Editorial note from yer humble scribe: much as I’d like to write reams and reams on these two great games, we had the grand-kids for Easter-egging on Saturday, so, though we all watched a fair bit of the game, I had to organize the big hunt, so was unable to do a game log. Hence, a combined report, based on available sources for Saturday’s game and my usual log for Sunday’s game.
After two games of the most dismal batting display you could imagine, whoever would have thought that the Blue Jays would sweep the weekend series and send the Yankees out of town reeling from two straight losses, with their giant bashers, Aaron the Whacker and Giancarlo the Thwacker, looking decidedly ordinary?
And whoever would have thought that while Judge and Stanton ended up slipping quietly out of town, Toronto’s Kevin Pillar and Justin Smoak would be the talk of the whole league? Smoak is hitting .467 with 2 homers and 8 RBIs, and Pillar is hitting .462 with 1 homer, 1 RBI, 4 runs, and 3 stunning stolen bases.
Meanwhile, the Whacker is batting .200 with no homers and no RBIs. And the Thwacker is hitting .286, with the two homers, 3 hits, and 4 RBIs all from his booming opening day debut, and only a meaningless double in the three games since.
Maybe Toronto’s front office didn’t make a big splash this winter, and maybe it won’t play out to our liking over the whole season, but after this first four-game set with the division-favoured New York Yankees, one thing you’ve gotta say about the 2018 flight of Blue Jays that Messrs. Atkins and Shapiro have assembled is that they sure as hell have some spunk.
Saturday Manager John Gibbons put together a different all-right-handed hitting lineup to face veteran C.C. Sabathia, the wily veteran who famously dissed the Blue Jays and Toronto as a possible destination after re-signing with the Yankees in the off-season. Steve Pearce subbed in for Curtis Granderson in left and led off. Josh Donaldson continued as the DH with the switch-hitter Yangervis Solarte getting the start at third. After two straight games it was time for Russell Martin and Devon Travis to get a break, so Luke Maile got the start behind the plate and Gift Ngoepe found himself starting at second base.
Marco Estrada got his first start of the season and was in fine form. After walking Neil Walker to lead off the game, he induced Judge to hit into a double play. Stanton’s following double was stranded when Didi Gregorius grounded out to third. After that, were it not for New York third baseman Tyler Austin, Estrada would have thrown six innings of one-hit shutout.
But Estrada, as we all know, is a fly-ball pitcher, and vulnerable from time to time to fly balls that leave the yard. On Saturday, first baseman Tyler Austin, way down in the eighth spot in the order, took him deep twice, with one on in the fifth and a solo shot in the seventh.
As a result, though Estrada recorded a quality start, he departed with no decision after seven innings with the game tied at three.
Austin’s first homer erased a two-run Toronto lead cobbled together against Sabathia, who still has all the tools needed to contribute to New York’s rotation. After the two-game drought, Jays’ hitters finally managed to cash in baserunners in the first and third innings, though the run in the third was unearned, allowing Sabathia to depart after five innings having given up only one earned run on 5 hits with 2 walks and 4 strikeouts.
With one out in the first inning, Donaldson finally picked up his first base hit of the season, hitting a booming drive to left centre that cleared the reach of left fielder Billy McKinney, who crashed into the scoreboard in a valiant effort to make the catch. Smoak followed with a single to left that scored Donaldson. It was clear when McKinney handled Smoak’s hit that he wasn’t right, and he had to leave the game to be replaced by Brett Gardner.
McKinney is the second Yankee outfielder to go down in the first 3 games of the season, following Aaron Hicks, who was placed on the 10-day disabled list after the opening game. This is an example of how expectations can meet the reality of the major-league grind: two games and one inning into the season, and the mighty Yankees were suddenly short-handed in the outfield.
In the third inning, Brandon Drury’s throwing error allowed Steve Pearce to reach base leading off. After Sabathia fanned Donaldson, Smoak stepped in and ripped a double into the left-field corner, allowing Pearce to come all the way around from first to score.
After Austin’s home run off Estrada tied it up in the fifth, Sabathia escaped trouble in the bottom of the inning as Solarte hit into an around-the-horn double-play. Donaldson had walked following Pearce’s leadoff strikeout, and moved up on Smoak’s third hit, a soft liner the wrong way into right. So Sabathia left with the game tied after 84 pitches.
In the bottom of the sixth the Jays took the lead again. They benefitted from a second Yankee injury that left Pillar in scoring position with two outs. Pillar had walked after Randal Grichuk’s leadoff groundout. Aledmys Diaz then hit a shot back up the middle that deflected off relief pitcher Adam Warren’s ankle, right to Austin at first who recorded the out while Pillar moved up to second. Warren was unable to continue, and Jonathan Holder was brought in to face Luke Maile. The latter made the most of his first base hit of the season, a sharp liner to left that plated Pillar with the go-ahead run.
Austin tied it up in the seventh with that second dinger off Estrada, and when the Jays couldn’t profit from a one-out single by Granderson off Dellin Betances in the bottom of the seventh, the stage was set for the most dramatic inning of the young season so far for Toronto. Yankees’ catcher Gary Sanchez had helped Betance’s cause by showing off his laser arm in gunning down Granderson who had a great jump trying to steal second but was DOA when Sanchez’ throw was right on the bag.
Ryan Tepera came on for the top of the eighth to relieve Estrada. He pitched effectively to the dangerous top of the Yanks’ order. Neil Walker lined out to centre. Aaron the Whacker took a called third strike. Judge’s one-to-one homer to strikeout ratio is in serious need of some dingers to catch up with the punchouts at this early stage of the season. Tepera was careful with Giancarlo the Thwacker and walked him on four straight. This brought the dangerous Didi Gregorius to the plate, but Tepera put him away with a popup to catcher Maile in foul ground.
Neophyte manager Aaron Boone sent Betances back out for a second inning of work. That was his first mistake. He also left him in the whole inning. That was his second mistake, and Betances, if not Boone, cost the Yanks the game.
The big righty who can throw a hundred-plus but likes to play around with junk fell behind leadoff hitter Yangervis Solarte with two awful low-80s breaking balls, and when he came in with a fast ball Solarte, who hit 18 homers for the Padres last year in their huge ball yard, was all over it, hammering it 455 feet to dead centre, where it smacked off the facing of the third deck into the delirious crowd below.
Solarte will no longer be a new-guy Who Dat for Toronto, not only because of his prodigious blast, but because of the exultant leap he made approaching the plate, and the dance he did going into the dugout. Luckily for Toronto fans, they got a chance to see Solarte bust some more moves just a few minutes later.
Because it was time for the Kevin Pillar show. Perhaps never in Toronto history has a mere insurance run garnered the attention of the whole baseball world on what Pillar pulled off on Betances. After the Yankee reliever struck out Randal Grichuk, Pillar picked up his only hit of the day, a ground single to right.
When Aledmys Diaz fanned for the second out, it looked like the Jays would have to be content with the one-run lead and nail-biting time in the ninth. But Pillar was having none of it. Noticing that Betances was paying little heed to him, he stole second with Maile at the plate, without a throw as the pitch was wild inside. Maile subsequently walked, bringing the so-far light-hitting Gift Ngoepe to the plate. Pillar stole third without a throw. Then Maile stole second, forcing Sanchez to hold the ball with Pillar threatening off third.
Then it happened, the rarest single play in the game: against the worst possible odds, Betances throwing from the stretch on the right side, looking right at Pillar, watching him take the huge lead that the Yanks were allowing him by playing the third baseman Brandon Drury deep. Bouncing on his toes as Betances started to come stretch, suddenly he bolted for home, before the pitcher had settled into his stretch. Instead of stepping off, Betances followed through to the plate, but his throw was wild and the exultant Pillar crossed the plate standing up.
Cue the Yangervis Solarte happy dance again in front of the dugout. He later told the interviewer that he was more excited about the steal of home than he was about his own homer. This guy’s gonna be fun. Maybe more fun than we’ve seen since the departure of the great Muni Kawasaki.
It hardly mattered that Ngoepe went down swinging, as Betances struck out the side while taking a big loss for the Yankees.
The two-run lead made it possible to relax while Roberto Osuna picked up his first save of the year with a clean ten-pitch ninth. Just to put some icing on it, Osuna froze Jays’ nemesis Brett Gardner with a wicked 0-2 fast ball at the bottom of the zone to end the game, leaving the Whacker and the Thwhacker looking on helplessly in vain.
Toronto needed a win badly after the first two losses to New York. This win gave them so much more than their first win of the year. We might look back on it as a harbinger of the season to come. We can only hope.
After Saturday’s exhilirating win there was an altogether different atmosphere going into Sunday’s game. With Marcus Stroman on the hill for his first start of the season, and the Yankees scrambling to fill their lineup card after three injuries in three games, things looked pretty good for the home side.
The lineup behind Stroman reverted to the lineup of the second game, with one exception. Travis, Martin, and Granderson were back in, Donaldson was still at DH with Solarte at third, but Aldedmys Diaz, hitless so far for the series, was given a rest and Ngoepe inserted at shortstop.
Stroman had a bit of trouble finding the plate in the first inning, or, rather, a bit of trouble understanding what plate umpire David Rackley was looking for in a called strike. After Brett Gardner grounded out, he walked the Whacker and the Thwhacker, which isn’t such a bad thing, so long as they don’t come around to score. Then Stroman, Martin, and Rackley started to find themselves more on the same page, and he fanned Didi Gregorius and Neil Walker, in the process showing off some of the wickedest stuff he has.
The Jays wasted a couple of baserunners in the first as well, but maybe it hurt a little more because they got the first two batters on, Devon Travis with a walk and Josh Donaldson with a hard smash off Gregorius’ glove that went out into the field for a base hit. But Yankees’ starter Sonny Gray, throwing his usual steady diet of curve balls, starting homing in on his spots, and fanned Smoak, Solarte, and Granderson, all on wicked hooks.
After Brandon Drury reached on a rushed throwing error by Solarte to lead off the second, Stroman decided to do everything himself, fanning two and making a great play to cover first and make the out on a hard-hit ball that deflected off Justin Smoak right to Travis, who had to make a hurried thow to a sprinting Stroman to nip Tyler Wade just in time.
The Jays jumped into the lead in the bottom of the second, but again it was a little disappointing because of another lost opportunity to inflict more damage on Gray.
With one out Russ Martin drew a walk from the Yankee curveballer. Kevin Pillar followed with a vicious line drive base hit up the middle. This brought Gift Ngoepe to the plate, and he delivered his first hit as a Blue Jay, a ground single to right through the wide open spaces of the shift. Unfortunately, third base coach Luis Rivera decided to test Judge’s arm from right. Bad call, as Judge nailed Martin at the plate, with Pillar coming around to third on the play.
Good job that Devon Travis duplicated Ngoepe’s poke to right, which scored Pillar. Bad job that Martin hadn’t been held at third to score on the hit. So, we got one but could have had two. The threat ended with Donaldson grounding out to second. The good news in all this is that both Ngoepe and Travis managed two-out base hits with runners in scoring position.
It didn’t take long for the good cheer generated by that early lead to dissipate. Well, it took a while, because Stroman fanned Gardner and caught Judge looking to lead off the third. Ah, but it all starts with two outs, and all that. Stanton walked on a 3-1 pitch. Didi Gregorius (him again!) walloped a double to centre that scored Stanton, running with two out. Neil Walker plated Gregorius with an opposite-field grounder through the vacant left side. Brandon Drury capped things off with a huge shot to left centre that scored Walker and topped off the New York lead at 4-1. Just like that. Miguel Andujar ended the inning with a come-backer to Stroman, but the Jays’ showy righty had dug himself a mighty deep hole.
Interesting that in quick succession we saw three two-out base hits with runners in scoring position while facing the shift so beloved by the analytics geeks. Could this be a trend?
After this flurry of scoring the pitchers took command for three full innings. Gray, having gone deep in counts and allowed 10 base runners on 7 hits and 3 walks, couldn’t hang on for what looked like a win. When Justin Smoak led off the fifth inning with a base hit after a 9-pitch at-bat on Gray’s 89th pitch, Yanks’ manager Aaron Boone had seen enough and called for the imposing Chad Greene, who stranded Smoak by fanning Solarte and Granderson, and retiring the side with a groundout by Randal Grichuk. Greene went on to fan two more in the sixth for another impressive performance, though he couldn’t keep Pillar from chalking up another solid base hit with one out.
Stroman finished off with 7 outs in a row after Drury’s homer, three grounders in the fourth and two strikeouts (notably Judge and Stanton) and a deep fly from Gregorius in the fifth, to finish up a largely effective outing at 85 pitches, with all the damage limited to the Yankees’ third inning.
Danny Barnes, who’s settling in to the first-man-in slot in the bullpen, kept the Yanks off the board in their sixth, allowing only the very effective Drury to reach on another base hit.
If you’d asked me how this game was going to turn out after six innings, I would have said it was a no-hoper, given the rest of the horses snorting to get into action in the New York bullpen. Turns out that the more impactful bullpen performance came from the home team’s relievers.
After a not-great first appearance in the opener, John Axford came in to pick up the ball from Barnes, and he displayed an erratic effectiveness that might come in handy this season.
He cruised through a first-pitch groundout by Austin Romine, and froze Brett Gardner on some heat with nasty movement. Then he walked Judge. Then he walked Stanton. Maybe he knew something we didn’t, because he retired Gregorius on a first-pitch foul popup to first.
Greene turned it over to Tommy Kahnle, who’d thrown up an effective four outs against the Jays on Friday night. This time, not so much. He walked leadoff man Josh Donaldson on a 3-1 pitch, bringing Justin Smoak to the plate. Kahnle fell behind again with a sailing changeup, so he decided to come in with his heater before he fell farther behind. It was a heater all right, and got a little hotter when Smoak squared it up and sent it over the centre-field fence to cut the Yankee lead to one. Gardner, playing centre today with Stanton in left field for the first time in his career, didn’t think the line shot was out, and had himself all lined up to play the double off the wall, but then his shoulder sag told us all that the ball had cleared the wall.
Kahnle retired Solarte and Granderson, and then gave it up to David Robertson, who got the third out with two pitches to Randal Grichuk.
Like Axford, Tyler Clippard showed a little useful wildness in the top of the eighth, walking Drury (smart move!) with one out, and then retiring the side on 18 pitches. Little did we know that he had set himself up for a nice bullpen win.
Robertson, who has historically been very tough on the Blue Jays, came out to pitch the bottom of the eighth, having plenty of gas in the tank after only two pitches in the seventh.
Russ Martin led off with a sharp line single to centre. Trying to get something going to manufacture the tying run, manager Gibbons elected to start Martin on a 3-1 pitch with Kevin Pillar at the plate, but Pillar flied out to centre and Martin had to retreat to first. With one out, Gibbons changed the strategy, and had Martin holding when Aledmys Diaz, inserted at shortstop after Kendrys Morales hit for Ngoepe in the sixth, finally squared up his first base hit of the season, a booming double to dead centre. Unlike the second inning, Luis Rivera played it safe and held Martin up at third. The runners had to hold when Devon Travis hit a come-backer to Robertson for the second out.
Now we come to what was styled as Aaron Boone’s first managerial mistake for the Yankees, the decision to issue a free pass to Josh Donaldson to load the bases and pitch to Justin Smoak. I’ve already said that I think he made a big mistake with Betances in Saturday’s game, and I don’t think this one was such a big deal. It was an either/or, with little upside either way, except that with the bases loaded you’ve set up the force at every base. Pretty standard stuff, to me.
The manager’s damned either way on this one. If he got burned by Donaldson, they’d say “why not put him on?” When he got burned by Smoak, it’s “why walk Donaldson and let him hit?” So let’s lay off Boone on this one, okay?
So this is by way of getting around to the fact that with one out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth inning, Justin Smoak fouled off three knuckle curves and held off on one in the dirt, while running the 3-2 count to 8 pitches, and virtually forced Robertson to throw a fast ball, that he belted over the centre-field fence for a grand slam and a 7-4 lead. Solarte flied out to right, but that horse was gone, baby, so don’t bother with the barn door.
Since Roberto Osuna had pitched in the last two games, Gibbie tabbed Seung Hwan Oh to close out the game, and Oh finished it off with panache, ending the game on a fly ball to centre by Stanton after giving up a soft line single to left by Judge with two outs.
So after the first four games of the season, the Jays find themselves at .500, with two wins and two losses, and how satisfying is it that the two wins came after the two losses, and that both came on exciting late-inning uprisings?
The fans who’ve already written off the Jays for the year might better have a rethink.
This could be interesting.
And did the Yankees look this weekend like they have a lock on the division?
Looks like I did write reams and reams after all. Oh well.
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