Beyond the surface significance of winning one after losing a tough one, of his mates bailing out an Aaron Sanchez hard done by, and banishing the bottom-of-the-ninth heroics of the Cleveland Indians, the story of today’s nerve-tingling 6-5 Blue Jays’ win over the Indians, is largely a tale of a redemptive moment for Roberto Osuna, on the one hand, and of my growing concern over Devon Travis and the rare but sometimes fatal baseball malady of “the yips”.
First, to Osuna: it all looked far too eerily familiar. The young, earnest, vulnerable figure of Roberto Osuna standing with his back to the plate performing the final act of his preparation for taking the mound, a devout and child-like pose in prayer to his god to put thunder in his strong right arm and throw ashes in the face of his enemies. I expect that Osuna’s prayers get routed to the Old Testament god of punishment and retribution. I’m just not sure if the New Testament Jesus is all that interested in whether Roberto Osuna smites his tormentors again.
Blaring figures on the scoreboard showed the situation Osuna had come into. Once again his team had asked him to protect a one-run lead. Once again the team was away from the friendly surroundings of Toronto’s home grounds, facing the bottom of the ninth, with victory only a called third strike away, but more to the point, defeat only a swing of the bat away.
Ominously waiting to take their place at centre stage for the Indians were two familiar figures, Jose Ramirez and Tyler Naquin, two of the first three hitters that Osuna would face in his quest for save number 28 out of 31. The same Jose Ramirez and Tyler Naquin who had rained their own brand of thunder down on Osuna the night before, Ramirez homering to tie the game, and Naquin, improbably, racing around the bases while the Jays’ fielders frantically tried to corral the ball and prevent him from scoring the winning run. Even more ominously, they would bracket Lonnie Chisenhall in the batting order. The Lonnie Chisenhall who had ended for Aaron Sanchez’ quest for his thirteenth win with his fourth-inning three-run homer.
This time, Roberto Osuna dug a little deeper, went to his mightiest weapons, perhaps even supplicated better to his god, but he did the job. Quickly ahead of Ramirez with a one-two count, Osuna tried three times to put him away, twice with the four- seamer and once with the cutter. Then he went to the slider and Ramirez hit a lazy fly ball to left, under which Zeke Carrera camped for the catch. There must have been a special note next to Chisenhall’s name, because Osuna threw him five straight four seamers. He cut and missed on the first, took the second for a ball, fouled off the next two, and then fanned on the fifth. Two out, and only Naquin, the magical, the anointed, Tyler Naquin, to go. Naquin took two balls to jump ahead in the count, swung and missed for strike one, fouled one off, and meekly, miraculously, bounced out to Darwin Barney at third. Once again, five four-seamers in a row served to do the job. Osuna paused to give thanks for his magical arm and his amazing good fortune, and went to meet his catcher, the ghosts of Friday night vanishing in the mist.
As I read over what I wrote yesterday about the unfortunate role that Devon Travis’ fielding played in the Jays’ loss to the Indians Friday night, there does seem to be an air of the prophetic about it. For the second day in a row an egregious, unforced error by the young second baseman at an important juncture in the game brought into focus again my concerns about what is happening to him in the field.
Last night it was Francisco Liriano’s task to weather the effects of a Travis error, or rather a second Travis error. He survived the first one unscored on, but not the second, in a game that was decided by one run.
Tonight it was Aaron Sanchez who was victimized. Pitching with the lead since the Jays’ second inning, he was working with a comfortable 5-0 margin. He had faced the minimum nine batters over the first three innings while striking out four. The only glitch came in the third when, ironically, the usually flawless Ryan Goins booted an easy ground ball off the bat of Abraham Almonte. Sanchez and Goins exchanged the appropriate gestures of brotherly team-mates, Goins clearly indicating his apologies, and Sanchez responding that he’d pick up his team-mate, which he did two pitches later. Chris Gimenez hit a grounder right at Goins near the bag that he easily converted into a 6-3 double play to redeem himself and end the inning.
In the top of the fourth Sanchez lost his concentration and walked the leadoff hitter Carlos Santana on a three-two pitch. Then it happened. Jason Kipnis hit a hard grounder right at Devon Travis, who picked it cleanly, turned to second and snapped a throw that whizzed right by Goins for a throwing error. Not only was the double play missed, but Sanchez had his first two base-runners on with nobody out.
That opened the floodgates. Francisco Lindor hit a single to centre for the Indians’ first hit off Sanchez. Santana running from second stumbled after rounding the bag, and had to be held. Mike Napoli hit a deep sacrifice fly to centre that scored Santana and moved Kipnis up to second. Ramirez singled to centre for the Indians’ second hit and second run, scoring Kipnis. and moving Lindor to second. On a full count, Lonnie Chisenhall, who has burned the Jays before, hit a three-run homer to right, and Cleveland had five runs on just three hits. After striking out Naquin, Sanchez gave up a single to Almonte before Chris Gimenez lined out hard to Goins at short. In the first three innings Sanchez had thrown just 37 pitches, in the fourth he threw forty, the Indians tied the game, and you knew that this was it for Aaron Sanchez today. There would be no thirteenth win today, and the bullpen was facing five innings of work to keep the game in reach.
By the rules of scoring, you are not allowed to assume the completion of a double play if there is an error on the front end of the play. Therefore, only Santana’s run was unearned: if the throw had been accurate, he would have been out, and not on base to score on Napoli’s sac fly, which, by the way, would have been the third out of the inning if the double play had been made. Lindor’s single before Napoli’s fly ball would have been an inconsequential two-out base hit with nobody on. So in the books it’s four earned runs, but in the ledger of common sense, none of those runs were Sanchez’ fault.
There’s no question that Travis’ error on the double play ball changed the complexion of both the inning and the game. I’m not sure how much of a sample size you need before determining that someone is suffering from the yips, but it doesn’t strike me as impossible that he could be developing them.
The phenomenon of “the yips” looms large in golf, where it refers to someone who has totally lost the ability to sink even the easiest of putts. (Is it still the yips if you never could sink easy putts? Just askin’.) Less well known is its application in baseball, where it refers specifically to the psychological condition that makes a player unable to make even the shortest throw, in fact especially the shortest throw, accurately.
There are a number of interesting, even startling cases of the yips in the chronicles of the modern era of major league baseball. They can bedevil anyone, but the most notorious cases involve pitchers and catchers, for obvious reasons, and second basemen, which seems odd, until you reflect on the fact that the second baseman has the “easiest” range of throws to make—the easier the throw, the more horrifying if you mess it up. The more you mess it up, the harder it is to do it right.
Steve Blass was an all-star pitcher with the Pirates in the late sixties/early seventies, who actually gave his name to the syndrome, as it is known by some as “the Steve Blass disease”. His career was ruined once and for all by a complete lack of control once it took on its full force. Another more recent pitcher, Rick Ankiel of the Cardinals, was forced to abandon his mound career, but he went to the minors and recreated himself as an outfielder and made it back to the majors that way. Ironically, he was feared defensively for his strong arm.
There is a history of switching to the outfield, which is interesting because it seems the longer throws which require less pinpoint accuracy are often not affected by the problem. Two all-star second baseman, Chuck Knoblauch of the Twins, and Steve Sax of the Dodgers, both finished out their careers as outfielders. In their cases it didn’t hurt that they were both good hitters, with Knoblauch in particular occasionally contesting the American League batting title, finishing at .333 in 1995, runnerup to Edgar Martinez of the Mariners.
There are at least two cases of catchers being affected by the yips as well. Mackey Sasser, who caught for the Mets, oddly lost his ability to throw after being involved in a severe collision at the plate with Jim Presley of the Braves. Sasser was absolutely unable to throw the ball accurately back to the pitcher unless he tapped his glove on the ground four times before making the throw, introducing an element of obsessive-compulsive disorder into the problem. When Brett Butler, who must rank right up there with Pete Rose on the nice guy scale, was with the Giants, he famously stole third base once while Sasser was going through his ritual.
Geovany Soto, who is playing currently with the Angels, has developed a bizarre and complex combination of style and ritual to compensate for being affected by what players now refer to as “the thing”. As he receives a pitch, he falls forward onto his knees, and then throws the ball back to the pitcher (or even to a base on an attempted steal) with only arm action; the follow-through makes him look like he has thrown off the wrong foot. Back in the days when gender sensitivity had not crossed the horizon of the baseball world, his throwing style would have been described as “throwing like a girl”. Yet Soto has resurrected his career, signing a minor league contract with the White Sox for 2015 and playing his way onto the major league roster, where he played well enough to make a deal with the Angels as a free agent for this year. He’s currently hitting .269 for them, and has caught almost 190 innings, but his caught stealing record isn’t great: he’s only thrown out 6 of 31 attempted steals.
Only time will tell if this “thing” is temporary with Travis, or if he’s really afflicted. In the meantime, looking just at last night’s and tonight’s adventures in the field, it’s getting to the point where I’m thinking “hey, we’re in a pennant race here”.
Luckily for Travis, Sanchez, and the entire Blue Jays cohort, Edwin Encarnacion immediately set things to rights in the top of the fifth. Leading off, he hit an 0-1 pitch from Indians’ starter Josh Tomlin about as hard as you can hit a ball, and just like that the Jays had a six-five lead. With nobody out in the top of the fifth, it was beyond credence that the final score would be 6-5, but that’s how it worked out.
Now, how did it get there? After being nicked for singles by Travis and Encarnacion in the first, Tomlin, who had pitched well against the Jays previously, was marked up for two runs by the Jays in the second, which were delivered by Travis, who collected two RBIs on a little dribbler to third that went for an infield hit.
Here’s how that little sleight-of-hand went down: with two outs, Darwin Barney blooped one into centre for a single. With the outfield pulled in because Manager Terry Francona’s staff presumably checks all the stats but doesn’t watch much video, Ryan Goins pounded a double over Lonnie Chisenhall’s head in right. Chisenhall played the ball back in really quickly, and Barney had to stop at third. Travis then hit a tricky little hopper to third on which Barney, running with two outs, scored easily. But when Goins, rounding third, saw third baseman Jose Ramirez miss picking the ball up with his bare hand, he judged that it would go far enough behind Ramirez that no one could get to it in time, and he just steamed on to the plate and gave Travis a second RBI on an infield hit, a brilliant piece of base-running.
The Jays piled on Tomlin more decisively in the third when Russell Martin hit a one-out solo homer to centre. Troy Tulowitzki followed with a double to right centre, but was caught in a rundown when Michael Saunders hit a grounder to second. It’s clear from the way Tulo’s running the bases that his calf issue isn’t really resolved yet. With Saunders on first on the fielder’s choice, Melvin Upton unleashed his second homer as a Jay, a blast to right centre that upped the Toronto lead to 5-0.
By the time the dust cleared from the Indian uprising in the fourth and Edwin’s homer in the fifth, both starters were gone, and the rest of the game became a competition between the two bullpens to see which could post the most zeros on the scoreboard. In their turn Dan Otero, Brian Shaw, Zach McAllister and Jeff Manship shut out the Jays the rest of the way, allowing five hits and no walks while striking out four.
Joe Biagini, the valuable rule 5 property who has certainly earned his keep, pitched the fifth and sixth for the Jays, giving up only a two-out double to Chisenhall in the sixth, to earn credit for the win. For those of you who have always wondered about the awarding of a win, a starting pitcher has to complete five innings and leave with his team in the lead to qualify for a win. That would include, for example, the starter for a home team that would finish his outing with the top of the fifth in a losing cause, but then see his team rally to retake the lead in the bottom of the fifth. If the game is in the hands of the bullpen, whoever is the “pitcher of record” when the winning run is scored receives the win.
So Biagini was the fortunate recipient of the “W” because after the Jays took the lead on Edwin’s homer, Manager John Gibbons called on him to take over when Sanchez was pulled after four and not eligible for the win. Fortunate, sure, but good, too, as he has been all year. With the win tonight, his record stands at 4-2 with an ERA of 1.97 for 50.1 innings pitched, with 45 strikeouts and 13 walks to his credit. Who does not think that he will be an essential part of the Blue Jays’ rotation by 2018, after some seasoning in the minors as a starter next year? (But how you gonna keep him down on the farm . . .)
After Biagini, the new relief pitching combine of BenGriNa, Benoit, Grilli, and as mentioned Osuna achieving redemption and his 28th save, faced the minimum nine Cleveland batters in the last three innings, though Grilli had to induce a double play in the eighth to erase a one-out single by Francisco Lindor.
So the Jays survived the Travis miscue, even if Sanchez did not, with a very significant contribution of near-perfect pitching from the bullpen and one mighty swing from everyone’s favourite teddy bear. Praise be to the god(dess) to whom Roberto Osuna gives his allegiance. Hers must be powerful medicine indeed.
Tomorrow we try for the next series win in our streak, but we’ll have to beat Corey Kluber to do it. Marcus Stroman gets the call. May he be backed by solid defence.
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