(With apologies to the beloved childrens’ novelist Judith Viorst, whose wonderful title of her best-known book I have ripped off above.)
(And with apologies to Rob Refsnyder, who will surely see better days in a Toronto uniform.)
A couple of weeks ago, looking ahead to this weekend inter-league series in Toronto between the Blue Jays and the Pittsburgh Pirates, I caught myself thinking that it would be interesting to see an unfamiliar team in town, and always fun to watch major league baseball, but that the series wouldn’t have much meaning beyond the games themselves.
Now it looks a little different. For all the doom-saying, Toronto continues to slog along, playing slightly better than .500 ball since the All-Star Game at 16-14, and still not definitively out of the hunt for a wild card slot. And the Pirates, surprisingly, while coming in one game under .500 for the season, and seven and a half games behind the second wild card slot, find themselves only three games out of the division lead in the winning-challenged National League Central, where the defending World Champion Cubs hold the lead with a mediocre 59-54 record.
So, a series that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t mean a whole lot, but on the other hand certainly does not mean nothing.
The matchup tonight would seem to have favoured the home team, with marquee starter Marcus Stroman taking the hill against Canadian-by-descent Jameson Taillon. However, you can never discount the emotional response of a “home-boy” making his first start on Canadian soil. Taillon, born in Lakeland Florida of Canadian parentage on both sides, has been vocal in his feelings for his country of origin once removed, and had intended to pitch for the Canadian team in the World Baseball Classic, to repeat his participation for Canada in the 2013 tournament.
Taillon has had to traverse a rocky road to have become a semi-regular member of the Pittsburgh rotation in 2016, and a solid starter for the Pirates this year: Tommy John surgery in 2014. Recovery from a hernia operation which cost him all of 2015. And this year, surgery for testicular cancer on May 8, followed by only three weeks of recovery before making his first rehab start. Despite all, tonight he was making his eleventh consecutive start without missing an assignment since his return from the cancer surgery.
Taillon is a big strong guy who relies on a two-seam fast ball that usually runs upwards of 95 mph; when he throws a four-seamer, it can reach 97 and better. His mound opponent, Marcus Stroman, well, you know, bend but don’t break, as always.
After a first inning in which both sides went down in order, we realized that there was a real problem with Russell Martin, who had come out of the box slowly on his grounder to third in the bottom of the first; he came out for the warmups, took them from Stroman, made a weak throw down, and then was removed/removed himself from the game, causing a short delay while Raffy Lopez, who had never caught Stroman before, suited up and took some warmup throws on the field.
After getting three groundouts in the first inning, with Lopez behind the plate Stroman varied his approach, retiring the side in order again on a fly ball to left, a strikeout, and another groundout.
The Jays struck for a run in the bottom of the second to take the lead, but could have had more, as they missed an opportunity to get a real leg up on Taillon and the Pirates. Justin Smoak led off with a solid single to right centre. Steve Pearce was hitting cleanup tonight in the absence of Kendrys Morales, who, along with Nori Aoki, is fighting a flu bug and was unavailable. Pearce walked, and was followed by Zeke Carrera, who hit one hard the opposite way to left, but it stayed in the park for the first out. This brought Ryan Goins, hitting sixth tonight—strange things happening in the absence of Morales—to the plate. Goins hit a rope single to centre, but Smoak had to stop at third, loading the bases for Kevin Pillar, hitting behind Goins in seventh. Pillar hit a sacrifice fly to centre that scored Smoak, but Rob Refsnyder struck out—remember that—to end the inning.
I’d like to pause here for a consideration of the effect of the departure of Edwin Encarnacion on this year’s Blue Jays. The immediate comparison that want to make is between Encarnacion’s increasingly productive year with Cleveland, and Kendrys Morales’ record with Toronto, since that was the straight-up swap, if you will, of free agents that took place. This comparison favours Cleveland, both in terms of the numbers and in terms of clutch reliablity. While Morales hit a few dramatic shots earlier in the season, it’s obvious that his ability to deliver with runners on base is significantly less than Encarnacion’s, with his vulnerability to the breaking ball the obvious problem.
But the real comparison should be between Encarnacion and Justin Smoak, who took over from Encarnacion as the regular first baseman, and here the comparison is definitely skewed toward the Blue Jays, except in one important respect, which is actually my point here. In all other respects, Smoak has it over Edwin: five more homers, six more RBIs, hitting thirty points higher and flirting with .300 the whole year. When you add to that the fact that Smoak is markedly better defensively than Edwin, who’s not even playing in the field in Cleveland, where Carlos Santana has his occasional adventures at first, he’s four years younger, and way cheaper, it’s no contest, as much as I love Edwin Encarnacion.
Except. The only thing Encarnacion has over Smoak is that, though he’s not much faster, he’s a more instinctive and opportunistic base runner than Justin Smoak, and therein lies the only problem we’ve had with Smoak this year. Like David Ortiz in his last years with Boston, if Smoak leads off an inning with a base hit, it slows down the whole operation. Thus, tonight, he couldn’t score on Goins’ base hit after moving up on the walk. If Pillar comes to the plate with a run already in and runners on first and second, or even first and third, his approach is different, as he’s not governed by the notion of, above all else, get that run in from third. Maybe something different, and better, happens.
After this rather long digression, we need to turn to the nub of tonight’s game, the horrendous events of the Pirates’ third inning, during which the Jays threw this game away, pure and simple.
It’s important to set the context here, to understand how frustrating it was, for both Marcus Stroman and his team, that this game went south all in the one inning. Stroman had retired six in a row to start the game, on 26 pitches. Three pitches into the inning and he had seven in a row, shortstop Jordy Mercer flying out to centre. Three more pitches into the inning and he was 1-2 on John Jaso, who was hitting .212. Then Stroman threw one down and in, headed for Jaso’s back foot. Following typical modern baseball practice, Jaso didn’t move a muscle, and let the ball nick his foot, in violation of the rule that players have to make a reasonable attempt to get out of the way of the ball. Whatever.
The Jays asked for a review, but Jaso was awarded first. Franco Cervelli came to the plate, a catcher, mind you, and no twinkletoes he. Cervelli bounced one to Rob Refsnyder at second. Therewas one out already, Cervelli a perfect candidate for turning two. But Refsnyder uncorked a wild throw that sailed past Goins into short left, Jaso went on to third, and Cervelli was safe at first. With a clean exchange, the inning should have been over.
Adam Frazier then hit one hard to Donaldson at third, so hard that it spun him around and he went to his knees. But he was still able to fire a bullet to Refsnyder at second, though it wasn’t likely they’d turn two on the play. But after review they hadn’t recorded any outs, because it was clear that Refsnyder came off the bag before catching the ball. Cervelli was safe at second, Frazier at first, and Jaso in with the first Pirate run, to tie the game. Refsnyder was tagged with his second error of the inning on the play.
Josh Hamilton singled into right centre, a ball that Pillar had to hustle to cut off to keep from going to the wall. Cervelli scored for the Pirates’ lead and Frazier came around to third. Andrew McCutchen hit one in almost exactly the same direction as Harrison’s ball, but harder. Pillar was on his horse, and nearly tracked it down, but it deflected off his glove to Carrera playing right. Frazier scored, but Hamilton, who had to wait on a possible catch, only made it to third, whence he scored on a sacrifice fly by Josh Bell—remember, there was still only one out! But of course if Pillar had held the ball, and if Refsnyder had stayed on the bag . . . If . . .
Unfortunately, at this point McCutchen was removed from the game limping, and Starling Marte came in to run for him, but he was stranded at second when David Freese struck out to finally end the agony.
The final tally was four runs, all unearned, on two hits and the two errors by Refsnyder. Jose Bautista gave the Jays some faint hope by homering to lead off the bottom of the third, cutting the lead to 4-2. Raffy Lopez, hitting in Martin’s spot, singled following Bautista, and Donaldson hit one deep but catchable to Marte in centre, but Taillon, who’d had an extended rest on the bench in the top of the inning, settled down and retired Smoak and Pearce on a popup and a strikeout.
Believe it or not, that’s basically the whole story of the ball game. After the Lopez single, Taillon mowed down eleven Jays in a row, which took him to the top of the seventh. Zeke Carrera led off with a double over Frazier’s head in left, and then Ryan Goins hit one hard up the middle for a base hit. Marte was playing shallow in centre, and Jays’ third-base coach Luis Rivera played it safe and brought Carrera to a screeching halt. That was it for Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle, and Taillon was finished after a tidy six innings plus two batters, responsible for two base runners, having given up two runs on six hits with one walk and seven strikeouts on 93 pitches.
Hurdle gave the ball to George Kontos with the tying runs at first and third and nobody out, in what became the only other defining moment of this game when Kontos turned Toronto away without a run and stranded Carrera and Goins. Pillar popped out. Refsnyder fanned (remember that). Jose Bautista grounded into a fielder’s choice.
After that, Juan Nicasio gave up a two-out single to Smoak in the eighth, and closer Felipe Rivero gave up a two-out single to Pillar in the ninth, but both were stranded, Pillar, when Refsnyder made the final out with, not his third, but his fourth, strikeout of the game. Refsnyder fanned one other time that didn’t figure into the narrative, so his day ended up like this: two errors that allowed four unearned runs, oh for four at the plate with four strikeouts leaving five runners on base.
Was it a “horrible, terrible” and so on day for Rob Refsnyder? You can be the judge of that.
As for Marcus Stroman, he deserved better. Boy, did he deserve better! After the third, he gave up a two-out base hit to Harrison in the fifth, he walked Bell in the sixth but erased him with a double-play ball. He gave up a single to Frazier in the eighth but he erased him with a double-play ball.
Wait a minute, did I say the eighth? I sure did. Marcus Stroman pitched eight innings of shutout ball today (except for the four unearned runs in the third), giving up four hits and one walk while fanning four on 109 pitches. Too bad MLB doesn’t have a pitching category for virtual wins!
At the very least, Toronto has to win every series from here on in. They just made their job a little harder by throwing away game one of this series to the Pirates.
Tomorrow they get to try to win the first of two in a row to win this series, and they do it behind call-up Chris Rowley, who will be making his major-league debut on the mound for Toronto. Gulp.
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