Maybe the Toronto Blue Jays should just start their games with the second inning, since their first inning pattern seems carved in stone.
For the opponents: multiple base runners, a pitcher who can’t find the plate, one or several runs, rarely none, but always way too many pitches, guaranteeing a short start and more work for the bullpen. For the good guys: at least one solid hit, at least one base runner left stranded in scoring position, the air let out of the balloon once more.
Tonight’s third game of the four-game home series with the Oakland Athletics featured a first inning that checked all the boxes, except the visitors didn’t actually score for once. It also featured what turned out to be two strong pitching performances, for Toronto by Marco Estrada and a flock of relievers, and for Oakland by Paul Blackburn.
And it featured a last-minute eruption by Justin Smoak and Kendrys Morales that won the game for Toronto, a game in which all the runs were counted on homers, and the Athletics had the misfortune of hitting just one, by Marcus Semien in the fifth inning for two runs off Estrada, to the Jays’ two, by Smoak and Morales, that counted three runs in the ninth and gave the struggling Jays a walkoff win against Oakland closer Santiago Casilla.
Marco Estrada has been trying to find his mojo all year. His struggles are frustrating to the team, given how much he had become the most effective big-game pitcher among the Jays’ starters in both the playoff runs of 2015 and 2016. And there must be a personal side to his struggles, since his contract is finished with the Blue Jays this year and he is looking at free agency again in 2018. Potential buyers would be pretty concerned with the turn his career has taken this year, and his window for proving his worth on the market is gradually closing.
On another front, his struggles this season have run at odds with the rumours that have floated about his availability to a contender at the trade deadline. With his trade value declining, it’s become less likely that a team could put together a package for Estrada as a “rental” that would interest the Toronto management.
If you were a scout in the stands tonight shopping for an add-on starter, you might have packed it up and gone out for dinner after the first inning. After all, though he retired the Athletics without a run on three popups, in classic Estrada style, he also walked two, gave up an infield hit, and had to get the third popup off slugger Ryon Healy with the bases loaded on his twenty-seventh pitch of the inning.
But if you thought that Estrada hadn’t fixed what was wrong yet, and you headed out after the first inning to find something more productive to do, you woud have been very wrong.
Suddenly something clicked in and the Marco Estrada of old was back in charge. In the second inning there were two come-backers to the mound and a soft fly to right. In the third, he had his third come-backer in the last four batters, though he did have to jump for a high bounce, then another fly to right and a line out to second. In the fourth, after Khris Davis fouled out to Justin Smoak at first, Yonder Alonso hit a ground-rule double to right, the first hit and base-runner since the first inning. With Alonso on second he fanned Healy and Mark Chapman. After 27 pitches in the first inning, he took only 45 to get through the next three.
In the fifth he retired Bruce Maxwell on a groundout to second, and struck out Rajai Davis, for twelve outs out of the last thirteen batters, but then he walked Matt Joyce, bringing Marcus Semien to the plate. He’d gone 3-1 on Joyce and lost him, and when he went to 3-1 on Semien he made sure he threw a strike, but it was too good, and Semien deposited it over the fence in left centre for the first runs of the game.
Estrada then issued another walk to Jed Lowrie, and fanned Khris Davis to end the inning. But the two walks and the high count to Semien cost him another 28 pitches, and he was finished for the night.
But anyone who’s been thinking that the Marco Estrada moment is over had better have a re-think, because he showed tonight that he’s still capable of running up an impressive string of quick outs.
Meanwhile, Oakland started the twenty-three-year-old right-hander Paul Blackburn, who was promoted from Triple A by Oakland, made his first start on July first, and has been in their rotation since. He came into this game with a record of 1-1 and an ERA of 2.88, relying on location and effective breaking balls, just what Toronto wants to see on the mound against them. Not.
Blackburn pitched seven terrific innings against the Blue Jays. He gave up two hits, doubles to Jose Bautista in the first and Josh Donaldson in the sixth. Only in the first did he have two base runners, and only in the first, when Bautista advanced to third on Donaldson deep fly to right for the first out, did a runner reach third. After Bautista took third, Blackburn walked Smoak but then got Morales to hit into a double play. He was never in trouble again, and pitched seven shutout innings, giving up two hits and three walks while striking out three on 98 pitches.
When Blackburn didn’t come out for the eighth inning, and reliever Blake Treinen pitched around a leadoff single by Miguel Montero in the eighth to preserve the shutout it was hard to imagine that the Blue Jays would have any chance to break out in the ninth inning.
In the meantime, Matt Dermody for one batter in the sixth, Dominic Leone for two innings, Aaron Loup for an inning, and Joe Biagini for the last two outs in the top of the ninth, allowed only one base runner, Biagini walking Mark Chapman with two down in the ninth before fanning Bruce Maxwell. Once again we saw near perfection from the hard-working Toronto relievers.
The bottom of the ninth provided another proof that in baseball you never know. Through eight innings Toronto had only three base hits and only once advanced a runner to third. It seemed fated that this game was going to end up 2-0 for Oakland, and Paul Blackburn would be rewarded for his fine performance with a big “W”, the second of his career.
But fate is a funny thing sometimes. Oakland manager Bob Melvin naturally turned to his closer, Santiago Casillas, who had compiled 16 saves in 21opportunities. Santiago never got an out, and not only blew the save but earned the loss, thereby wiping out Blackburn’s reward, but not his performance.
Casillas jumped ahead of Josh Donaldson with a 1-2 count, but then, bizarrely, threw three balls somewhere up around the bill of Donaldson’s cap, and he took his base with a walk. Casillas only threw four more pitches. He threw another high one and one low and inside to Justin Smoak, and then finally hit the zone, low and inside, but Smoak went down and got it and belted it into the right field seats to tie the game. Casillas obviously didn’t want to fall behind Kendrys Morales, so he threw him a get-me-over fast ball, right down the middle and waist high, and Morales duplicated Smoak’s blast to end the game.
Of course much hilarity ensued, as the now obligatory home plate celebration took place. The only way it would have been sweeter would have been if it brought Toronto’s record to a modest 54-47, rather than a dismal 47-54. Yet sometimes you have to take joy where you can. And watching Morales’ drive clear the fence was joy enough for this day.
Marcus Stroman gets the ball tomorrow night in the series finale, with the Jays looking for a sweep. Could it finally happen?
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