fourth, and only retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth innings.
In the first inning Seattle got two hits with two outs, as Robbie Cano ran a grounder under the glove of a crossing Tulowitzki for a single to centre, and Nelson Cruz beat out (yes, you read that right) a Baltimore Chop* to third, moving Cano to second. But Happ retired Kyle Seager on a fly ball to right to strand the runners.
*A Baltimore Chop is a ball beat into the grass that comes up in a high bounce and takes long enough to come down that the runner beats the throw to first. For Nelson Cruz to get on with a Baltimore Chop requires one helluva high bounce.
In the second Happ allowed just one base runner, again with two outs, but this time he had to fan Taylor Motter to strand Ben Gamel at third. Gamel was there courtesy of his double to left, and yet another miscue by Zeke Carrera in left which enabled Gamel to reach third on the error.
Happ’s fun and interesting outing continued in the third, when he issued a one-out walk to Mitch Haniger, who had to hold at third on Nelson Cruz’s two-out double, before Happ got Seager again on a grounder to Smoak to end the inning. And Happ cleaned up his own mess in the fourth when he struck out Motter and Guliiermo Heredia after giving up one-out base hits to Mike Zunino and Gamel, who had three hits on the night.
So, lucky (or good) for Happ that he escaped the fifth and sixth on only 26 pitches and was able to hand the game over to the bullpen with only three innings to go.
John Gibbons seemed to be in a more adventurous spirit regarding matchups this afternoon, with the result that as I mentioned he went through five relievers to get the final nine outs.
First he tried his new lefty Jeff Beliveau for a one-on-one with the hot Ben Gamel. Didn’t work too well: Gamel singled to centre, and Gibby brought in Ryan Tepera, who fanned Motter and Dyson, while Gamel stole second during Dyson’s at-bat, and then got Haniger to fly out to right.
Then he tried Aaron Loup to match up with Cano to start the eighth. That didn’t work either: Cano singled past a diving Tulowitzki at short. This brought Joe Smith into the game. Not sure here whether Gibby wanted to avoid using Smith and Osuna, since Loup has been asked to pitch full innings from time to time recently, but if that was the case, it didn’t work, though Toronto got off lightly, as Smith got a double-play ball from Nelson Cruz that didn’t pan out and only resulted in Cruz being out at first. He then got a grounder to first from Seager, and struck out Valencia. On eight pitches. Cano ended up at third, but it was all the same: stranded.
With the four-run lead, Gibby tried to tiptoe past his closer in the ninth by bringing in Danny Barnes, and it almost worked. Barnes got the first two outs, but then walked Taylor Motter, and Jarrod Dyson flared a single over Tulowitzki’s glove at short. This created the save situation, and Barnes was pulled with two outs, two on, and a four-run lead.
I’m curious as to whether there’s some kind of protocol that requires the closer to be brought in just because the save situation has just developed, but I don’t see pulling Barnes at this point. He’s clearly been given higher priority in the bullpen, and he’d earned the opportunity to finish this one off. With two on, the worst case scenario is a three-run homer, nobody on base and two outs. And Osuna has been known to give up the occasional dinger in the ninth. In any case, it was Osuna for the save, and it took him three pitches to finish off Mitch Haniger, but on a hard liner to Bautista in right, so where was the advantage?
Finally, respect must be paid here to Emilio Pagan. Paxton’s departure after four innings left a big hole for Seattle manager Scott Servais to fill, and you might have noticed that the Jays never scored again after Paxton was pulled.
That’s because Pagan, a 26-year-old right-hander who has been up and down between the Mariners and Tacoma in his rookie year, pitching in just his fourth major league game, absolutely stoned the Blue Jays for four innings: no runs, no hits, 1 walk, and five strikeouts. The walk was erased by a double play, so he faced exactly twelve batters, the minimum. I expect he’ll get some more work soon, and not at Tacoma, either.
Dan Altavilla pitched the ninth and finished off Pagan’s work by retiring the side in order. He got some help from Jarrod Dyson who made a diving catch on a hard liner by Luke Maile, then fanned Pillar and Donaldson to complete a string of fifteen batters faced, and fifteen batters retired, for Seattle.
Good thing Toronto got to James Paxton early.
And good thing Jay Happ’s back.
And good thing Josh Donaldson hits to right once in a while. Even if he still can’t get the ground ball right side down with the runner on second and nobody out.
A split on the road pulled out of the fire, and home again, home again, jiggity jig.
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