For a game that started out with high drama, this one sure turned into a stinker quickly.
One of the vagaries of major league baseball is that it’s only the wins and losses that count. In the four games of this series Houston won two games by a combined total of 31 runs for and 3 against. Toronto won the other two games by a more reasonable total of 14 runs to 6. But it all goes down in the ledger as a sawoff: two wins apiece.
It would be easy to get all tied up in the mess of today’s game and think that not only the first half of the season but the Jays’ prospects for the whole year had just gone down the drain. But no matter how ugly today was it was just one game, one loss out of 47 the Jays suffered in the first half of the season, with no more weight than any other.
The strange thing about it is that today’s game was not destined to be a terrible blowout, it started very dramatically for Toronto, and turned on a single play.
Jay Happ had put up a string of five quality starts since his first few restricted starts after returning from the disabled list on May thirtieth. His prospects were as good as any for taking charge of the strong Houston lineup.
Happ escaped damage in the first inning with the help of some spectacular defensive play by his mates. He started by apparently retiring George Springer on a chopper to third that Josh Donaldson adroitly barehanded and ostensibly nipped Springer at first, but the Astros asked for a review, and the decision was reversed. Non-plussed, Happ induced Jose Altuve to hit into a double play, bringing Carlos Correa to the plate with two outs.
Correa hit the one hard ball of the inning off Happ, a shot off the right-field wall that Jose Bautista played perfectly to hold Correa to first. Next up was the dangerous Marwin Gonzalez, who looped one softly into centre that Kevin Pillar raced in and plucked off the turf at his shoetops. This led to another review, as the Astros wanted to make sure Pillar hadn’t trapped the ball. He hadn’t, the inning was over, and Happ had retired the side on 16 pitches with only one hard-hit ball against him.
Brad Peacock, a right-handed slider specialist who has slid into the Houston rotation and delivered some good work for Houston, worked through the Jays’ first with much less drama, though he did give up a two-out line single to left by Donaldson before retiring Justin Smoak on a fly ball to right to end the inning.
This brought us to the pivotal Astro second, the inning that determined the outcome of the game and pinned the loss on Jay Happ, when a crucial throw by Josh Donaldson, with two outs and only one run in, went astray and opened the doors to a five-run inning, only two of which were earned.
Happ led off the inning by striking out Carlos Beltran, but Yuli Gurriel hit a 3-1 hanging breaking ball to the back wall of the Jays’ bullpen for the first run of the game. Alex Bregman followed with yet another opposite field base hit, a double to left. Then Happ struck out Jake Marisnick for the second out, bringing George Springer to the plate. Springer lashed a vicious one-hopper to Donaldson’s left. Donaldson dove for it and made a brilliant diving stop. But after scrambling to his feet he threw high to first, the throw sailing over Justin Smoak’s outstretched glove while Springer was still a couple of strides from the bag. Bregman came in to score to make it 2-0, and the inning was still alive.
Still alive for the Astros to tee off on Happ, that is. They racked up three more runs, all unearned, as was Bregman’s. Jose Altuve homered to left behind Springer, and then Carlos Correa homered to left back-to-back with Altuve, the first runs from two Houston hitters who would end up very productive by the end of the day. Evan Gattis finally brought the inning to an end, ironically, by grounding out to Donaldson at third.
When Peacock came out for the second and pitched around a two-out opposite-field single by Steve Pearce, you kind of knew where it was going to go from there, which was nowhere as far as the Jays were concerned.
Happ did retire Houston on ten pitches in the top of the third, and the Jays put together a couple of two-out base hits in the bottom of the inning, but that little rally came to an ignominious end when Donaldson tried to stretch a hard single off the wall in left into a double and got himself tagged out after a video review, with Martin chugging around third. This was the second time in this series that the Jays ran themselves out of an inning on a base hit when they were multiple runs behind. They need to fix this; it smells of desperation.
Happ gave up a scratch earned run in the fourth to run the Houston lead to 6-0, before Manager John Gibbons pulled him at 82 pitches, having given up the two earned runs on seven hits while walking three and striking out three, but of course three of the seven hits left the yard, earned or not.
Lucas Harrell came in to pitch the fifth and managed to extricate himself from a one-out, second and third jam, but couldn’t get through the top of the order in the sixth, when Springer and Altuve reached on singles and with one out Evan Gattis homered to
left to extend the lead to 9-0. Harrell retired the last two batters to finish two complete innings after Happ, but the rout was well past on.
And we won’t go into the gory details after that. The numbers are enough. 19 runs, 17 hits. Five homers. Altuve 3 for 4 and Correa 4 for 5 (with two homers), and eight RBIs between them.
Only Jeff Beliveau, who pitched the eighth, retired Houston in order. They touched up Loup and Tepera for six runs, five earned, in the seventh, and crowned the edifice off Joe Biagini in the ninth with another four-spot.
Oh, we have to mention that Zeke Carrera finally put the Jays on the board against
Francis Martes with two outs in the ninth when he hit his seventh homer of the season, the second time in this series that he hit one out in similar circumstances. Curious, that.
What to say about this debacle? Only this: Toronto just split a four-game series with the hottest team in the American League. Let’s just leave it at that, and not dig too deeply into the details, okay?
The All Star Game is Tuesday night. Time for a break, but let’s go Smoakie and Roberto!
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