It may have been the same old song today, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t want to sing along, does it?
Once again a Jays’ starter pitching a nice steady game is bedeviled by one big inning by the Twins. Once again the Jays’ hitters are stymied by an opponents’ starter who comes into the game with neither great credentials nor great expectations. Once again the Jays spring to life when the Twins’ starter leaves the game and roar back into the lead, and once again, in contrast to Minnesota’s bullpen, our relief pitchers do their job effectively and with panache.
We’ve even seen the on-field celebration of a three-homer day before, as a rain of baseball hats fell on the field in tribute to Josh Donaldson’s third home run of the day, showing once again that Toronto’s fans, being Canadian, do things a little differently. Yes, just like for Edwin Encarnacion at about the same time last year, today was hat trick day at the old hockey rink, er, ball park!
R.A. Dickey had the start, and through the first four innings it was a good one. He gave up an unearned run in the third, allowed only two hits, and one walk, while striking out two on only 49 pitches. The run in the third resulted from a rash decision by Josh Donaldson that led to an error. With one out, Eddie Rosario had singled to right, only the Twins’ second hit. That turned the lineup over for Brian Dozier, who hit a slow bouncer to third. Rosario is pretty fast, and the ball was too slow to even think about a double play, but Donaldson tried for it anyway, and made a bad throw that Devon Travis couldn’t handle. Donaldson had plenty of time to get Dozier at first, but went for the gamble and paid for it. With two on and one out, it was not a good time for Dickey to issue his first walk of the game to Joe Mauer, loading the bases. Max Kepler then hit a ball that deflected off Dickey to Travis at second, that would have been the third out at first if Donaldson had gotten Dozier previously. But Travis had to go to second for the force, no chance to turn it back to first for the double play, and Rosario came in to score.
The unearned run tied the game at one. The Jays had picked up one off Kyle Gibson in the first when Robbie Grossman encroached on Danny Santana’s call for Jose Bautista’s leadoff deep fly to left centre. The two collided, the ball fell free, and Bautista ended up on second with a double. Eerily, a second botched outfield play Inin two games that led directly to a run. He advanced to third on a deep fly to centre by Donaldson, and scored on a medium sacrifice fly to centre by Edwin Encarnacion. Unfortunately, Santana’s shoulder was injured on the play, and Rosario took over in centre in the second inning.
After the Twins had tied it, Donaldson answered in the third with a solo homer, making up for his costly error and giving the Jays a two to one lead. Dickey had a clean top of the fourth, and the score remained 2-1 after four, after Kevin Pillar, who had singled with one out and reached second when left fielder Robbie Grossman misplayed the ball, another outfield error, was stranded by Twins’ starter Kyle Gibson.
Then came the top of the fifth, and a frustrating inning for Dickey that was, typically for him, a momentary descent into the abyss of not having the faintest idea where his butterfly was going. The first out was an omen, perhaps. Leading off, Kurt Suzuki lofted a little fly over Devon Travis’ head. He went back for it, settled under for the basket catch, and had the ball clank off his glove. Incredibly, he intercepted it with his bare hand below the knee, and volleyed it into his waiting glove. When an easy out turns into a slapstick show, you don’t know what’s coming next.
Eddie Rosario, taking advantage of his surprise insertion into the lineup, then collected his second hit. Dickey wild-pitched him to second, walked Dozier and then Mauer to load the bases. The first run scored when Max Kepler collected his second RBI of the game by making an out, grounding out to Dickey, who had to go a long way for the ball, allowing Rosario to score and the other runners to move up, whence Dozier scored and Mauer stopped at third on Trevor Plouffe’s single to left. Dickey and Thole then completed the knuckleballer’s full house of a walk, a wild pitch, and a passed ball in the same inning. This one bounced away from Thole, and Plouffe advanced to second, once again removing the force. Miguel Sano then looped a soft liner into left to score both runners, and the Twins had a 5-2 lead. Two hits, one of them soft, two walks, a wild pitch, and a passed ball led to four runs. It’s ever thus for Mr. Dickey.
I’ve only mentioned Kyle Gibson, the Twins’ starter, once. He’s a 28-year-old big, rangy right-hander who’s been slotted into the Minnesota rotation since mid 2013. His record, while not great, is what you’d expect from a mid-rotation starter on a team that hasn’t had much success in recent years. Career-wise, he’s 31 and 35, with an ERA of 4.58. As we’ve seen so often lately, though, the Jays approached him as if his first name were Cy (or Corey, or Clayton, or Cole, or any of those suburban modern analogues for Cyrus) rather than Kyle.
Though he gave up a hit in every inning through the first five, only the gift double by Bautista in the first and the Donaldson homer in the third impacted the scoreboard, and at two runs and five hits over five, he had thrown just fine enough to keep the Jays in the game until his mates had broken out against Dickey in the top of the fifth.
However, whether it’s pitcher’s fatigue, batters’ comfort levels, or the cumulative effects of close observation and keen discussion by a group of very cerebral hitters, it seems like starters lately have reached a point mid-way in the game where they’ve started to skate on thin ice. If you had a great bullpen and a really good instinct, you could pull your starter at just the right time and really put a spanner in the Jays’ works. ‘Course, if I had a great bullpen and a really good instinct, I too could manage in the bigs.
So after Dickey retired the side in the top of the sixth, stranding a Robbie Grossman leadoff single, it was time for the birds to take flight, as Jerry Howarth says, and after four batters in the sixth, Gibson had given up two more runs while retiring one, and was done for the night, though still in possession of a one-run lead. In quick succession Troy Tulowitzki led off with a shot over the centre field fence, and Kevin Pillar rifled one into left for two bases. Melvin Upton made Gibson’s last out by grounding out to shortstop, with Pillar reading the play well and advancing to third. Devon Travis wasted no time taking one to right centre for a single to score Donaldson, and that was the game for Gibson. Manager Paul Molitor decided to chance bringing Pat Light into the game again, and this time he came through, getting Josh Thole to bounce a perfect double-play ball back to him.
Going to the seventh, it was now five-four Twins, and according to recent history the home team had the Minnesotas right where they wanted them.
At 96 pitches Dickey’s day was done, and it ended up being a quality start after all, as only three of the five Minnesota runs were earned. Unfortunately for him, his departure came a bit early to benefit from the seventh-inning blitz that was coming, so no win for him today. No doubt in the Zen-influenced world of R.A. Dickey, he would find it very easy to rationalize not getting a W. Actually, as a pro he could rest easy knowing he had turned in a professional job and the scoring rules of baseball are what they are, and of no real concern to him.
Unable or unwilling to take my advice (didn’t they already swap Aaron Loup back to Buffalo for Bo Schultz?), Manager John Gibbons called on Brett Cecil once again to do the lefty thing against Joe Mauer and Max Kepler to lead off the Twins’ seventh. This time Cecil batted .500. Mauer singled off him, but he struck out Kepler. Then it was Scott Feldman’s turn to hold the fort, and Dickey really must talk to Feldman and find out what his secret is: Feldman threw four pitches to Trevor Plouffe. The latter grounded into an around-the-horn double play, and the seventh was in the books. But Scott Feldman was the pitcher of record, and guess who would scoop the win after the Jays’ rally in the bottom of the seventh?
Pat Light’s good fortune didn’t carry over to the seventh inning. Maybe Josh Thole hadn’t realized whom he was up against when he hit into the double play to end the sixth, but the top of the order sure did. Jose Bautista led off with a single to left, and Josh Donaldson followed with a blast to left centre for his second homer of the day, which propelled the Jays into a 6-5 lead that they never relinquished. Light moved on quickly to retire Encarnacion and Russell Martin, but gave up a base hit to Tulo. That was it for Light (no, I won’t say anything about “lights out”). Like Feldman, Light’s brief appearance was enough to be tagged for the loss.
Manager Paul Molitor brought in a wild and wooly rookie, J.T. Chargois, who by name and birthplace (Sulphur, Louisiana) must be a Cajun. With Molitor reduced to searching under the bullpen bench for someone who hadn’t been burned yet in the series, it was inevitable that he would get to Chargois eventually. The rookie has a live arm, and throws mostly a two-seamer in the mid-nineties. Occasionally he gets it into the strike zone, and sometimes misses bats with it, but not enough. Tulo moved up to second on a wild pitch while Chargois was walking Kevin Pillar, and that brought Melvin Upton to the plate. Like yesterday, Upton sealed the deal for the Jays, driving in two insurance runs by driving one to the wall in right centre that precisely split Rosario and Kepler. Tulo scored. With two outs Pillar got a good jump from first and cruised home behind Tulo for a second insurance run. Chargois cranked up a one-two two-seamer to 97 to catch Devon Travis looking, to give him a bit of solace after his rocky outing.
After seven, the game was basically in the bag for the Jays, but the dramatics weren’t over yet. With the Jays in the lead but still in range for a save, Jason Grilli came in for the second day in a row to shut the Twins down and keep the enthusiasm level up, just in case. First he froze Miguel Sano with a beautiful curve ball. Then he fanned Jorge Polanco. Not a great fan of perfection, Grilli always throws in a little twist. This time it was a two-out walk to Robbie Grossman on a three-two count, but no problem because Kurt Suzuki bounced one back to Grilli for the easy third out.
Molitor brought in Alex Wimmers, who struck out two Friday night in his major league debut, to pitch the eighth. He continued to pitch well, retiring Thole and Bautista, which brought Donaldson to the plate with two homers already in the books. On a two-one changeup, Donaldson, who had never hit three home runs in a major-league game before, lined it up and hit it over the centre-field fence. It took a while to get started, but cue the hat barrage, for the second time in Jays’ history. Once again grounds crew had to go around and collect hats, eventually amassing two gigantic garbage bags’ full, which were duly delivered to Donaldson’s locker after the game. Donaldson also came out of the dugout for a curtain call, apparently for the first time in his career. More striking to me than the rain of hats (why not, for the “bringer of rain”?) was the relaxed, boyish smile on Donaldson’s face as he acknowledged the tribute from the crowd. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such an unguarded, tension-free expression from the normally tightly-wound all-star.
And by the way, if this is how Donaldson atones for a fielding error, may he make one in every game!
There only remains to submit yet another critical note on Gibbie’s whimsical handling of relief pitchers. He had had Roberto Osuna warming up as soon as the seventh-inning Donaldson homer gave us the lead. His philosophy is if you get them hot, you might as well use them, but with the ninth run it was no longer a save situation. And Osuna had gotten the save yesterday, needing 16 pitches to finish it off. If he were to be used today, and if he threw a fair number of pitches, he wouldn’t be available for the first game in Baltimore Monday night. But, ya gotta use ’em, right?
Osuna came in with the pressure off, and as usual in such cases was less than his best self. It wasn’t like there was ever any danger of it getting out of hand, but by the time the inning was over, he had thrown 21 pitches, given up three hits and a run, and taken himself off the list of bullpen probables for Monday night in Baltimore. Way to go, Gibbie!
Meanwhile, the Royals mounted a huge comeback at Fenway tonight, and now we’re two games clear of Boston, and three ahead of Baltimore.
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