Sunday, July third, when the Blue Jays played the Indians on Troy Tulowitzki Bobblehead Day, the heads that bobbled the most in the stadium were the heads of the Cleveland pitching staff, as they bobbled up and down and from side to side watching the home team spray hits all over the ball park en route to a 17-1 shellacking of the Indians.
With today’s tough and testy late-inning 3-2 loss to the Indians at Regressive Park in Cleveland the season series between the two teams concluded. Leaving aside that 17-1 outlier of July third, the Indians outscored the Blue Jays by a margin of exactly one run—24 to 23—to take four of the other six games in the series.
Projecting today’s standings to season’s end, which is a mug’s game that I just shouldn’t play, but there you are, the Texas Rangers would finish with the best record in the American League. Cleveland in winning the Central Division would finish number two overall, and the other three playoff teams would come from the AL East, Toronto number three overall, and Boston and Baltimore the wild card teams. The seedings for the playoffs would have the Rangers matched up against the winner of the wild card play-in game, the thought of which gives me the willies, and number two—Cleveland—hosting number three, Toronto.
If it turns out that way, the Ontario Ministry of Health better start working right now on opening up extra cardiac beds in Ontario hospitals during the playoffs, for all the fans who’ll succumb during the games. My heart is in perfect shape, apparently and knock on wood, and even I’m worried about whether I could stand a playoff series between two teams so evenly matched and which bring such intensity to every game.
Friday night we had the Osuna smackdown decided on an outfield Keystone Kops routine by the Jays, yesterday we had the one-run teeter-totter for five innings, and today we had the Jose Ramirez redux show, a game that was decided not so much by Ramirez’ bat or Brett Cecil’s pitch location, but by such questions as who called time out, when is a balk a balk, what the hell is a balk and how did this guy get to the show without knowing the answer to that question anyway, and who put the damn stone in the base path near the shortstop position?
And the outcome of the game causes us to ponder yet one more question of cosmic importance, at least in the universe of Blue Jay fandom: Exactly what the hell does Toronto manager John Gibbons think will happen if Marcus Stroman is allowed to throw that magical pitch number 101? Does he think Stroman will collapse in a puddle of water inside his uniform if he throws that fateful pitch? Sorry, Gibbie, you’ve got your Oz characters mixed up: that was the Wicked Witch of the West, not the Strawman (the Stroman) who fizzled away to droplets.
Speaking of Stroman, today’s pitching matchup between Stroman and the Indians’ ace Corey Kluber was supposed to be a barn-burner of a pitching duel, and it was, for the most part, as witnessed by the low score. But the Stroman we saw yesterday, resembling the Marcus Stroman of last September far more than the Marcus Stroman of six weeks ago, was the better pitcher in every respect. He went deeper into the game, he gave up a run less, he only walked one to Kluber’s four, and he even struck out nine to Kluber’s eight.
The only time Stroman was in any trouble at all was in the sixth, when the top three hitters in Manager Terry Francona’s batting order led off the inning with three consecutive base hits to score Cleveland’s first run, and even then he slammed the door on them, allowing Jason Kipnis to reach third on a Jose Ramirez double play before striking out Lonnie Chisenhall to end the modest uprising. Whatever slight trouble he had before the sixth was resolved by his effectiveness in throwing ground ball outs, which led to two earlier double plays. The only time he had two runners on base at the same time was when Cleveland scored the run in the sixth, and the only time a runner reached second on him was in the fourth, when his breaking balls were biting so hard that he threw one past Russell Martin while striking out Ramirez to allow him to reach first, and then wild-pitched him to second. He then struck out Abraham Amonte to end an inning in which he struck out the side and induced a ground-out to first.
After effortlessly dispatching the first six hitters he faced, three of them on strikeouts, Kluber stumbled in the third and fell behind 2-0, thereafter having to pitch from behind until he left the game in the seventh. Melvin Upton led off the inning by breaking the string of putouts with his third home run since joining the Jays, a shot to left that suddenly stirred the blue-shirted multitudes who had invaded Cleveland. After popping up Zeke Carrera to second, he walked Ryan Goins on a 3-1 count.
Toronto fans are always asking why Gibbie doesn’t try such small-ball standbys as the hit-and-run more often, but here’s what can happen when you do. Goins is a fast and savvy base-runner—witness his great play on Saturday to score from second on an infield hit—but Devon Travis is not the best candidate to pull it off, producing a lot of swings and misses as he does. Kluber, maybe adjusting to the play, threw one high and outside. Travis whiffed on it, it was an easy pitch to handle, and Goins was DOA at second. This cost us a third run. Free to swing away, Travis went the other way as he does so well and smacked a double down the line in right. Josh Donaldson followed with another piece of smart, opposite field hitting, a full-count single to right that scored Travis, and would have scored Goins, too, except . . .
The 2-0 lead held up until the Indians got on the board in the sixth, as we’ve seen. Then in the top of the seventh Kluber hit the wall, oddly enough again after two were out—there seems to be an awful lot of that going around these days. After getting Upton to ground out to second, he thwarted a pretty good attempt by Zeke Carrera to bunt his way on, Carlos Santana making a nice play to come in for the pickup and turn around and get the throw to Michael Martinez covering in time for the out.
But then Goins worked a walk on a three-two pitch after Kluber had started out with two called strikes. This was not the beginning of the end but the end of the end for Kluber, to mangle Winston Churchill. Travis singled up the middle, and Josh Donaldson walked on four straight balls. This brought Edwin Encarnacion to the plate, and manager Francona to the mound with the hook for Kluber, who finished with 6.2 innings, two runs, six hits, four walks, eight strikeouts, and 113 pitches.
Into the game came Mike Clevinger, a 25-year-old rookie with Jacob de Grom-like flowing locks down to his shoulders. The reference to de Grom might be appropriate in regard to his talent, as well. While he first came up to the Indians in mid-May, he hasn’t had a lot of appearances, and his record is typical of what you might expect from a little-used, up-and-down rookie. But oh, those minor league numbers: in 2015, with Double A Akron, he was only 9-8 as a starter, with an ERA of 2.73, but had 145 strikeouts and only 40 walks in 158 innings. In 2016, shuttling back and forth between the Triple A Columbus Clippers and the Indians, he is 11-1 in Columbus with an ERA of 3.00, 97 strikeouts and 35 walks in 93 innings. So remember his name.
What Mike Clevinger did not learn in Columbus, or in Akron, or in the majors for that matter, is how not to balk, or even what a balk is, which contributed greatly to the confusion that ensued.
Okay, time out here for a simplified look at the most misunderstood rule in baseball. In essence, with runners on base, the pitcher has to come to a complete stop in his delivery for an appreciable moment, commonly referred to as the “stretch” position, before delivering the ball to the plate. It’s more easily understood if you keep in mind that its purpose is to keep the pitcher from having an unfair advantage over baserunners by creating a moment after which the pitcher when he moves again must throw to the plate. If there were no balk rule, pitchers could fake beginning their motion, enticing the runner to break for the next base on the assumption that he is making a pitch to the plate, and then stop their delivery to the plate and throw ahead of or behind the runner for a pickoff or caught stealing.
Confusion over the balk rule is compounded by the fact that its application is governed by different criteria for left-handed versus right-handed pitchers. The best known depiction of a balk is that a left handed pitcher, once he breaks his hands from the stretch, may only throw to first base if he steps directly toward first with his right leg. If his leg is pointed anywhere other than directly at first base he must throw to the plate. When the runner sees that right leg “break the plane” of 90 degrees to first, he is free to take off for second.
For right-handed pitchers, the movements that could constitute a balk are often so obscure that even the players don’t know why they have been called. In general, the only guideline for base-runners with right-handed pitchers is that they can run as soon as the pitcher separates his hands to begin his pitch, which is (supposedly) the only motion that can end the appreciable pause without a balk being called. But then sometimes allowances are made (I’m convinced) for a pitcher’s individual ideosyncracies, or style.
Dear readers, I am (was) a provincially certified baseball coach, qualified to coach in provincial championships. The above is the sum total of all I know about the balk rule, and I cannot recall a time when a balk was called that I actually knew why. On the other hand, whenever an opposing pitcher did something strange on the mound, we were always quick to call for a balk. Most of the time we had no idea what we were talking about, and just wanted to rattle the pitcher. So there you are; Mike Clevinger, you are not alone.
Back to the game. Edwin at the plate, two outs, bases loaded. Clevinger has a weird rocking motion that you notice instantly when he’s pitching from the stretch position. As his hands settle to his chest, he rocks forward onto his left foot, and back, forward, and back. Now this is all right, so long as he stops the foolishness for one second before breaking his hands to throw the pitch. It wasn’t clear to the viewer that he was doing it right. It wasn’t clear to Edwin that he was doing it right. Suddenly, Edwin and Roberto Perez were in a rather animated conversation, while Edwin was out of the batter’s box. We later learned that Edwin was asking Perez why the pitcher was moving like that, and if what he was doing was legal. Perez apparently told Edwin to tend to his knitting and leave his pitcher to him to handle. All, no doubt, in very elegant Spanish.
Then, while Edwin settled back into the batter’s box, two things happened almost simultaneously. Home plate umpire Ramon de Jesus, also Hispanic, and the first MLB umpire from the Dominican Republic, stepped out from behind the plate with his hand raised in the traditional signal for calling time. But Clevinger had already started his delivery, and only an instant after de Jesus called time, third base umpire Gred Gibson called a balk on Clevinger, advancing the runners and sending Ryan Goins home.
Much confusion ensued, after which it was sorted out that de Jesus had called time before Gibson had called the balk, and so de Jesus ruled that the runners had to return to their bases. This led to visits to the umpires by both managers, a visit to the mound by the Cleveland pitching coach, and a visit to the mound by one of the umpires. Finally, everyone settled down and play resumed, only to have Clevinger strike out Edwin on a called third strike, over bitter remonstrations from Edwin that the pitch was a ball. The consequence of the overturned balk call, obviously, was that it erased an insurance run for the Blue Jays, and the teams went to the bottom of the eighth with the Indians still trailing by only one run.
The confusion over these events lingers, however, because there are three important questions that have yet to be answered. First, why did de Jesus call time? The pitcher was into his motion, Edwin was adamant after the game that he hadn’t asked for time, and there’s no evidence on the video to suggest that Perez asked for time. Unless he sees a stray ball on the field, or a streaker, there is no reason for an umpire to unilaterally call time. The second question is related to the fact that an umpire visited Clevinger on the mound and appeared to be explaining the balk rule and how it had been applied. In what parallel universe is it included in the umpire’s job description to give instructions to players so that they can avoid running afoul of the law? Thirdly, there is no discernible difference in Clevinger’s motion on the “balk” pitch and the ones that preceded it. Why wasn’t a balk called then, if his movement was considered a balk on the pitch that precipitated the confusion?
Yikes! What a mess!
For us, it’s on to the bottom of the eighth, where we don’t want to linger to long over the fact that Gibbie had to act like a manager and let Stroman throw to one hitter, whom he retired, to get to exactly 100 pitches, and then pull him in favour of Brett Cecil to pitch to the left-handed Jason Kipnis, whom he retired on a fly ball to right. And we don’t want to linger over the fact that Francisco Lindor hit a manageable ground ball to short that Goins seemed to have lined up, until it took a great high hop and glanced off his glove, to that of Devon Travis, by which time Lindor was safely across the bag with an infield hit. I mean, who put a pebble there, and how come the ground ball hopped right on it? And we definitely won’t linger over the fact that Jose Ramirez, the villain of Friday night’s piece, lined the first pitch from Cecil over the left field fence for a two-run homer, the lead, and eventually the game, as the Indians jumped into a 3-2 lead.
But we will linger over this: why did Gibby take Stroman out after Stroman had gotten Carlos Santana to hit an easy bouncer to third for the first out? He looked fine. Oh, the lefty-lefty matchup with Kipnis, right? Well, yeah, except that both Lindor and Ramirez are switch-hitters, so the lefty has no real advantage over them. So why not pull Cecil for, say, Scott Feldman or Ryan Tepera? Better still, to this point in the game the threesome of Kipnis, Lindor, and Ramirez had gone exactly two for nine against Stroman, the singles by Kipnis and Lindor in the sixth when Stroman had faltered. Marcus Stroman had more invested in the outcome of the game than anyone else on the field. Why not let him be a man and a major league pitcher and finish up the inning? I’m not saying start the ninth, here, but let a reliever start the last inning, rather than come in to a crisis the inning before. Roll your dice with whoever might be up to it. But don’t take Stroman, who was still effective, out for a reliever whose capability on this given day is untested.
It’s almost an afterthought that Cecil struck out Lonnie Chisenhall to end the inning, and that Cody Allen was making the Jays eat out of his hand like little pet parakeets in the top of the ninth for the save, until he started tiptoeing on the precipice by walking Josh Donaldson and Edwin with two out (who can blame him?) before getting Russell Martin to line out, hard, to Chisenhall in right to end the game and secure his save number 24.
The bottom line is there’s nothing to choose between the Jays and the Indians, as long as you keep the bat out of Ramirez’ hands; a playoff series between these two teams will be a barn-burner; and we’d all better keep our low-dose heart-attack-preventing aspirin close at hand.
On the whole, the Jays go 3-3 on the road trip, which ain’t bad, but could have been better. Too bad the Orioles and the Red Sox lost today too; opportunity lost. Hate that.
Leave a Reply