There was plenty of motivation today for the Blue Jays to put last night’s flat performance behind them and get back on the winning track for the last two games of this home stand. It’s a crucial stretch for the team, if only because these seven home games against teams playing under .500 ball represent their best opportunity to put together a real string and climb their way back into contention for a wild card slot.
There was equally strong motivation for Francisco Liriano to show that he’s put his mid-season funk behind him and could give the team a strong start: this game represented his last chance to audition for a serious playoff role with a more legitimate contender. As a free agent at the end of the season, Liriano is well positioned to become a useful “rental” for a team looking for a left-handed starter, or even reliever, to help them make the playoffs.
If he plays out the season with Toronto and the Jays choose not to give him a qualifying offer he represents a dead loss to them; but if they move him by the trade deadline, they’ll get something in return. It was in the best interests of all concerned that Liriano pitch well tonight.
The matchup also presented real opportunity for the Jays, since the Angels had pulled Yusmeiro Petit out of the bullpen for the start, as part of a self-admitted “bullpen day” because they were fresh out of starting pitchers.
The short narrative on today’s game: Liriano pitched well, a solid quality start. The Jays scratched out a lead, saw the Angels come back to tie it, took the lead again on Miguel Montero’s first home run with Toronto, and then, shockingly, watched Roberto Osuna cough up the lead, and then the game, in a disastrous ninth inning that cost them a second straight loss to the California visitors.
The game started like gangbusters for Toronto. Ryan Goins, subbing for the injured Troy Tulowitzki, made a fine backhanded pickup and leaping throw to nab Yunel Escobar at first on the first pitch of the game. Then Liriano showed great hustle to cover first and just nip Mike Trout’s try for an infield hit to Justin Smoak. Albert Pujols lined out to Kevin Pillar on Liriano’s first pitch. It only took six pitches for him to navigate the first three hitters.
Petit was equal to Liriano in the bottom of the first, though he did give up a two-out single to Justin Smoak (who else?) before retiring the side. The two starters went pitch for pitch for the next two innings, the only things separating them, Smoak’s single and the fact that Petit threw 32 pitches to 31 for Liriano.
Things started to shake down a little for both teams in the fourth inning when both benefitted from errors, but the Angels’ error handed the Jays the first run while Liriano was able to pitch over Josh Donaldson’s errant throw.
With one out, Trout was credited with an infield hit and reached second on a throwing error by the Toronto third baseman. Trout advanced to third on the second out, a grounder by Pujols that Goins handled behind second, but C. J. Cron lined out to Smoak at first for the third out.
Donaldson led off the bottom of the fourth with a base hit to centre, and Smoak followed with his second hit of the game, a single to right, Donaldson stopping at second. Petit fanned Kendrys Morales for the first out, bringing Steve Pearce to the plate. Pearce hit a solid drive to deep right, catchable for Kole Calhoun. Donaldson tagged up to advance to third, but the usually reliable Andrelton Simmons took Calhoun’s throw and fired it into the stands behind third, allowing Donaldson to score and giving Smoak third, where he was stranded when Zeke Carrera flied out to centre.
After Liriano breezed the top of the fifth, Petit turned the pitching chores over to Keynan Middleton, a rookie right-hander who’s been a fixture in the Angels’ bullpen since he was called up in early May. After Petit’s fine performance, four innings, no earned runs, 3 hits, no walks, 5 strikeouts on 48 pitches, Middleton was a welcome change for the bottom of the Jays’ batting order.
Miguel Montero worked the new pitcher for a walk on a full count. On a 1-2 pitch to Darwin Barney, manager John Gibbons rolled the dice and started Montero. He was rewarded when Barney rifled the ball into the left-field corner, far from left-fielder Shane Robinson, who was playing Barney straight up. With the running start, and the distance Robinson had to travel to the ball, the none-too-speedy Montero was able to come all the way around to score, Barney cruising into second with a double.
Next up was Ryan Goins. Middleton got ahead of him one and two, and then threw one low and away. Goins, once again making contact when it counted, went down and out with the pitch and drove it past the third baseman into the left-field corner for a second consecutive double as Barney trotted home with the third run. With all that out of the way, Middleton settled down and retired the side, fanning both Donaldson and Smoak in the process. As one last tribute to Petit’s start, Middleton needed 32 pitches to escape the fifth inning, the same number the Angels’ starter threw in the first three innings.
The Angels finally broke through in the sixth inning, Liriano’s last, and tied the score, but the Montero blast in the bottom of the inning put Toronto’s starter back on record for the win, as John Gibbons left Liriano in to finish the inning for a neat six innings pitched.
Shane Robinson led off the sixth with a single, and after former Jay Cliff Pennington flied out, Escobar singled Robinson to third and Trout plated him with a single to centre. With the one out, Liriano perhaps wisely walked Pujols to load the bases, and then got to within one out of escaping with a 3-1 lead by fanning Cron, but Simmons delivered the tying runs with a clutch single to left. Calhoun flew out to end the inning, but the game was knotted at three.
Next out of the pen for the Angels was Troy Scribner, a twenty-six-year-old right-hander making his major league debut. He had a pretty nice start to his career, fanning Kendrys Morales on a checked swing, but then Steve Pearce brought him down to earth with a single to right, and Zeke Carrera jolted him with a hard liner right at Robinson in left. Then Miguel Montero finally delivered on the promised long ball he was supposed to be bringing from the Cubs, and hit out one to right centre, scoring Pearce ahead of him and putting the Jays back on top by two.
And there it stayed until the bottom of the ninth. Scribner gave up a single to Barney after Montero’s homer, and then retired seven in a row to hold the Jays at five through the bottom of the eighth. Meanwhile, a couple of Joes, Biagini and Smith, picked up Liriano through the seventh and eighth, Biagini with a clean inning, and Smith giving up a sketchy leadoff walk in the eighth before retiring the side, in what might have been, like Liriano’s, his last appearance with Toronto before the trade deadline.
So it was all good for Roberto Osuna to come in and close the door on this nice, crisp-ish 5-3 win for Toronto. Would that it could have been.
The Angels’ ninth-inning rising started with Osuna creating his own problems and ended with a weird combination of ex-Blue Jays doing them in. After fanning Andrelton Simmons leading off. Osuna gave up a single to Kole Calhoun. Possibly rattled by the base hit, he plunked Martin Maldonado, moving Calhoun up to second. Kaleb Cowart came in to run for Maldonado, with ex-Jay Ben Revere (remember him?) at the plate. Revere smacked a 2-2 pitch on the ground past Justin Smoak on his glove side, and by the time Jose Bautista got it back in, Revere was safely in to second, Calhoun had scored, and Cowart was standing on third representing the tying run. But not for long, as Osuna pulled one that went past Russell Martin for a wild pitch, and Cowart trotted home, while Revere advanced to third.
Enter Cliff Pennington, another Toronto alumnus, and as unpredictable at the plate as Revere. Not that he hit a three-run homer, or even a clutch base hit. But with only one out he didn’t need to do either. All he needed to do was get the ball to the outfield, and he did, a short fly to Kevin Pillar in centre. Pillar was playing in, just for this situation, and the ball was right to him. He caught it and let fly for the plate, an accurate throw, all the way on the fly, but it was Ben Revere on third, and he beat the throw for the lead run.
After walking Yunel Escobar, Osuna’s misery finally came to an end when Mike Trout popped up to Ryan Goins at short.
Toronto stretched out the bottom of the ninth without getting a hit, as Angels’ closer Bud Norris did everything he could to give them a chance to tie it up. He committed the closer’s cardinal sin of walking Montero, the leadoff batter. Rob Refsnyder, who’d just arrived from Buffalo to replace Troy Tulowitzki on the active roster, was sent in to run for Montero, his first appearance for Toronto. Norris braced up and fanned Russell Martin, who was hitting for Barney. But then he threw over to first to hold the speedy Refsnyder close, and threw the ball away, moving the tying run up to second. Ryan Goins fouled one off on three and two before drawing a walk, bringing Jose Bautista to the plate with one out and the tying and winning runs on base.
It was going to be either feast or famine, but as so many times this year, it was famine: Bautista grounded into a 4-6-3* double play to end the game.
As frustrated as we are watching our heroes put together a nice streak and then come a-cropper due to their own failures and miscues, how much more frustrating must it be for them?
On the bright side, if we can hammer out a win on Sunday, the home stand ends up at five and two; in most normal years, that would be a good thing. But in late July of 2017, it might not be enough.
*I’ve never explained the numbering system used by scorekeepers to annotate plays in baseball. Without going into all the nuances, the fielding positions are numbered one through nine, and to note down any play, the scorer indicates the numbers of the positions of all players involved in the play. The numbers start with the pitcher as one, catcher as two, first baseman as three, second baseman as four, third baseman as five, shortstop as six, and the three outfielders from left to right, seven to nine. A groundout from short to first is marked down as 4-3. With no other annotations, it’s assumed that this was a ground ball to the second baseman. A fly ball out is shown by the number of the fielder, as in “8” for the centre fielder. I usually add to the annotation so that I can tell later on, for example, the difference between a short fly ball and a liner into the gap that was caught. Working on a laptop, I have the luxury of being more thorough than a traditional paper score keeper, who is severely limited by the design of the score card.
So the 4-6-3 double play that ended the game was a grounder to second, played on to the shortstop for the force, and then to first for the double play.
I’m sure that understanding the scoring scheme takes away some of the sting of today’s loss for you. Yeah, right!
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