Well, that was a big relief, but did it really resolve anything? I hate to be a skeptic, but . . .
Yes, there were pluses that came out of today’s 8-2 win over the Royals in the series-ending game, in which the Jays avoided the dreaded broom. Francisco Liriano had a very solid outing, one of his best and most consistent of the year. It was the third long start for the Jays, following on the performances of Jay Happ Friday night, and Marco Estrada yesterday. This had significant effect on the bullpen, providing some rest for some very overworked arms.
In fact, if it weren’t for Jorge Bonifacio, Liriano would have carried a shutout into the seventh inning, having scattered only three singles and a walk through six. But Bonifacio was in the lineup, and never having faced Liriano, he seemed to form an instant liking for the Jays’ veteran left-hander. In the first inning, after striking out leadoff man Whit Merrifield, Liriano got Bonifacio to bite on a high, inside pitch that the KC left-fielder fouled off. Then he threw two away for balls, and came back high and inside, but not enough of either. Bye-bye, baby. In the fourth inning, having allowed only Bonifacio to reach base, Liriano yielded a double to the Royals’ rookie and he scored when Eric Hosmer followed with an RBI single. By the time Liriano left, Bonifacio’s bashing had been rendered irrelevant by Jose Bautista’s two-run homer in the fifth, and the big five-run outburst in the sixth.
Speaking of Jose Bautista and other plusses to come out of the game, he broke out of a mini-slump in terms of his power output. As well, Josh Donaldson finally put a ball in play with runners in scoring position, instead of hitting doubles with nobody on and dying at second.
Finally, most importantly in the long run, Roberto Osuna mopped up in the non-save situation, blowing the Royals away and showing that at least on this day whatever mental/emotional strain he is going through has not affected his ability to get outs when the team needs them.
So what is there to be curmudgeonly about? Simply this: the eight runs put up by Toronto today did nothing to resolve the team’s essential problem, that they are not getting base hits with runners in scoring position. By my count, thanks to their own hitters getting on base, and especially thanks to the wildness of the Kansas City bullpen, Blue Jays’ hitters had seventeen opportunities to drive in runs with base hits with runners in scoring position. Only two of them, that’s right, exactly two, were converted, the Donaldson bases-loaded double in the sixth, and the Bautista single with Kevin Pillar on third in the seventh.
If you’re interested, the batting average for runners in scoring position for two for seventeen is .118. By contrast, also by my unofficial count, the Royals went two for six, a batting average of .333. There are some questions in my mind that I would have to look into, or somebody could correct for me, about how certain situations are taken into account in terms of batting average for hits with runners in scoring position. It seems logical to me that since there’s no obvious requirement that a run actually score, a base hit with a runner on second that results in an out at the plate would still count even though the run didn’t score.
I mention this because in the eighth inning today, with Lorenzo Cain on second base, Eric Hosmer hit a bloop single that he tried to stretch into a double, but he was thrown out at second for the third out of the inning. Cain, in the meantime, didn’t particularly hustle off second, and so didn’t cross the plate before Hosmer was tagged out at second. The run he was carrying was waved off, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hosmer got a base hit with a runner in scoring position, does it?
So let’s go back and look at some of the situations in which the Jays’ hitters dropped the ball, so to speak. In the first inning Russell Martin hitting out of the two-hole hustled a base hit into a double. Donaldson fanned and Justin Smoak struck out looking. In the second inning, with two outs Pillar singled to left advancing Troy Tulowitzki, who had walked, to second. Ryan Goins struck out to end the inning.
In the third inning, also with two outs, Donaldson walked and Smoak moved him around to third with a single to right centre. Kendrys Morales popped out to the third baseman stranding both runners. That’s oh for four with runners in scoring position in only three innings.
In the fifth inning, Toronto finally got on the board when Goins led off with a base hit and Bautista brought him home with a prodigious blast to left. Then Martin walked, and Smoak reached base when Alcides Escobar muffed his grounder to short pushing Martin to second where he died when Morales fanned. That made twice for Morales stranding runners in scoring position. Then Tulowitzki joined the parade by flying out to right to end the inning, and get the count up to six chances with runners in scoring position, and zero base hits.
Even in the sixth, when they scored five runs, they had six more chances to convert with ducks on the pond, and only Donaldson delivered with his bases-loaded double to right, so that took them up to one for twelve in scoring chances.
Jason Hammel laboured through five innings for Kansas City, benefitting along the way, as we have seen, from his opponents’ fecklessness when it came to cashing in baserunners. Still, he would have left in line for a win if he hadn’t grooved one to Bautista in the fifth, with Goins on ahead of him with a single. In any case, he went out with a line of two runs, five hits, three walks, and six strikeouts on 105 pitches.
Though Hammel’s walks didn’t enter into the scoring, his successors put three on via the free pass in the sixth alone, which contributed greatly to the visitors’ outburst. Not to mention an error by Cheslor Cuthbert at third that contributed materially to the Jays’ rising.
Lefty Scott Alexander started the inning, having given up a couple of base hits while throwing a scoreless inning in relief Friday night. Darwin Barney, hitting for Dwight Smith againt the lefty, singled to centre. Alexander proceeded to walk Kevin Pillar and Steve Pearce hitting for Goins.
(I have a question for John Gibbons: with two on and nobody out in a tie game, why put Pearce in to swing away when you can leave Goins in to bunt the runners up, and hold Pearce back for later duty? Oh, I get it. Bunt? Never. Well, hardly ever,)
That was the end for Alexander, and with the top of the order up, manager Ned Yost went back to the bullpen for the right-hander Peter Moylan, who’s always given the Blue Jays fits. Not this time, though Cuthbert and home plate umpire John Tumpane, had to share the blame with him.
Moylan certainly had a case against Tumpane, if the PitchCast graph is even remotely accurate. He walked Jose Bautista, the first batter he faced, on a 3-1 pitch, to force in Barney with the lead run. But it was the fourth pitch of the at-bat, that would become ball three, that was pretty clearly a strike and would have evened the count. Then there was the second pitch to Russell Martin, also clearly a strike, on an 0-1 count. Since the third pitch was a called strike, he would have had Martin struck out before he hit the grounder to third that Cuthbert fumbled, in his hurry to try for the force at the plate. Martin was safe at first, Pillar was across with the second run of the inning, and Moylan was steamed.
Maybe too steamed to pitch to Donaldson with the bases loaded. Donaldson laced an inside pitch down the right-field line for a double that scored two and increased the Toronto lead to 6-2, finally breaking the horse collar of hitting with runners in scoring position. Out came the hook for Moylan, who decided to go out in a blaze of glory, lambasted Tumpane, and was tossed for his efforts.
Ned Yost brought in another lefty, Mike Minor, to face—and turn around—Smoak and Morales. This time the strategy worked to the extent that both sluggers were turned away, but with runners on second and third and nobody out, the Royals were still lucky to restrict the damage to one additional run. Martin had to hold at third when Smoak grounded out to short too sharply, with the infield drawn in. But then Morales grounded another one to short, Martin broke for the plate, and Escobar elected to try to cut off the run. His throw was a bit off, Martin slid around the tag, and the score was 7-2, with Donaldson moving to third and Morales safe at first.
I’d like to insert a quick word here about the athleticism of Russell Martin. Is there another first-rank catcher in the major leagues who can move as seamlessly to an infield position and/or run the bases as well as Russell Martin, let alone do both? Even when he struggles at the plate, Martin is a complete ballplayer.
Sad to say that we can’t forget the drought of hitting with runners in scoring position: Donaldson was still at third and there was still only one out. Tulowitzki struck out on a checked swing, and Barney popped up to end the inning, extending the record to one for twelve . . .
After the long inning for the Jays in the top of the sixth, Liriano came back out and made quick work of Kansas City in the bottom half, giving up a one-out bloop single to right by Cain, but then getting Hosmer to ground into a double play on the next pitch. At 84 pitches after six innings, Liriano looked good for at least one more, and every inning saved for the bullpen after the last week was worth its weight in gold.
The Royals sent Naftali Feliz out to pitch the seventh, and the resurgent Kevin Pillar greeted his first pitch with a booming drive to right centre that went for a double. Pillar who went two for four on Saturday finished up with three for four today, and his average, which had dipped below .250, came out of today’s game at .260, suggesting that his recent drought may have come to an end.
Steve Pearce, bless his lunch-bucket soul, fought off a changeup up and in and rolled it down to Hosmer at first, giving himself up and moving Pillar to third. One of the things that’s supposed to happen with Jose Bautista leading off is that later in the game, if the bottom of the order gets something started, a reliable clutch guy with a high on-base percentage, is waiting on deck. This time there was no nonsense about “hitting it on the ground is a mistake”, as Bautista ripped a grounder past Merrifield at second into right centre to score Pillar with the eighth Toronto run.
Out came Liriano for the bottom of the seventh, but of course Mr. John Gibbons was sitting on pins and needles as usual, and the leash was very sort for Liriano. After Sal Perez doubled to centre leading off, Liriano walked Cheslor Cuthbert, and that was it for the starter. Danny Barnes came in to pick him up, and did a good job of it, if a little unusual in its execution: for once he didn’t strike anybody out, but rather got three catchable balls to the outfield, as the Royals succumbed for the moment to the mania for launch angle. For the sake of their fans, I would hope that it was only a momentary lapse.
After Kevin McCarthy retired the Jays in the top of the eighth, with the aid of an inning-ending double play, the Royals had one last shot at cutting into the deficit against Dominic Leone, but it was too little too late, and died a-glimmering with some uncharacteristically sloppy base running by Kansas City.
Leone actually got the first two outs, fanning Merrifield and getting Bonifacio on a fly ball to right, but then Lorenzo Cain hit a bouncer up the middle that Barney got to with a sliding stop, but it was too late to throw Cain out at first. With Hosmer at the plate, the Jays ignored Cain at first, and he moved up on defensive indifference. Hosmer then dumped a tweener into right-centre that should have scored Cain easily, but Cain was leisurely about getting off from second, just as Hosmer was getting the idea that he might stretch the hit into a double.
Of course, Hosmer was out at second on a close play from Pillar to Barney, and the out call was made before Cain crosseed the plate. The Royals appealed the call at second base, but New York upheld the call on the field: Hosmer was out, and Cain’s run did not score.
Travis Wood came in to pitch the ninth for Kansas City, and for a moment it looked good for Toronto to add some more runs. Pillar led off with his third hit of the day, a single to left, and then Wood brushed Pearce’s shirt to put him on. Bautista hit the ball hard, but right at Escobar who started a quick rally-killing double play. Pillar went to third on the play, but died there as Martin grounded out, which made for two more opportunities with RISP wasted by Toronto.
Ordinarily, pitching the bottom of the ninth when your team is up 8-2, is not exactly a prestige assignment. There’s a reason why it’s called “mopping up”. But today was different: after all the publicity about Roberto Osuna’s issues with anxiety off the field, and his removal from the bullpen on Friday night, when a healthy Osuna was badly needed, it was significant that he took the mound this afternoon to wrap up the game for Toronto.
Whether it was a fair test of his condition or not, considering the low stress situation involved, it was good to see him out there, and even better to see him strike out the side on seventeen pitches. It hardly mattered that Escobar reached on an infield hit to shortstop with two outs, especially when Osuna caught Ramon Torres looking to end the game.
Was it good to win this game? Of course.
Was it good the way they won this game? In some ways yes, in some ways no.
Until they start capitalizing on their chances and taking the runs that are on the table for them, we can’t really hope they’ll catch up with the front-runners.
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