That Mookie Betts! If you could just clone him! Or maybe put out a contract? Anybody know anybody?
Aaron Sanchez has put together “almost” great games a couple of times this year, and he sure was looking forward to putting all the pieces together last night in the second game of the 3-game Toronto series at the TV Dome.
So it’s kinda too bad that he went 2-0 on Betts, the amazingly-talented Boston leadoff hitter, in the first inning last night, and had to throw a fast ball to get a strike. It was even more too bad that plate umpire Scott Barry didn’t even get to call that fast ball a strike, because Betts knocked it into the left-field seats before you could half get the volume adjusted on your TV set.
Instead of a nice tidy 14-pitch side-in-order affair, the Boston first for Sanchez turned into a messy 24-pitch business in which he had to pitch from the stretch for the last two outs because Teoscar Hernandez, not very comfortable in right field at the TV Dome, was handcuffed for an error by a Hanley Ramirez line drive.
It took a quick glove at third by Yangervis Solarte when the ball took a tricky last-minute hop to get a force on Ramirez at second for the second out. Then Sanchez decided to do it himself, blowing Rafael Devers away on high heat on a 3-2 pitch.
Wait, let’s back up a minute: Hernandez in right? That’s correct. John Gibbons decided that it was time to give Randal Grichuk a rest against the left-handed Eduardo Rodriguez, and still keep the lineup loaded with right-handed hitters, so it was Hernandez in right and Steve Pearce in left.
Too bad that the move had such an immediate effect, but at least it didn’t cost Toronto a second run.
Devers, who would have plenty of trouble and not much success in this game, gave Boston’s 1-0 lead back in the bottom of the first with a terrible throw into the stands that allowed Pearce to score from second on what was ruled an infield hit by Justin Smoak.
Pearce had gone one better than Betts by attacking the first pitch of the game from Rodriguez, though he didn’t hit it out, but smacked it off the wall in left. About halfway to second, Pearce realized that Andrew Benintendi had played the ball really well off the wall, and he was in trouble.
The throw beat Pearce to the bag, and second baseman Eduardo Nunez turned to swipe the tag on Pearce, but, as the Newfoundlanders say, there he was, gone! Pearce had launched himself into a head-first slide, but as he hit the dirt he rolled over to his right and grabbed the bag with his right hand, looking up at the sky, and the ump, with obvious relief.
It wasn’t Chris Coghlan doing a somersault over Yadier Molina at the plate, but until something better comes along it’ll do as the slide of the year. So after Hernandez hit a lazy fly to right for the first out, Justin Smoak ripped one down the line to third. Devers dove on both knees to the line, snagged the ball nicely, got up, pumped once for second, changed his mind, and then threw wild to first, with the ball going into the stands. Pearce came in to score, Smoak was awarded second, and the game was tied.
Sanchez settled in for the second and retired the side on 2 strikeouts and an easy grounder to second. Rodriguez, though, had to pitch around a second Devers error in the Jays’ half of the inning. After Benintendi made a nice running catch on a liner to left by Kevin Pillar for the second out, Devers fumbled a grounder by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and then threw wild to first. He was charged with an error on the catch. Diaz ended the inning by also hitting a grounder to Devers, who threw him out at first after another double clutching motion before his throw.
Don’t know whether this is a chronic thing with Devers, or if he was just rattled, but he did it on nearly every ball he handled last night.
After the two runs in the first inning, the game settled into a pitchers’ duel, much like last night’s, but with neither team playing from behind.
After the Hernandez error on Ramirez in the first, Sanchez retired 11 of 12 through the end of the fourth, with 5 strikeouts. It’s interesting that the Sox had come into this series with the lowest strikeout total in the league, but they had gone down on strikes 14 times in game one, with Jay Happ ringing up ten, and they were on their way to another ten last night, 8 racked up by Sanchez.
After Pearce scored in the first, only the Devers error on Gurriel led to a Jays’ baserunner before the fifth inning, as Rodriguez also set down 11 of 12. Rodriguez had his ground-ball thing going, mostly, recording 6 outs on ground balls in that stretch, as well as 2 strikeouts of his own.
Well, something had to give, and it did, in the fifth inning, but it didn’t give very much. After all the fuss and bother each team had picked up an additional run, and the game was now tied at two.
Sailing into the fifth, after the next three batters Sanchez had a run in and was looking at runners on second and third and nobody out. Jackie Bradley Jr. drew a leadoff walk on a 3-1 pitch. Sanchez tried to go down and in on Christian Vazquez and hit him to put a second runner on. That brought the most dangerous Boston hitter this series, Brock Holt, to the plate. “Most dangerous hitter in the series?” Brock Holt? Are you kidding me?
Holt once again came through. He knocked out a double to left, his opposite field, scoring Bradley with the lead run and sending Vazquez to third. Mookie Betts flew out to medium-depth right and Hernandez with the catch and Vazquez at third sort of stared each other down. Vazquez decided to hold on to the bag rather than test Hernandez’ arm. Sanchez then walked Benintendi on a 3-2 pitch to load the bases with only the one out.
I don’t know what Jays pitching coach Pete Walker said when he came out for a mound visit, but it must have been magical, because the slugger Ramirez hit the first pitch on the ground right to Gurriel, who started an inning-ending double play to save Sanchez from further damage.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. , who started the double play, for all practical purposes manufactured the tying run for Toronto in the bottom of the fifth. With one out he hit a grounder up the middle. Nunez made a nice play to get it and throw to first, but Gurriel beat it out for an infield hit. Then, whether it was a botched hit and run with Aledmys Diaz at the plate or a straight steal, Gurriel broke for second on a pitch in the dirt. Diaz swung over it, and Vazquez couldn’t corral it, so the young Cuban was credited with his first stolen base.
After Diaz grounded out to third with Gurriel holding second, Pearce worked the count to 3-2 on Rodriguez, and Gurriel broke with the pitch to score easily as Pearce lined a single over Holt at shortstop. Tied again, at 2-2.
For Aaron Sanchez, his last inning, the sixth, was, briefly, the worst of times, then the best of times. For the second inning in a row he started off with a hit batsman; this time it was J. D. Martinez. Then there was a whole lot of the best of times: Devers fanned on high heat on 0-2, Nunez fanned on high heat on 0-2, and then Bradley Jr., after looking at a steady diet of more fast balls, was caught looking on a beautiful 2-2 curve ball. For Sanchez, it was six innings pitched, 2 runs, 3 hits, 2 walks, 2 hit batsmen, and 8 strikeouts on 96 pitches.
Not bad for a start that began with a leadoff home run to Mookie Betts.
The Jays’ sixth was also the last inning for Rodriguez, but it didn’t go quite so well for him. He had a problem with the first batter, in fact on the first pitch, but it was a slightly bigger problem. Yangervis Solarte, who has been struggling at the plate since his good start, nearly jumped at a first-pitch hanging slider, chest-high, right down the middle. He got all of it, and deposited it in the second deck in left, and for the first time in the game Toronto had the lead, and Solarte was dancing again.
Would the Toronto bullpen be able to hold the lead for Aaron Sanchez?
Well, that question was answered pretty quickly. Sadly for the Blue Jays it was “no”. Danny Barnes came in to pitch the seventh and let the side down for the first time this season.
Barnes got the first out, but it was a loud one. Christian Vazquez hit one to deep centre that Kevin Pillar had to run a long way to flag down. That brought up the smoking hot Brock Holt, who lined an 0-2 pitch into centre, setting the table for Mookie Betts, who took a high fast ball for a called strike, and then tied into a second fast ball on the outside corner, and drove it over the fence into the bullpen in right field for a two-run homer that gave the Sox the lead again.
Barnes continued to struggle, had to be removed, finally, and it was only by the grace of whatever, that Seung-Hwan Oh was able to escape the inning without further damage. Barnes walked Benintendi and then Ramirez, while Benintendi stole second and third. The Ramirez walk was it for Barnes, and John Gibbons called on Oh to take over, runners at first and third with only one out.
Oh went to 3-2 on J.D. Martinez before losing him to load the bases. This brought up Devers and an uncharacteristic mistake by Andrew Benintendi at third. Devers hit a medium-depth fly ball to right, under which Hernandez camped. For some reason, Benintendi broke early from third, and was going back to the bag when the ball was caught, so he couldn’t attempt to score on what should have been an easy sacrifice fly, given Benintendi’s speed.
Nunez hit a hard ground ball right at Justin Smoak to end the inning, with the Red Sox ahead 4-3 on Betts’ home run, but a good job by Oh and a mistake by Benintendi at third kept things from getting much worse.
This might as well have been a softball game, because with the seventh inning finished, so was the game. The Jays’ bullpen kept Boston off the board with Tim Mayza and Ryan Tepera pitching around yet another base hit by Brock Holt off the lefty Mayza, for pete’s sake, in the eighth, and Tyler Clippard pitching around a 2-out walk to Martinez in the ninth.
More importantly, though, Joe Kelly in the eighth and Craig Kimbrel in the save situation in the ninth kept the Jays off the bases, and that was the ball game.
So last night the Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox three to one. Sadly, with the addition of Mookie Betts’ numbers to the mix, the result was Boston plus Betts four, Blue Jays 3.
Two one-run games, both 4-3, so far in the series. With Chris Sale on the mound tonight, winning the series is not going to be easy for Toronto, but we can hope.
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