A game that started this afternoon with a disappointing fall off the pedestal by the newest Blue Jay resurrection project, Cesar Valdez, ended with a most improbable ninth-inning seven-run comeback, capped by, whoever has heard of such a thing, Steve Pearce’s second walkoff grand slam home run for his team within a week.
As we watched this one we saw our hopes for a fifth win in the seven game home stand slide precipitously off the table and into the waste basket, only to gasp in shock when they rose from the ashes and took delirious flight when Pearce’s blast left his bat and we knew that it was a done deal for the home team.
Valdez, whose back story we chronicled in the story of his start on July twenty-fifth in Oakland, whose first major-league win came in 2010 with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and his second over Oakland on the twenty-fifth of this month, fanned Yunel Escobar leading off the game. After that, any resemblance of the Cesar Valdez we saw in Oakland to the Cesar Valdez who started today, faded quickly, when Mike Trout singled to left and Albert Pujols followed with a booming home run to left centre. The next two Angels grounded out, but once again the Jays went to work in the bottom of the first already in a hole.
They were facing old friend and former Jay Jesse Chavez, who must perform tricks with mirrors, not only to stay in the big leagues, but to continue to hold down a starting position in the Angels’ rotation. The Jays have generally found Chavez to be easy pickings, especially in the area of giving up home runs, so the 2-0 deficit probably didn’t look like much to them at the time.
They got one run back immediately, when Zeke Carrera, playing for a resting Jose Bautista in right field, hit a home run to right on the second pitch he saw from Chavez. The Angels’ starter also walked Justin Smoak before retiring the side. He ran into more trouble in the second inning, but managed to keep the 2-1 lead intact.
Though you can’t fault them for trying, Toronto ran itself out of a chance for a productive inning. With one out Ryan Goins singled to centre. Kevin Pillar hit an infield single to centre and Goins, running on the pitch, came around to third. Since that worked so well, the Jays decided to start Pillar from first with Rob Refsnyder at the plate. Refsnyder hit the ball hard, but right on a line to Kole Calhoun in right, and Pillar was easily doubled off first for the third out, stranding Goins at third with the tying run.
Valdez had kept the Angels off the scoreboard in the top of the second, despite giving up a leadoff single to Luis Valbuena. Ben Revere replaced Valbuena at first by hitting into a fielder’s choice. After Martin Maldonado struck out, Revere decided to test the arm of Miguel Montero by trying to steal second. Montero, who was not picked up by Toronto for his throwing ability, surprised by gunning down the speedy Revere, with the help of a nifty catch and tag by Rob Refsnyder.
Then came the top of the third inning, otherwise known as Cesar Valdez’ Waterloo. Going into the inning he was down 2-1, and seemed to have settled in. Six batters later he was departing, down 6-1 with Shane Robinson at third running for an injured Calhoun and Andrelton Simmons at second his responsibility, three of the four runs scored so far in the inning earned, and he had not recorded an out.
The details and the sequence aren’t particularly edifying: let’s just say that Valdez didn’t fool anybody. Leadoff triple, double, intentional walk to Trout, Pujols RBI single. An errant throw by Refsnyder pulled Goins off the bag at second on what should have been a fielder’s choice by Calhoun, and a double by Andrelton Simmons, the last batter faced by Valdez.
Aaron Loup came in and finished off the starter’s record at seven runs, six earned, by giving up an RBI single to Revere, and needed 18 pitches to work out of the inning, eventually getting the last two outs with runners on second and third, only Revere at second his responsibility, so it could have been worse than 7-2 against for Toronto.
As the bottom of the third unfolded for Chavez, gifted with such a lead, you had an inkling that this game wasn’t quite settled yet, as Toronto came back to score three, with nary a homer in sight, and some good hustle on the bases by Zeke Carrera and Russell Martin to boot.
Carrera led off with a single to centre. Down 7-2 and with not much to lose, John Gibbons started Carrera on a single to left by Martin, and Carrera easily made third.
Justin Smoak hit an opposite-field Texas Leaguer to left to score Carrera, and Martin, reading the hit perfectly, hustled around to third, so that he could score on Kendrys Morales short fly to left, with Martin and coach Luis Rivera rolling the dice on Revere’s weak arm and coming up winners. Steve Pearce doubled Smoak to third, and he scored on Montero’s grounder to second, again getting a good read on the ball. As Tuck and Babby were saying, just because Smoak’s slow on the bases doesn’t mean he’s a bad base runner. Ryan Goins grounded out to end the inning, and things looked considerably brighter for the home side at 7-4 for the Angels.
The score remained the same through the fourth. The Jays survived two base hits by the Angels as Loup gave way to Mike Bolsinger with Trout at third and Shane Robinson at second and two outs. It took Bolsinger just one pitch to end the inning, Carrera coming in for a nice running catch on a short fly by Simmons. Chavez retired the side in order.
Unfortunately for the Jays it was the Angels who added runs in the middle innings. Bolsinger gave up an unearned run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Maldonado that scored Revere, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, stolen second, and advanced to third on a bad throw to second by Montero. The run he gave up in the sixth was decidedly earned, Pujols’ second homer of the game.
Chavez benefitted from a double play after walking Martin to retire the Blue Jays in the fifth in order, and then sat down to watch his lead extended to 9-4 before Blake Parker came in to replace him for the sixth, leaving the starter sitting quite pretty for his sixth win of the year.
It continued to look like a settled issue through seven and eight. Cam Bedrosian survived a somewhat rocky seventh, and David Hernandez threw a clean eighth for the Angels. Meanwhile, lefty Matt Dermody was working on his longest and most effective outing so far for Toronto, getting double plays in both innings to pitch around a hit batter in the seventh and a walk in the eighth.
Which brings us to the ninth inning, the shocking, the fatal, ninth. Dermody finally wavered slightly in the top of the inning, giving up a leadoff infield hit to third to Robinson, and then helplessly watching him cruise to third on a stolen base and another throwing error by Montero. After the bright spot of throwing out Revere, Montero’s day behind the plate had gone decidely south. Valbuena knocked in the unearned run with a sacrifice fly to Jose Bautista, and the Angels headed to the bottom of the ninth with a comfy 10-4 lead. Dermody headed to the bench with a moral victory, not expecting anything more.
But, you never know, do you?
The Angels chose Brooks Pounders, a young right-hander who’s been up and down with the Angels this year, to mop up. He didn’t bring a very long mop to the mound. He walked Ryan Goins, then gave up a gopher ball to Kevin Pillar, to cut the lead to 10-6. when Rob Refsnyder followed with a ground-rule double to left, Angels’ manager Mike Sciosia decided that mop-up time was over, and brought in his closer, Bud Norris.
What followed was a closer’s nightmare. Zeke Carrera singled to centre, with Refsnyder stopping at third. In one of three crucial at-bats, Russell Martin drove a ball into the hole at short for an infield hit that scored Refsnyder, with Carrera stopping at second. In a second significant at-bat, Justin Smoak, the best hitter on the team all year, made the most of his ground-ball out to the pitcher, on which he had to go to first, moving the runners up. Kendrys Morales worked the count to 3-2 and then drew a walk to load the bases, which set up the double play. That brought Steve Pearce to the plate with the bases loaded and the Jays down by three. Norris went to 2-0 on him, and then in an eery moment of déjá vu Pearce turned on Norris’s next pitch and you knew on contact that it was gone. This time Pearce didn’t have to lean.
So the Jays avoided the sweep at home in the most improbable manner of all, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the ninth to wipe out a 10-4 deficit and walk off a win over the Angels with Steve Pearce’s grand slam home run, his second walk-off grand slam in four days.
If I weren’t yer humble scribe, I’d have turned this one off long before the ninth, and gone out to weed the garden. Luckily for me, duty called, I stuck with it, and look at the reward! Let this be a lesson to you, o ye of little faith.
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