Long Ball Stories

Tonight was a festive homecoming in many ways for the Toronto Blue Jays.

It was the opening night of a ten-game home stand after a tough but moderately successful seven-game road trip which saw them inch ever closer to respectability on the season.

The opposition was provided by the ever-popular Texas Rangers, whose appearance at the TV Dome always raises the intensity ante.

Finally, tonight marked the return of both Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki to the left side of the Toronto infield, where their presence together had anchored the team through the playoff runs of both 2015 and 2016. Except when one of them, or both, was missing in action due to injury.

Not so festive a night for the likes of Ryan Goins, Darwin Barney, and Chris Coghlan, of course, who will see their playing time and opportunity to contribute significantly diminished now that the “big boys” are back.

As the Blue Jays took the field for the top of the first, there was a strong reminder that not everything had been restored to normal for the home team. Taking the mound was Mike Bolsinger, filling in yet again for one of the three missing rotation pieces. As much as the lineup from one to nine looked as strong as ever it has—imagine Devon Travis, on a tear like he is, hitting eighth—without one of the original solid five on the hill to face down the tough Rangers, you had to feel more than a little trepidation.

This is meant in no way to denigrate Mike Bolsinger, who has worked hard during his time in the rotation, and provided some valuable innings. He would, in fact, at this point appear to be well capable of handling a fourth or fifth slot in some team’s rotation, just not that of a contender.

His tendency so far to run deep into counts and allow a few too many walks and baserunners by other means (three hbp in one game??) has meant that he hasn’t been able to get past the magic fifth inning, and his starts so far have led to increased wear and tear on the bullpen.

The first inning for the Rangers was a good example of the way Bolsinger’s starts seem to go. Shin-Soo Choo, leading off for Texas, wacked Bolsinger’s second pitch of the game into right field for a single. If I may say so, the players coming out of Korea seem to have a flair for the flare, taking the bell well in front of the plate and going wherever it’s pitched.

Two batters later Choo was on third. He moved up to second when Elvis Andrus grounded softly to second, and then to third when Nomar Mazara grounded out to Tulowitzki who was stationed behind second in the shift. Then Johnathon Lucroy drew a walk after home plate umpire Alan Porter refused to ask for help on a possible checked swing strike. This made for a tense moment with runners at the corners and the ever-dangerous Roughned Odor at the plate. Odor quickly ended the suspense by carelessly slapping at the first pitch from Bolsinger and grounding weakly to Travis at second. Still, for Bolsinger, three ground-ball outs and seventeen pitches was a pretty good first inning.

The trouble with Porter behind the plate immediately resurfaced in the bottom of the first. It was Kevin Pillar’s fault, according to the unwritten rules of baseball, yet Porter’s response was way out of proportion. Texas starter A.J. Griffin couldn’t find the plate from the start and went 3-0 on Pillar leading off. Then Griffin threw a strike, low but definitely in the zone. Pillar didn’t see it that way, crossed the plate toward first and started to take off his elbow pad. He was shocked and stopped short when the pitch was called a strike.

There is a tradition as old as baseball that players must never “show up” umpires. This would include any movement or gesture that would suggest disagreement with an umpire’s call. It may sound like an outdated privilege for the umpire, but if you think of it in terms of stirring up an angry mob, you get a different picture, don’t you?

Thus, the catcher should never turn and speak to the umpire. Most umps will let a catcher say almost anything if he stays in his crouch looking forward. Also, batters should not start for first until they hear that ball four has been called. Pillar would be the first to admit that he shouldn’t have started for first.

But I have a bigger problem when that same umpire, a couple pitches later, rings up a batter on a pitch on the inside corner maybe but nearly in the hitter’s eyes that is clearly ball four, especially when that batter had just previously “shown up” the umpire.

The Pillar at-bat was quickly forgotten with the arrival of Josh Donaldson at the plate for his first hits since April thirteenth. Great hosannas greeted the erstwhile saviour at the plate. Even greater hosannas ensued when he drove the ball over Jared Hoying’s head to the base of the centre-field wall for a double. More quiet were the sighs of relief when he survived a head-first slide into second to beat a good throw in a close play that was only close because of how hard Donaldson hit the ball.

However, Donaldson died at second (sounds like the title of a baseball mystery, doesn’t it?) as Texas starter A.J. Griffin retired Jose Bautista on a ground-out and Kendrys Morales on a looper to second baseman Roughned Odor playing out in the “rover” spot in the shift.

Bolsinger gave up a run in the second inning that was a typical Bolsinger run in the sense that he walked Mike Napoli to lead off, and it was Napoli who came around to score. However, leaving aside the walk, the run was down to sloppy defense by the Jays, which not only made it unearned, but could have made the damage worse, were it not for the fact that Bolsinger threw two more ground ball outs.

The shift may also have contributed to the Rangers’ run. With Napoli, no twinkletoes he, on first, Joey Gallo grounded a possible double-play ball to Devon Travis in short right. But Travis threw wide to second, where it was Donaldson trying to make the pivot because of the the shift. He came off the bag and everybody was safe, with Napoli making it to third. Jared Hoying hit a sacrifice fly to Zeke Carrera in left that tallied the game’s first run, but Carrera yet again threw to the wrong cutoff man, toward the plate where he had no chance of getting Napoli. This allowed Joey Gallo to move into scoring position at second with one out, removing the double play as well, when the correct throw was to the middle-infield cutoff man, which would have prevented Gallo’s advance.

It was to Bolsinger’s credit that he cranked up his ground-ball machine to strand Gallo finally at third.

In the bottom of the second, A.J. Griffin only retired one batter and left the game clutching his left rib cage with his right hand, but not until the first four Jays’ hitters had reached and scored, seemingly to put the game away early. Griffin had walked Justin Smoak on four pitches to lead off the inning. He then threw two more balls to Russell Martin before finding the plate, except that Martin hit the pitch into left for a base hit. Troy Tulowitzki walked on a three-one pitch to load the bases, and then Griffin finally got ahead of a batter by throwing a strike to Devon Travis. Griffin’s next pitch to Travis was also a strike, but it never got to catcher Johnathan Lucroy because Travis rifled it into the left-field seats for the Jays’ second grand slam in two games and a 4-1 Toronto lead.

Griffin faced one more batter, Zeke Carrera, whom he struck out looking on three pitches, the knockout blow a beautiful curve ball, a no-doubt strike three. But the pitch also knocked out Griffin, because it was the pitch after which he clutched his left side with his right hand. After consultations with coaches and trainers, he was done (and was later placed on the disabled list, where he joins an ever-growing legion of starting pitchers this season).

Always an interesting story line is the guy who toils in obscurity in the minors for years and finally makes it to the show when he’s already or nearly a senior citizen in baseball years. Rangers Manager Jeff Bannister handed the ball to one such player to pick up for the injured Griffin.

Austin Bibens-Dirkx, who otherwise would be more notable for his complex moniker, is a 32-year-old right-hander who finally made it to the major leagues with the Rangers this year after working for eleven years in the minors since being drafted in 2006 by Seattle. When he came into the game his total major league experience was with the Rangers, seven and a third innings over three appearances this year. His assignment today was that of the last man in the ‘pen, to pick up for an injured starter in the early innings, and mainly to survive and accumulate innings and outs to save the rest of the bullpen for when they might be needed. In effect, this opportunity to go long would also serve as an audition for Bibens-Dirkx, and a chance for the Texas staff to evaluate him.

(With no disrespect proferred, I have no intention of typing even Bibens-Dirkx’ last name every time it occurs. He must go by his initials. I have two choices: he can be ABD, or he can be BD. ABD is the somewhat derogatory appellation accorded the hapless individual who studied for years, completed a B.A. and an M.A., did all the work for a Ph.D. thesis, but never finished it: All But Dissertation. This cuts a little close to home. Don’t ask. B.D. of course is the charming dumb jock of a football player in “Doonesbury”. This is an easy call: henceforth Austin Bibens-Dirkx shall be “BD”.)

Leaving aside the fact that he came in with nobody on base, BD easily passed the first part of this mult-part test, taking ten pitches to blow away Pillar and Donaldson on strikeouts.

Surely BD’s fellow journeyman Mike Bolsinger returned to the mound with renewed confidence after the Travis shot. That didn’t keep him from continuing to skate around trouble, this time needing a bad running mistake by Elvis Andrus to escape the inning still ahead 4-1.

Andrus led off the inning with a ground single to left between Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzky. I noted with interest that Tulo did not seem to make a complete effort to keep the ball in the infield, running over toward the ball and leaning down with his glove, not quite reaching it, but with absolutely no inclination to leave his feet. Maybe no need, he’d never have gotten Andrus anyway, but still . . .

Nomar Mazara followed by hitting one deep to Pillar in centre, with Andrus holding first. Jonathan Lucroy then bounced a double over Justin Smoak’s head into the right-field corner, where Jose Bauista hustled it down and initiated a quick relay to Devon Travis, who must have been surprised to turn and see Andrus chugging around third, ignoring, as we could clearly see in the replays, his coach’s stop sign. Travis’ throw to the plate was accurate, and Andrus was DOA for the second out, with Russell Martin making a great tag at the plate. Bautista finished off the Inning of Saving Mike by running into the alley in right centre and flagging down a deep drive by his pal Roughned Odor.

BD continued his first tour of the rocky valley of Toronto’s lineup in the bottom of the third, when he managed to get by Bautista, Morales, and Martin, but was introduced to the realities of pitching in the TV Dome to our heroes when Justin Smoak took him deep with two outs to increase the lead to 5-1.

Bolsinger’s dance with danger went on in the top of the fourth, when he gave up a second run to Texas but evaded worse damage. As usual, part of it was his own making. Not that he gave up a leadoff single to Mike Napoli, but that he then wild-pitched him to second, eliminating the double play and making it possible for Napoli to score on the two ground balls that followed. Bolsie wasn’t done, though, because Delino DeShields hit a two out chopper to third that sailed over/past Donaldson and went to the corner for a double. Donaldson looked slow and tentative on the ball, which offered as a backhand short-hop, a play he normally always gets to, and sometimes makes. Just sayin’. In typical fashion, the slow-throwing righty retired the dangerous Choo on a good foul tip grab by Martin to escape worse.

Out came BD for his second full inning of work, with five outs already racked up, just doin’ his job for the team. This time he had to strand a one-out Travis double to centre by punching out Zeke Carrerafor the second time , and getting Pillar on a fly to centre. Ho-hum. Everybody has to strand a double by Travis.

In the fifth the Rangers inched a bit closer, and this time it cost Bolsinger the chance at a win, as John Gibbons wasn’t about to risk letting the whole thing slip away. Again, the leadoff walk and the two-out cash-in did the trick for Texas. Andrus walked, stole second, held there while Bolsie fanned Mazara and got Lucroy to ground out to short. But then he walked Odor, and Andrus stole third while the Jays were in the shift for Odor. Mike Napoli knocked Andrus in with a base hit to left, a ground ball that somehow managed barely to sneak past the converging dives of both Donaldson and Tulo, and also knocked Bolsinger out of the game, with four and two thirds innings pitched, 86 pitches, a two-run lead and two on, the dangerous left-handed Gallo striding to the plate.

Okay, can’t see what else Gibbie might have done here. Luckily for him, though, his matchup of Aaron Loup to face Gallo resulted in a ground ball from Gallo to end the threat.

BD came back out for the fifth to give Jeff Bannister more than enough of the outs he needed, but working his way through the tough Jays’ order a second time cost Texas another run and restored the Jays’ three-run lead. This time he struck Justin Smoak out, but only after Kendrys Morales took him downtown.

Loup retired the side in order in the top of the sixth, which set him up for a possible garbage man win, since Bolsinger’s outing fell short. BD came back out for the sixth and got one more out for his team before running out of gas. After Russell Martin grounded out, BD walked Tulo and gave up a base knock to Devon Travis, and he was finished, after four innings and 84 pitches. He’d given up two runs, but left two on base for Jeremy Jeffress, who came on to pitch to Carrera, whom he walked to load the bases.

Kevin Pillar bounced into a first-to-home fielder’s choice for the second out. And then, with all of the power displayed by the Jays tonight, came the play on which the game actually turned. The hitter, Donaldson, didn’t even put the ball in play. Jeffress bounced one that got away from the catcher, and Travis, who had advanced to third on the fielder’s choice, scored easily to extend the Jays’ lead to 7-3. The run was added to BD’s effort, which in no way diminished his contribution to his team tonight

At the time, it was hard to imagine that one last add-on run in the sixth would turn out to be decisive, but that’s baseball sometimes.

Danny Barnes and Ryan Tepera have done yeoman work for the Jays during their recent resurgence, and tonight was no different. Though Barnes in the seventh and Tepera in the eighth both gave the Rangers a chance to close the gap, each slammed the door in their faces. In the seventh, it was a two-out walk by Barnes to Lucroy that brought Odor to the plate, only to have Barnes blow him away with his trademark high heat. In the eighth, Tepera gave up a one-out double to Joey Gallo, making it particularly interesting, but he fanned Jared Hoying and Delino DeShields to strand Gallo at second.

Meanwhile, Toronto had a chance to add an eighth run in the seventh off Jeffress, which as it turned out would have been nice to have, but they weren’t able to pull it off when Kendrys Morales, on the front end of a Morales single-Smoak walk-Tulowitzky single sequence, was waved home by third base coach Luis Rivera on Tulo’s hit, but thrown out at the plate by the left fielder DeShields.

Jeffress stayed on into the eighth, and he and Matt Bush retired Toronto in order, setting the stage for Joe Smith to mop up in the ninth, and why not? He’s been spot on for weeks.

And it was looking good, until there were two down, the Rangers down to their last out. Smith fanned Shin-soo Choo to start the inning, and then retired Elvis Andrus on a ground-out to shortstop. This brought Nomar Mazara to the plate, and a simple little dribbler threw Toronto’s hopes of an easy end into a cocked hat. Smith had to take some of the blame for it. Mazara topped the ball toward first. Smith broke off the mound for it, and Russell Martin raced out from behind the plate as well. It was the catcher’s play, as his momentum was toward first, whereas Smith, a right-hander, had an awkward play to make at best, while Martin awkwardly tried to avoid running into him.

Mazara was safe, and that brought Lucroy to the plate. Lucroy doubled to left, sending Mazara to third—four runs down, the Rangers weren’t taking any chances. This brought everybody’s favourite Ranger, the delightful Roughned Odor, to the plate. With only one hard-hit ball off him, and a four-run lead, there was no reason not to let Smith pitch to Odor. In any case, there was no matchup to be had, at least none that Manager John Gibbons would trust, given that he wasn’t likely to try J.P. Howell again and Aaron Loup had already been used.

Smith’s first pitch to Odor was a slider way inside for a ball. His second was a fast ball almost as bad, but Odor, who never saw a bad pitch he didn’t want to hit, fouled it off. Then Smith left a fast ball up in the zone, and Odor deposited it over the fence in right centre, counting three for the Rangers and bringing them to within one.

Remember the Travis run on the wild pitch? And the run Morales didn’t score? Well, there we were, Toronto 7-6, two out in the ninth, and time for Roberto Osuna to come in for what had suddenly become a save situation. It was a tough spot, with the menacing Mike Napoli coming to the plate, but Osuna was up to it, fanning Napoli on a nasty 2-2 slider to finish a game that had been a breeze from the Jays since the second, but almost turned into a nightmare in the ninth.

So Toronto won its fourth in a row, and contributed to a continued skid on the part of the Texas Rangers. For once the Blue Jays had the opportunity to look with some sympathy at the plight of another team that should be contending but is struggling. Some sympathy, but not much. After all, it was the Texas Rangers.

And to this observer questions linger over the decision to return Donaldson and Tulowitzki to the lineup at the start of the present home stand. Their apparent inability, or unwillingness, to try to finish off tough plays to me is an indication that neither was actually ready to return to the defensive lineup. I’m not sure if receiving the accolades of the crowd for their triumphant return plus two base hits, neither of which figured in the scoring, was value enough received for rushing them back into action.

A tale of two baseball games:

On April twelfth in Toronto, Marcus Stroman was the starting pitcher for the Blue Jays against the Milwaukee Brewers. At the end of the game his ERA had “balooned” from 1.42 to 1.76. He pitched a complete game, 9 innings, and gave up two runs on seven hits while walking one and striking out four. He threw 100 pitches. He took the loss that day, to even his season record at 1-1.

Today in Milwaukee Stroman started against the Brewers once again. This time his pitching line showed that he went five and two thirds innings, gave up four runs on four hits with four walks and struck out five. He threw 106 pitches. By the end of the game his ERA had gone from 3.00 to 3.30. But today he took credit for the win, raising his record for 2017 to five wins and two losses.

What was the difference between these two games, besides the obvious, that Stroman had been a much more effective pitcher on April twelfth in Toronto than he was on May twenty-fourth in Milwaukee?

Everything else about the Blue Jays, that’s what. First of all, there was the lineup. Troy Tulowitzki was at shortstop. Josh Donaldson was in the batting order, but not ready to play in the field coming back from a day’s rest because of the lingering effects of a right calf injury suffered in spring training. Because Donaldson was serving as the designated hitter, Kendrys Morales started at first, Darwin Barney at third, and Justin Smoak was on the bench. Steve Pearce was in left field. Devon Travis led off and Kevin Pillar hit eighth.

Oh, and Stroman took the loss because the Toronto lineup was shut out on four hits and three walks with eight strikeouts by a combination of Chase Anderson, Corey Knebel, and Naftali Feliz. Backup catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia ran for Donaldson when he walked in the ninth inning.

Today, Tulowitzki, Donaldson, and Pearce are on the disabled list. Playing in the National League park, after Morales started at first yesterday and hit a monster home run that turned out to be the game winner, he sat out today while Smoak played first, went one for four and did not figure in the scoring, though his ten home runs and 29 RBIs continued to lead the team. Ryan Goins was at shortstop. Russell Martin played third. A different backup catcher, Luke Maile, was behind the dish, this being a day game after a night game, a situation in which Martin is normally relieved of his catching duties. Chris Coghlan patrolled left field for the second game in a row against the Brewers. Kevin Pillar led off and kept his batting average above .300 even though he only had one hit in five at bats. Devon Travis hit second, and saw his batting average drop from .240 to .238, though his average for the month of May was .351, and he had hit fourteen doubles in the month, which added to the two he hit in April when he was struggling at the plate, gave him sixteen for the year. This tied him for the major league lead in doubles with Mitch Moreland of the Rangers and Ryan Zimmerman of the Nationals.

Oh, and Stroman got the win because this crazy patchwork lineup scored eight runs on ten hits with one walk while striking out only seven times. Pillar, Travis, Goins, and Jose Bautista hit home runs, Goins’ was a grand slam, and he had six total bases on the day, having doubled in the fifth inning as well.

“What a diff’rence a [month] makes!”* (Give or take a couple of weeks.)

*A slight adaptation of the title of a great song of Dinah Washington, an American R and B singer who deserved a wider audience than she ever had.

The irony of it all is that Toronto now comes home on a three-game win streak and having gone four and three on the road by playing a scrappy, gritty, and now explosive type of ball that is very reminiscent of some of their best runs of the last two years. Yet the lineup that has finally come together to deliver this improvement, from all reports, is about to be shaken up by of the imminent return of Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki.

Conventional wisdom would have it that replacing Goins and Coghlan/Barney with the All-Star duo on the left side of the infield can only be a good, even a great, thing, but what happens if the whiff rate starts to escalate again, just as the present group seems to be getting it under control?

Ah well, let’s stick with the present, as in today’s game, shall we?

Marcus Stroman started out with better command than in his last start, and breezed through the first and second innings with just a walk to Domingo Santana in the second. He ran into a spot of trouble in the third which cost him a run, but there was an pattern to the proceedings that excused his lapse to a certain extent, though it did show him capable of being rattled on the mound.

Stroman was really upset about two strike calls that he didn’t get from home plate umpire Mike Winters. I’m going to pledge right now that I will not mention ball and strike calls unless I am absolutely backed up by PitchCast. These two calls were definitely bad calls. After the first, an 0-1 pitch to Keon Broxton that would have made it 0-2 but was called a ball, he threw a cutter that was basically a batting-practice pitch and Broxton parked it in the left-field seats.

The second call didn’t show up on the scoreboard, but it was still illustrative. Winters stiffed Stroman on an 0-1 pitch to Jonathan Villar, exactly the same pitch he missed on Broxton—at least he’s consistent—so he brought the next one in over the plate where it could be reached, and Villar reached out and slapped it to left for a base hit. Stroman then seemed to forget that Villar was on base, rocked into his windup and was correctly called for a balk. He went on to walk Eric Thames on a 3-2 pitch before settling down and striking out Hernan Perez.

So the Brewers took a 1-0 lead, which was concerning at that point because Matt Garza was dealing pretty confidently for Milwaukee. He ran through the order without a base runner first time through, with three strikeouts, and showed absolutely no respect for the Stroman of Swat**, throwing him a steady diet of breaking balls until he struck out.

**One of Babe Ruth’s more famous newspaper monikers was the “Sultan of Swat”.

But the Milwaukee lead didn’t last long. With the lineup turned over to begin the fourth inning, Garza made the mistake of hanging an 0-1 slider to Kevin Pillar, who crushed it to left to tie the game. Pillar’s aggressiveness seemed to spark his mates, because Travis followed by jumping at the first pitch but didn’t get it, popping out to Thames at first. But then Garza made a big mistake. For some reason he didn’t try to punish Travis for the Pillar homer, but Jose Bautista, well might as well send him a message, ’cause he’s so lovable, ya know?

So Garza’s first pitch to Bautista was seriously up and in, and flipped Bautista. Then he threw one way away. Then he threw one away but in the zone. Like the bears and the porridge, this one was just right, and Bautista hammered it straight out to dead centre.

D’ya think these guys might learn some time not to poke the bear with Bautista? I don’t even know why Garza did it, other than that he belongs to the militant anti-flipper brigade. Well, if you don’t want a bat flip, don’t flip the batter. Not to mention that Garza and the Brew Crew were now down 2-1.

I just want to mention in passing here that one of the Sportsnet writers just published a piece about how the next big thing in baseball analytics was going to be extreme outfield shifts and a move toward a fourth outfielder at times. Well, if you saw the first two times Justin Smoak came to the plate tonight hitting from the left side, tomorrrow’s already here. The Brewers stationed Jonathan Villar in a position akin to the old rover position in soft ball, forming an outfield triangle with the centre and right fielders. It worked twice tonight as Smoak hit a looper right to him in the second, and a hard grounder to him in the fourth. Both would have had some likelihood of being a hit without Villar’s positioning. They’d better handle the ball carefully on grounders though, because it’s a much longer throw to first for the second baseman.

Of course these things have their limits. His next time up, in the sixth, the new improved 2017 Justin Smoak lined a single through the gaping hole on the left side of the infield to become one of the passengers who rode home on Ryan Goin’s grand slam.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Stroman settled down again in the bottom of the fourth and fanned Travis Shaw, who went down twice on strikes again in a very bad showing for Shaw against his old team. Then he got a groundout to Martin at third by Santana, with Martin handling the chance with aplomb. Finally, he fanned catcher Jett Bandy.

In the top of the fifth the Jays produced another run for a little cushion, but Garza did a good job of limiting the damage. This time it was the bottom of the order for Toronto. Chris Coghlan ran one up the middle on the ground to lead off, the first of two hits run up the rug by the left fielder. Ryan Goins then ripped a grounder past Thames down the line for a double that moved Coghlan to third. The Brewers called foul on this one but nobody listened. Then Luke Maile chipped in with a solid RBI, a deep sacrifice fly to centre on Garza’s first pitch that also moved Goins to third.

That brought the Stroman of not-much-Swat to the plate, and Garza was not going to give up a ribbie to the likes of him. He went after Stroman with a vengeance. Stroman managed to put himself in the hole by fouling off two wicked sliders, and then he was at Garza’s mercy, finally going down on very high heat. Kevin Pillar then popped out to second on the first pitch.

Stroman went back to work in the bottom of the fifth and walked Eric Sogard on a 3-2 pitch. But then he got the ground ball he needed, and the slick Goins-to-Travis-to-Smoak double play nipped the speedy Broxton. Brewers manager Craig Counsell must have felt that his lineup could turn things around for Garza so he let him hit with two outs and nobody on and a pitch count of 65 after four, and Garza grounded out to second. What with the double plays, it seemed like Stroman might join Garza in a possible deep outing.

But things changed big time in the sixth, and neither starter survived the inning. Maybe Counsell should have taken a shot at a pinch-hit homer instead of letting Garza hit. Leading off, Devon Travis finally broke out of his doubles jinx (some jinx!) and elevated one of his drives about twenty seats deep into the left field seats, making the score 4-1. Bautista lined one hard up the middle for a base hit. Smoak hit his shift-buster to left, with Bautista holding second. Russell Martin scorched one to centre that Broxton made a great catch on, sliding on his knees, while the runners held.

It was the loud out, not the base hits, that brought Garza’s day to an end. Oliver Drake, a right-hander, was brought in to face Chris Coghlan and then Ryan Goins, both left-handed hitters. There is a problem, you see, with an all-right-handed pitching staff.

Drake, who by name it seems to me should be a distinguished author, or perhaps a cerebral detective, threw six pitches to the two lefties. The first four were balls to Coghlan to fill the bases. The fifth one was a dodgy called strike, a splitter that looked high and inside. The sixth one was definitely a ball, not quite as high but inside.

Ryan Goins didn’t care where that pitch was because he jerked it out of the yard, far into the second level of stands in right, and suddenly the Toronto lead was doubled and it was just like 2015 all over again. It should be noted that two of Goins’ home runs this year have ranked among the longest shots of the year in major league baseball. Who knew?

Drake quickly dispatched Luke Maile and Marcus Stroman who fanned for a third time but the damage was done, and it was now just a question of keeping the Brewers’ potent lineup from mounting a comeback.

Stroman gave a good shot at doing just that but in the end he couldn’t survive the sixth either. It was a rocky ride from the start, but he had a shot at getting out of the inning until he threw a two-out gopher ball to Domingo Santana with two on that brought the Brewers half-way back.

Jonathan Villar drew a walk leading off, and then Stroman struck out Eric Thames, but gave up a double to the wall in centre by Hernan Perez. Curiously, Villar, who can fly, didn’t score from first on the double. It was almost as if he didn’t trust his own eyes that Kevin Pillar wouldn’t run the ball down, like usual. So with runners on second and third and one down, Stroman caught Travis Shaw looking, for another strikeout for Shaw, and Stroman was that close to walking off the sixth with a seven-run lead.

The gritty right-hander then went to 2-2 on Santana and but just threw a mistake, inner half, above the waist, and Santana didn’t miss it. That was the end of Stroman’s outing today, at five and two thirds innings and a bunch of fours: four runs, four hits, four walks, and five strikeouts. What did him in, presumably, was the pitch count of 106 pitches. Dominic Leone came in to finish the inning by striking out Jett Bandy, who went down for the second time today.

With the game in the hands of the bullpen, the question was whether the Toronto bullpen could continue its recent run of fine multi-inning outings. The short answer was yes.

Leone pitched his own full inning and retired the side in order. Aaron Loup retired the side in order in the eighth with two strikeouts and then a big assist from Jose Bautista, who made a nice run into the alley in right centre to haul down a drive off the bat of Hernan Perez.

The Milwaukee relievers pitched equally well and the score remained 8-4 going to the ninth, so with no save situation Manager John Gibbons brought in Jason Grilli to finish off the game. Given the way he’s been pitching lately, there was a lot of angst in the land when Shaw finally broke loose and led off with a double to right. But Grilli settled in and got the next three batters on soft contact in 17 pitches to finish the game.

The Milwaukee bullpen helped keep Toronto’s lead at four through to the end. Jared Hughes pitched a clean seventh, and Wily Peralta, who had a good start against the Jays in Toronto earlier in the year, gave up two hits while finishing off the game. Chris Coghlan picked up his second single of the night in the eighth, and for the second night in a row a rookie outfielder for the Blue Jays picked up his first major league hit, and for the second night in a row it was a double. This time it was Dwight Smith. As far as we know, he did not hurt himself doing so.

So Toronto comes home from a seven-game road trip during which they split two games in Atlanta, lost two out of three in Baltimore, and won two Milwaukee. Were it not for the bad start to the season, were it not for the fraught nature of their losses to Baltimore, were it not for the two terrible losses to Atlanta at home before they left, everybody would be just fine with a 4-3 road trip. But these are not normal times, this is not a normal season, and introspection seems to run deeper than usual.

With the All-Star left side ready for duty this weekend, and the Jays now having nearly approximated their record at the same point as last year, maybe we can relax and start enjoying the show.

Still, the quesion lingers: Donaldson and Tulowitzki have been out for a long time. Keyed by the all-around play of Ryan Goins, the stepping up of Kevin Pillar, Jose Bautista and Justin Smoak, the amazing hot streak of Devon Travis at the plate, the constant looming presence of Kendrys Morales, and the ability of puzzle pieces Darwin Barney, Chris Coghlan, and Zeke Carrera to chip in some useful work, has the team built a chemistry and some momentum that will now need a reset? And especially whither Ryan Goins, who has blossomed with regular duty. Will Manager John Gibbons be able to find him enough playing time to keep him at this level?

As for the team’s immediate prospects, seven out of ten at home would do nicely, bringing us to 28-29, but first it’s the Texas Rangers, who just got swept in Boston and will be loaded for bear, and first up for Toronto is fill-in Mike Bolsinger. Hold on to your hats, folks!

Tonight’s tight 4-3 Toronto victory in Milwaukee over the resurgent Brewers represented something old and something new in the ongoing saga of Toronto’s strange 2017 odyssey.

The old? Well, not so old, but for the second start in a row, Joe Biagini pitched four really good innings, and suffered one really bad one. To be fair, this time out the bad inning didn’t put the Jays in the hole, but only allowed the Brewers to crawl a little closer to Toronto on the scoreboard. A lot closer, actually. Another difference was that this time it was hardly his fault, unless you want to blame him for throwing ground ball after ground ball, only to see them snake their way through the Toronto infield for crucial base hits.

The new? Well, if you go back far enough in Blue Jays history, this isn’t so new either, after all. For the second night in a row that wild and crazy guy John Gibbons reached into his wizard’s hat and pulled out a brand new third baseman, none other than Jose Bautista. Of course, Bautista came to the Jays as a third baseman from the Pirates in 2008, and did play third for Toronto, but hadn’t done so since 2013.

First Russell Martin at third, and now Jose Bautista? Okay, I’m making too much of this. Both players have a certain amount of experience playing in the infield, and it’s certainly not a stretch for either of them to put in a game at third, or, in Martin’s case second as well, where he’s finished up the odd extra-inning game, or first for Bautista, where he’s put in the odd inning.

The answer, of course, is National League baseball in a National League park. If this topic interests you, I’ve appended below an explanation of how this lineup was probably put together. You may pop down to the bottom and check it out now, or read it as a sidebar afterwards, or just forget about it. Kind of a choose-your-own-ending thing.

Joe Biagini had a lot to think about as he prepared for his fourth start since being inserted into the rotation because of the rash of injuries to Toronto’s starting pitchers.

His first two starts, necessarily short because he needed to be stretched out in terms of the number of pitches he would be allowed, were beyond successful, nine full innings, no earned runs, six hits, no walks, and nine strikeouts, on 93 pitches. Put that all in one game and Biagini is the American League pitcher of the week.

But the third start, in Atlanta on May seventeenth, was another story entirely. The first six batters reached base against him in Atlanta. They all scored. Five of the runs were earned. There was more than one anomaly in this outing. The first was that the four consecutive base hits he gave up, culminating in a three-run homer by catcher Kurt Suzuki, followed a throwing error by Biagini. With the leadoff batter on with a ground single that had sneaked through the left side, Biagini fielded a one-hopper from Freddie Freeman that arrived at the mound with DP already stamped on it. But Biagini’s throw to second pulled Devon Travis off the bag, all hands were safe, and the deluge followed. It was sad to see the sag in Biagini’s demeanour after that play.

The second anomaly was that after the Suzuki homer, Biagini retired twelve in a row, and only left the game for a pinch hitter in the fifth inning because the Jays needed to do everything they could to cut into the 6-2 deficit they faced.

Being a clearly thoughtful and reflective young man, he must have considered long and hard about this next start tonight. The big issue would be how he would handle misfortune if it should arise.

And arise it did, on just the second batter of the game. After Biagini fanned leadoff hitter Jonathan Villar, newly-minted super slugger Eric Thames, Toronto’s gift to the baseball world, grounded one sharply up the middle. Ryan Goins and Devon Travis converged on it, but Travis made as they say in tennis an unforced error. Moving away from first from his position at second, Travis should have peeled off and let Goins take a shot at it, since the shortstop’s momentum was toward first. But he didn’t yield, they both backed off to avoid a collision, and the ball trickled away for an infield single.

Then, to my eye, it happened a second time. Ryan Braun hit one hard, right at Kendrys Morales playing first. A clean pick would have been an easy double play, and I’m not saying that the clean pick would have been easy or should have been made. And this is not really about Justin Smoak versus Morales at first; Smoak’s very good, but not perfect, with the glove. And you can’t argue with Morales being in the lineup today.

But sometimes the hard play has to be made; it’s what distinguishes the good defensive team from the mediocre. At any rate, Morales knocked it down, and by the time he got to it, the DP was off the table, so Thames moved up to second while Morales took the out at first.

How did Biagini handle all of this? He used two of the most bodacious curve balls you’ve ever seen to fan Travis Shaw and solve the problem himself.

Well, okay, then.

Perhaps buoyed by Biagini’s effort to overcome the fielding blips, the Toronto hitters, who had wasted base hits by Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista in the top of the first, did a better job of finishing things off to hand their pitcher a 2-0 lead, though actually it was Biagini himself who delivered the second run.

Devon Travis led off with a Texas Leaguer into right that maybe Domingo Santana could have caught with a decent jump. Russell Martin, back behind the plate after his turn at third on Sunday, went behind the pitch from the big Brewers’ starter Jimmy Nelson, and lined another shot to right for a hit, with Travis coming around to third. Chris Coghlan, who shares with Darwin Barney the ability to string out an at-bat, worked Nelson for a 3-2 walk to load the bases. This brought Ryan Goins to the plate, and on a 1-1 pitch he emulated Martin, going the other way with a sharp liner just out of the reach of shortstop Orlando Arcia. With Martin behind Travis on the bases, and the ball hit hard, they had to play station-to-station, Travis coming in to score and the bases still loaded with nobody out.

Up to the plate lumbered the eager Biagini, hopeful of aiding his own cause. Now, Biagini is no Marcus Stroman with a bat in his hand, but he’s nothing if not gutsy. After being badly fooled on a 1-1 sinker way down and in that he swung over, he managed to get his bat on the next sinker, one that didn’t sink, and bounced it out toward short, just out of the reach of the pitcher. Martin came in to score, Arcia made the easy force-out to Villar at second, and Villar turned it over, but Biagini hauled his large self very smartly down the line and decisively beat the relay to stay out of the double play.

His RBI put the Jays up 2-0, but his effort down the line came to naught, as Coghlan was out at the plate on the contact play with Pillar batting, and Nelson fanned Zeke Carrera to end the threat. But still, there are a lot of little things that go to make up a real major leaguer, and Joe Biagini has shown himself to be a real major leaguer.

There was some commentary from one of the beat reporters that maybe Biagini ran into trouble in the fifth because of the extra effort involved in running out the fielder’s choice in the second. That’s a bit of a stretch. In the bottom of the second, he walked Santana on an awfully good 3-2 pitch, retired Hernan Perez on a liner to Goins at short, and then got the double-play ball to third from catcher Manny Pina. 13 pitches. Guess he was a little out of breath.

Oh, wait! Double-play ball to third? To Bautista? Another beat reporter (these people, really!) called it a rather awkward double play. I beg to differ wholeheartedly. The hitter was the catcher, so Bautista knew he had time. The ball was to his glove side; he picked it cleanly, set up his footwork textbook-style for the throw, and fed Travis a perfect ball to the outfield side of second that would bring Travis off the bag safely and ready to plant for his throw to first. Awkward? No way, Jose!

The game rolled through the third with the pitchers in control. Between them Nelson and Biagini threw 20 pitches, and Biagini threw three ground balls to the Brewers. After the double play, that made five.

Another what-if moment came for Biagini in the top of four. After Nelson got ground ball outs from Martin and Coghlan, Goins stepped in for the second time against Nelson and got his second hit, this time a rousing double to right centre. This brought Biagini up for the second time with a runner in scoring position. Could it be? Alas, no. Obviously not a dues-paying member of the pitchers’ fraternity, Nelson threw Biagini a nasty 1-2 slider down and away. Biagini lunged and made contact, but it was a soft little hopper that the catcher Pina corralled and put the tag on the pitcher, who wasn’t sure whether it was a fair ball.

Obviously not breathless, Biagini got soft wrong-way contact from Thames again in the Milwaukee fourth, resulting in a lazy fly to left. He walked Ryan Braun, caught Travis Shaw looking with a slider, and got Santana on a grounder to third, which Bautista handled flawlessly.

Came the fifth inning, the pivotal point in the game. It was a good one for Toronto, but not a great one for Biagini, and the events of the fifth led to the long denouement that was the rest of the game.

For the Jays, it all started with two, as Nelson gave up a line single to left by Bautista after retiring Pillar and Carrera. This brought Kendrys Morales to the plate, and he stroked the key hit of the contest, getting all of another 2-1 sinker that didn’t, and hitting a monster blast to dead centre. Much as we loved it, little did we know how important that shot would be.

With Milwaukee down 4-0 and coming to bat in the bottom of the fifth, one of the most frustrating and exciting innings of the season was imminent. Biagini kept throwing ground balls, but they kept finding holes. Perez to left, Pina to centre, Arcia to centre scoring Perez. Jesus Aguilar, hitting for the pitcher, rolled one slowly to second that moved the runners up for the first out. Jonathan Villar rolled one through the right side that scored both of them. Villar stole second, and then Biagini pitched very carefully to Thames, staying way away with four straight to put him on. Who says they eliminated the four-pitch intentional walk?

That was it for Biagini, as much as everybody wanted him to finish the inning and qualify for the win. Manager John Gibbons went to the pen for Danny Barnes. Next thing you know, with Ryan Braun at the plate, Villar and Thames pulled off a double steal. With the double play off, Barnes did the only thing he could: facing the unfavourable matchup with two power-hitting lefties, Braun and Shaw, he and catcher Russell Martin set them both up beautifully to finish off with high heat. High heat, high drama.

Barnes then went on to pitch a clean sixth, during which the third out was recorded by Bautista with another good play at third, diving glove-side and coming up throwing to take a hit away from Pina, who’s gonna be glad not to be looking down at Bautista playing third any time soon. If it was a disappointment that Biagini didn’t get the win for Toronto, it was absolutely natural justice that it went to Barnes.

Joe Biagini’s grit, Danny Barnes’ brilliance, and the bats of Ryan Goins and especially Kendrys Morales set the table for the Jays’ bullpen to try to take it home against this powerful Brew Crew.

Ryan Tepera followed Barnes to the hill in the seventh and, ahem, kept the Brewers loose, but also kept them off the board. He fanned Arcia on a terrible (or brilliant, depending on whose colours you wear) breaking ball in the dirt. He fanned Nick Franklin who hit for the Milwaukee pitcher. Then he walked Villar, who promptly stole second. With a base open, he nicked Thames to bring up Braun who flied out to Anthony Alford—more on him later—who’d hit for Barnes and then stayed in to play right. It was a bit crazy, but it looks like that’s what you get with Tepera, who, like Tina Turner, never “does easy”.

Joe Smith, however, “does easy”, and he did so in the eighth, striking out poor Shaw for the fourth time, and Santana, before Perez grounded out to short. Eleven pitches and it was over to Osuna.

Osuna got the save with a little less drama than usual, though it took 19 pitches and a two-out walk to get there. Manny Pina grounded out to short. Orlando Arcia lined out to centre. Eric Sogard hit for the Milwaukee pitcher Naftali Feliz and drew a walk, but then Osuna fanned Villar to put it away and draw the curtains back on the Knock-Knock Game with Russell Martin.

As for Toronto, the Blue Jays basically circled the wagons around their bullpen, and only their seventh was of interest. With the pitcher Barnes up first, John Gibbons sent Alford up to hit for him. At this point Alford was zero for six in his major league debut stint with Toronto. Rob Scahill, who had pitched a pretty clean sixth in relief of Jimmy Nelson, was still on the mound for the Brewers.

Alford walloped an 0-1 pitch from Scahill over the head of the centre fielder Perez. The only question was double or homer. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the elevation and Alford was on second, the ball out of play for a souvenir, on Alford’s first MLB hit, a rousing double. Alford made it to third with a nice bit of base running when Kevin Pillar grounded out to short, but was eventually stranded there.

For those who don’t know the story, last off-season Alford’s parents’ home burned to the ground with no injuries but costing them all of their belongings, and the Blue Jays’ organizational brain trust and players’ group pitched in to get them set up again, in one of the warmer and fuzzier stories of the off-season. But the losses included all of the sports memorabilia related to Alford’s nascent career. So the first-hit ball from tonight became the first piece in a new collection, and what a pleasure it was to have his mother present in the Milwaukee ball yard to receive it.

In an unbelievable turn of events, Alford, having tasted life in the show and found it to be good, had another at bat in the ninth inning and struck out. But in the process, when he fouled one off, he felt a pain in his hand and it was later learned that he had broken the hammate bone in his palm, and instead of going back to New Hampshire to hone his skills he is now headed for the disabled list, where there may or may not be enough space to add his name at the bottom.

ADDENDUM: JOEY BATS AT THIRD? MAKES PERFECT SENSE TO ME!

There is a much greater effect on the creating of a lineup for an American League manager getting ready to play in a National League park than you might imagine, starting from the fact that teams’ rosters are built slightly differently according to the league. National League teams would tend to go with perhaps one less relief pitcher in order to make room for an extra position player, since there is more of a need to pinch hit.

In this case, the problem was compounded by the fact that there is an anomaly in the Milwaukee pitching staff: they have zero left-handed pitchers, starters or relievers. Zero.

So John Gibbons was facing two problems: pack as much power as possible into the eight spots in the batting order available to him, to make up for the fact that the pitcher has to hit, and, even worse, American League pitchers have had very few major league at bats, and at the same time get all of his left-handed batters into the lineup. But how do you do that with Zeke Carrera only able to play the outfield, Chris Coghlan able to play both infield and outfield, and you absolutely have to have both Bautista and Kevin Pillar in the lineup, since you’re are already unable to use both Kendrys Morales and Justin Smoak at the same time, losing one of the power switch-hitters who would be hitting left against all the Milwaukee righties. And with Devon Travis hitting the way he is at the moment, there’s no way Coghlan was going to take his place at second just because he hits left.

So to review: we already knew that Gibbie was going to give one game at first to Morales and one to Smoak. Tonight it was Morales, whose two-run homer iced the game for Toronto. Martin or Maile behind the plate? The power bat, obviously. So now you’ve got three infield positions and three outfield positions to fill. Bautista, Pillar and Travis are in because of their bats, and Pillar also because, well, Super Kevin. If the Blue Jays have had a team leader in this strange spring, it’s been Pillar. Goins hits left and is the linchpin of the infield. Carrera and Coghlan are in, and Darwin Barney is out, because the latter hits right, and not with as much power as the other right-handed hitters. It might seem obvious that Coghlan would be at third, Carrera in left, and Bautista at home in right.

But if you look at Coghlan’s career record, he’s spent far more time in the outfield, and very little at third before this year, and frankly he has been less than steady at third for the Jays. So this interesting exercise in organizing a batting order tonight actually came down to Gibbie’s instinct that the team would be stronger defensively with Bautista at third and Coghlan in left, alongside Pillar and Carrera.

As it happened, Coghlan had easy chances in left, and Bautista sparkled at third. Good call, Gibbie!

When Marco Estrada is on his game, all you can do is sit back and enjoy it.

While he’s almost always very good, you can never really tell when he’s going to be at his best, which is as good as it gets in terms of starting pitching in the American League.

When Estrada took the hill for the bottom of the first in Baltimore, the auguries were decidedly mixed. Baltimore isn’t really the greatest fit for Estrada’s “skill set”, if I can use a term I actually despise.

As we all know, Estrada’s a fly-ball pitcher. His off-speed pitches and his location make it hard for hitters to make solid contact, and he throws a lot of easy fly balls and popups. A power lineup like Baltimore’s has a better chance of somebody squaring one up once in a while, or more than once in a while. In addition, they play in a hitter-

friendly park with reachable fences. For a guy like Estrada, to whom it’s all the same whether the batter fouls out to the catcher or hits one to the warning track in left, it would be better if the warning track were a little further out.

On the other hand, Estrada’s record has never shown much distinction in terms of wins and losses despite a fine career ERA of 3.82 and despite consistently sporting among the lowest opponents’ batting averages year after year. This is because at least during the Toronto part of his career he has never received much run support.

Yet tonight, facing Baltimore in Baltimore, Estrada had to feel pretty good going to the mound. Because with a little egregious help from Orioles’ second baseman Jonathan Schoop, his team had put up a big three-spot in the top of the first before he had even thrown a pitch.

Robert Fulghum is one of those pop phenomena who’s easy to envy. Make that hate. In 1988 the Unitarian Universalist minister published a book of essays containing his gentle musings of life lessons. It was based, I’m sure you know, on the charming essay, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”. Had there been viral sensations in 1988, the essay would have gone viral, and the book built around it has become a perennial best-seller. Hate? Sure. Anybody who can turn a whimsical little essay into an industry and a money-making monster is kind of easy to hate, in a sort of non-visceral, at-arm’s length way.

Anyhoo, the reason for the digression about Fulghum, of course, is to reinforce the point that everything you need to know about tonight’s ball game was contained in its first inning. As a former principal of mine used to tell the students on the first day of classes, “Let us begin as we intend to continue.” By the end of the first inning the story line of the game was set and never deviated.

Left-handed veteran Wade Miley, one of the few Baltimore starters so far this year to be depended on for a solid start by manager Buck Showalter, took the hill for the Orioles. With the resurgence of switch-slugger Justin Smoak and the acquisition of switch-slugger Kendrys Morales, going up against a lefty these days tends to put a little swagger into the Toronto lineup. Often, though, swagger doesn’t translate into runs with our boys.

And it looked like another one of those days, as Kevin Pillar led off by popping out to third on an 0-1 count, and Jose Bautista checked his swing and dribbled one back to Miley. But then Jonathan Schoop, stationed near normal shortstop depth in the Morales shift-left formation, jogged over glove-side to the latter’s bouncer, picked it up, and tossed Morales out at first. Except, no, is that the ball still lying there in the dirt? Why, yes it is. The casual, normally highly-skilled Schoop just somehow forgot to pick up the ball.

If there’s anything to beware more than the two-out walk, it’s the two-out error. A big part of Justin Smoak’s newly-found repertoire is a much more professional, contact-seeking approach with two outs and even two strikes, which is where he found himself against Miley. That includes going the other way, which Smoak somehow managed to do on an inside strike up in the zone, singling to right. Morales checked in to second, bringing the ever-puzzling, but currently very hot, Devon Travis to the plate.

Now here’s how puzzling Travis is. Miley threw a first-pitch fast ball to every single batter in the inning except Travis. He started Travis on a curve ball, a good one, low and breaking in to Travis from the left side. Was Travis sitting on it because of a wild guess? Was he lucky? Or is he just instinctively a really good hitter? Whatever the reason, after bouncing doubles off walls all over the place in the last week, Travis finally hit another hard one to left centre, but this time with a better angle, and suddenly Toronto had a three-unearned-run lead, and if Schoop and Miley go out to dinner tonight, I’m sure Schoop will be picking up the tab. Or maybe Travis should cover the tab for both of them.

So Estrada took to the hill for the first time through the Orioles order with the unexpected luxury of a three-run cushion, and it was up to him to take advantage of it. And did he ever.

Against all expectations, Schoop, leading off, took the first pitch for a called strike. Eventually, on 2-2 after a fast ball, Schoop flailed at a changeup. Adam Jones saw the change first, and fouled one off that was up in his eyes. He never saw another change, and maybe didn’t see the eye-high 89 MPH fast ball that he swung through for strike three.

Mannie Machado didn’t wait around to be embarrassed, but grounded out to Russell Martin at third on an 0-1 change, the second changeup Estrada threw to him.

Wait a minute. Was that Russell Martin throwing Machado out from third? Why, yes it was. That Russell, what a funny guy. First he sneaks his way off the disabled list and back into Friday night’s game, and then he conjures up an infielder’s glove and sneaks out to third in the disguise of Josh Donaldson. Don’t worry, folks, with the spate of injuries he has had to deal with, manager John Gibbons has had to become more creative with his lineup. With a lefty on the hill, it was a good idea to stack as many strong right-handed bats in the lineup as he could. With Martin having returned to his post behind the plate the night before, this was an opportunity for his bat to be in the lineup in a day game after a night game. Besides, Martin has been a wannabe sometime-infielder his whole career, much like Marcus Stroman sees himself as a slugging second baseman who just happens to pitch. Ballplayers, eh?

So, there you had it: Toronto takes advantage of a totally unnecessary error to jump on top, and Estrada is in “let’s see just how silly we can make them look” mode.

The Jays never scored again, in fact never really threatened. Oh, Darwin Barney reached leading off the fifth when Mannie Machado joined Schoop in the looking-silly column by just not picking up Barney’s easy grounder. Barney eventually wended his way around to third, but died there.

Oh, and Kevin Pillar reached on a slow roller infield single to Schoop in the third, and got to second when Miley bounced a check-in pickoff attempt to first (write this down in your memory book for a day like this may never come again: Machado’s error on Barney in the fifth, after Schoop’s in the first and the bad Miley pickoff, made for three Baltimore errors on the day). Pillar almost made it to third, trying to advance on a short bouncer that got away from catcher Caleb Joseph, but Joseph gunned him down.

So that was it. Miley deserved better, going seven innings, giving up six hits but no earned runs while walking but one and striking out three on 107 pitches. Alec Asher mopped up with his very best Ultimate Spin-Mop, striking out two, and walking one, but erasing the walk with a double play, on 26 pitches over the last two.

Good job that Travis got all of that curve ball in the first, because that’s all the Jays’ hitters were going to get today.

But oh, this was Marco Estrada’s day. Beginning to end, it was all about him. It’s hard for me even to write that horrid contemporary cliche, “it was all about him”. Because the way Marco Estrada carries himself, it’s never all about him. Famously, he gives his catcher free rein, and never shakes off a pitch. (Indicative here of his self-effacing flexibility, this was one of his best starts of the year, and it was caught by Luke Maile with Martin playing third, and Estrada handed the whole game plan successfully to Maile, with whom he’s just barely gotten acquainted, as if the master himself were behind the plate.)

Then there’s his demeanour on the mound. A windup and delivery that for all the world resembles the style of the knucksie, like his old team-mate R. A. Dickey, or Steven Wright of the Red Sox. It’s funky and old fashioned looking, and you might think it looks more like the way you’d deliver your darts in an English pub, if, that is, you’d never actually seen a dart thrower’s stance. You know when you watch his delivery that it’s not coming at you at 98.

But I can imagine what’s going through the hitter’s mind. Not 98, but what, where, most importantly, what spin? What is he doing with those devilish fingers of his?

Then there’s the peekaboo above the glove as he peers in for the sign. I know that the bobblehead makers had a decision to make, whether to show Marco’s face or not, but I’m sure the recent Marco bobblehead would have been a lot more popular if he had been posed peeking out from behind his glove.

But when he finally throws the ball (not that he takes any time between pitches), he’s something else entirely. A wizard. A trickster. A guy who after a fairly long apprenticeship (interesting how many cases of this we have on the Blue Jays) is a master of what he does, and what he does is confound hitters, who find it impossible to square it up on his pitches, or even, in recent times, to make contact with the ball at all.

Estrada’s pitching line today, though instructive and mighty good, doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a lot to be mined from it, to be sure: seven and two thirds innings, one run, five hits, one walk, twelve strikeouts, on 115 pitches. And don’t worry about that pitch count: his arm appears to be made of India rubber. (All in, the Orioles struck out thirteen times today. The other one came via Joe Smith, who ended the eighth by ringing up Chris Davis, who has become more hapless by the at-bat in this series.)

Let’s just survey the Orioles’ Murderers’ Row here, and see what we’ve got: Schoop twice, Jones once, Machado once, Davis looking, twice, Trumbo once, One-ell Welington finally neutralized, twice, Caleb Joseph, who usually eats the Jays’ lunch, twice. He also struck out rookie shortstop Paul Janish once, which hardly seems fair.

When you read through this it’s easy to foresee that the next time we play the O’s there might be a lot of “Orange Flu” going around the Baltimore clubhouse. Here’s another little research project for the metrics guys: follow up next game a crowd like the middle of the Baltimore order and see whether or how they remain messed up after hitting against Estrada.

Oh, sure, Estrada didn’t throw a shutout, but with all the power horses around these days, who ever does, hardly? And as I said earlier, every once in a while one of his fly balls is just gonna keep flying right out of the park. So Adam Jones tied into one in the fourth with nobody on—the best kind—to make it a little closer, but really, so what? Give the home fans a little something for their money, right?

It’s always tense to sit through holding a 3-1 lead for five innings, but if we had known that it was carved in stone from the first inning, we could have just relaxed and enjoyed the ride with Estrada. I kinda ended up doing that anyway.

I mentioned that Smith rang up Chris Davis to end the eighth. Estrada started the inning, and wasn’t exactly sweating. Hyung-Soo Kim hit for Janish and skied to Pillar on an 0-1 pitch. Schoop fouled out to Russell Martin on an 0-1 pitch. Then, on a 1-2 pitch, Estrada’s nemesis for the day, Adam Jones, threaded a grounder up the middle for a base hit. Ring the alarm bells, Gibbie, your starter is finished. Well, not really, after eight pitches in the eighth, but it turned out okay because we got to see Smith make big Chris Davis look like he was playing Frozen Tag to end the “threat”.

Before he fanned Davis, though, there was a scary moment. Mannie Machado was first to face Smith, and one of Smith’s sweepers brushed Machado back and made contact with his back hand. Buck Showalter, who can’t be in any other mode, looked dark and angry, which you can’t really blame. After attention, Machado took his base, and came back out for the ninth to finish the game.

I have to say, though, that this was at least one case where it didn’t look like he made much of an effort to get out of the way. Oh, he leaned back as the pitch came in, but made no move to fall away from the pitch until after it was past him. Of course Machado didn’t want to get hit on the hand, but I have a problem with power hitters who hang over the plate, play macho on inside pitches and don’t bail like they were taught in Little League, for pete’s sake. Then they take a pitch on the hand, go on the DL with a broken bone and it’s all boo-hoo. Okay, rant over.

Roberto Osuna came in for the save and cleaned things up, in a messy kind of way.

He had to face Mark Trumbo leading off, and of course Osuna gave up a single, bringing One-ell Welington Castillo to the plate. Gulp. If this was going to be a bad Osuna moment it was going to happen now, and why not? Look who was at the plate. But this time Castilo grounded one out to Travis at second, and Travis was able to turn it into an easy double play.

So we could breathe a little easier, until Trey Mancini grounded one up the middle that went for an infield single. Oh well, it wouldn’t be Osuna time without a few base runners, right? But Seth Smith hitting for Caleb Joseph popped out to third for the game and the save for Osuna.

So Travis’ homer in the first that was enabled by a sloppy error by Jonathan Schoop stood up for the win.

But this was Marco Estrada’s night all the way, and don’t you forget it. He may not look like it, either on the mound or sitting in the dugout, but Marco Estrada is one hell of a pitcher.

Sometimes, you just have to tip your cap.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s your team that took it on the chin. That it’s your team that’s struggling against all odds in the face of an incredible string of injuries to get back in the divisional race. That it’s your team that’s desperate to close the gap with the team that has become its fiercest rival, to turn the page on losing five close games to them, out of seven already played this year.

Sometimes it almost doesn’t matter that a wave of exultation was turned into the ashes of gloom in a matter of minutes.

Sometimes, you just have to tip your cap.

Once again in Baltimore, for the second night in a row, it was the seemingly benign presence of Welington Castillo, benign presence belied by an explosive and timely bat, that destroyed the chances of victory for a Toronto Blue Jays team that has found victory so very hard to come by in this puzzling and frustrating season.

Leaving aside everything else for the moment, it all came down to this, the seventh inning. Just two moments, in fact, in the seventh inning. One for the visitors. One for the home team.

After six innings, reasonably enough, Baltimore manager Buck Showalter had decided that his starter, Kevin Gausman, was, shall we say, gassed. Though he had only given up two runs, he’d been touched by the Jays for ten hits and a walk, and already thrown 110 pitches. He was in line for the win, as the scoreboard read Baltimore 4,Toronto 2 at the moment. With the rookie Anthony Alford at the plate hitting for Ryan Goins, the left-handed Richard Bleier, in to neutralize Ryan Goins and perhaps looking ahead to Zeke Carrera coming up third, went to 3-2, and struck Alford out on the seventh pitch.

He should have been nearly out of the inning on the next batter, but for a breakdown of the Orioles’ usually sterling defense. Kevin Pillar grounded an easy one to Jay Hardy at short, but Hardy threw low to first; the one-hop seemed to bounce right back out of the middle of first sacker Chris Davis’ glove, and Pillar was safely aboard. Because the throw was bounced, the error was given to Hardy on the throw, but this one was on Chris Davis. The throw was in time, the hop was true, and I’m sure even he would say this was a throw he picks cleanly 99 times out of a hundred.

Bleier finished off his brief outing by walking the man he was supposed to get, Zeke Carrera, on a 3-1 pitch. Meanwhile, concentrating on Carrera, Bleier was perfunctory in checking Pillar, Pillar picked up on it, and easily stole second with a great jump. Thus the walk to Carrera filled an empty base.

Up to bat came Jose Bautista. Into the game came Mychal Givens, Showalter’s stocky, flame-throwing righty, whom Showalter uses almost exclusively in the tightest late-inning situation. In fact, were it not for the existence of Brad Brach in the current absence of Zach Britton, I would suspect that Givens would become the Orioles closer.

In any case, it was an epic confrontation, right-handed power against right-handed power. Bautista disdained the first pitch, a low strike call by plate umpire Tom Woodring. He spoiled the second. He refused to chase the third and fourth, both outside, one high, one low. Then Givens made a mistake and served up what Bautista was looking for, an inner half, thigh-high fast ball.

He turned on the pitch and jerked it. You just knew it was gone. Sound, trajectory off bat, obviously pulled, the only question was whether he hit it hard enough to avoid the hooking action that wanted to pull it foul. He did. The swing and the contact were remarkably similar to the swing and contact of his last home run, on the seventeenth at Atlanta.

Having trailed since the third inning on a scratched-out first inning run, a solo homer by Mannie Machado in the third, and a two-run shot by Mark Trumbo in the fourth, up to the point of Bautista’s home run, Toronto manager John Gibbons elected to leave Dominic Leone in the game to begin the hold job. Leone had come on in the sixth to bail Toronto out of a jam when he relieved starter Mike Bolsinger. Leone had gone 3-0 on Seth Smith and then the Jays elected to pass him to load the bases for Adam Jones, a risky move that paid off when Leone got Jones to hit into an inning-ending double play

So why not leave Leone in to start the next inning? Sure. Toronto showed an interesting array in the field behind Leone. Alford stayed in the game in right, Bautista was returned to his long-ago stomping grounds at third, and Barney slid over to short for the departed Goins.

Leone did his job and retired Machado on a grounder to short, but Aaron Loup didn’t do his, sort of, allowing Chris Davis to reach on yet another opposite-field base hit from an Oriole slugger. In came Danny Barnes to pitch to Mark Trumbo. Barnes got the ground ball he needed, maybe, to end the inning, a sharply-hit ball to short. But it deflected off Barney’s glove into short centre field for another base hit.

Now think back to Alford being struck out in the top of the inning by Bleier wihle hitting for Goins. Sure, it’s easy to say that Goins could have struck out just as easily as Alford, and we know that Barney is a solid fielder, but the Trumbo ball was an either/or: a base hit, or you make the pick and it’s a pretty easy double play with Trumbo truckin’ down the line. I just don’t get hitting for your best infield defender leading off the inning when you’re down 4-2. Maybe later in the inning, with ducks on the pond, but not leading off. In a close game you have to protect on both sides of the ball, and Goins is your best protector, not Barney.

Oh well, just Castillo at the plate. Law of averages, right? He’s not going to do it again. So why the sick feeling in the pit of my gut when he settles into the box? Oh, that’s why. After getting a called strike one, Barnes went to his trademark high hard one and Castillo swung through it for strike two. He went right back to it and this time the unlikely hero was ready and the ball was flying out of the yard to centre. Bautista’s homer had been neutralized, and the Baltimore bullpen had a two-run lead to protect.

No matter who’s injured out of the Baltimore ‘pen, you don’t want to hand the Oriole relievers a two-run lead to protect for only two innings, and this night was not any different. The Jays never had a baserunner in the eighth or ninth, as Darren O’Day atoned for his sloppy outing the night before with a nine-pitch eighth, and closer Brad Brach only took twelve pitches to earn his ninth save. Of the six hitters faced by the Baltimore relievers, only Zeke Carrera hit the ball with any authority, driving Seth Smith back to the wall in right off Brach to end the game.

The Orioles, sitting on the lead, gave Cesar Valdez, newly arrived to take Aaron Sanchez’ spot on the roster, a chance to sample a tough middle of a lineup, and he handled it okay in the bottom of the eighth. He got Seth Smith on a weak wrong-field fly out to left, walked Adam Jones, popped up Manny Machaco, and finished his inning by getting Chris Davis to pull one high and foul into the right field corner, where Anthony Alford ran it down with a nice effort for the third out.

My sense of Alford, who will surely be sent back soon, so that he can play every day in Double A, is that he has a lot of physical skills, in particular speed, and he absolutely looks comfortable playing a major league corner outfield position. As for his bat, he did hit the one ball hard Friday night, and showed lightning speed down the line, creating close plays out of routine ground balls.

So let’s go back and take a little closer look at how we got to that crucial seventh inning.

Kevin Gausman was on the hill for Baltimore, and for a guy who was promoted to number one in the rotation when Chris Tillman started the season on the disabled list, he hasn’t exactly been inspiring, going into tonight’s game with a 2-3 record and an ERA of 7.19.

His first inning didn’t inspire either, as he needed 22 pitches, a double play, and a strikeout of Justin Smoak to hold the Jays to one run in the first. In the second the Orioles turned another double play to erase Russell Martin’s one-out single.

Oh, news flash, I did write “Russell Martin” just now, didn’t I? Yes, he was reactivated before the game and started behind the plate. And his hit in his first at bat was no fluke, a hard liner into left off Gausman. Mike Ohlmann, by the way, was designated for assignment, poor guy. It’s a stage on the way to being released, made likely by the Jays’ resigning Jarrod Saltalamacchia to a minor-leage contract. I’m not sure if I’d let Ohlman, who’s still a prospect, go in favour of Salty, who seems to be playing out the string at this stage, unless Ross Atkins knows something we don’t know.

Back to Gausman, however. He had to fan Kendrys Morales in the third with Goins and Bautista at first and third after base hits. He escaped possible damage in the fourth when Martin, swinging the bat freely in his return, lined very hard into an inning-ending one-hopper double play that erased Devon Travis, on board with a one-out single, after Smoak had led off by driving Hyung-Soo Kim right back to the wall in left with his left-handed stroak off Gausman. In the fifth he had to strand Darwin Barney at third and Kevin Pillar at first with base hits by striking out Bautista.

In the sixth the hard contact on Gausman finally paid off in a run when with one out Smoak hit one out to the deepest part of the park. Then, when Travis followed with a ringing double to right, the Oriole starter needed a little help from his friend behind the plate to limit the damage. The plate umpire Woodring rang up Martin on a ninth pitch in almost exactly the same spot, only a little more off the paint, than the sixth pitch that he’d called a ball. I hate to keep harping on ball and strike calls, but if MLB is going to insist on publishing the PitchCast of every at-bat, dicy ball and strike calls are going to become more and more of a problem.

In any case, Martin was out, but truly furious—he should go for a drink and bellyache session with Joe Smith, after what happened to him in last night’s game—Barney popped out to second, and Travis died at second.

So that’s how Kevin Gausman got through six complete, managing to come up with the big K, mostly, to squirm out of his own situation. Still, that’s how you get to 110 pitches while giving up ten hits but only two runs. Three of his five strikeouts ended innings with runners in scoring position, he got the help of two double plays to end innings, and, maybe this was the key, for all of his deep counts, he only walked one.

Pretty clearly that was the difference between Gausman’s outing and Mike Bolsinger’s five and a third. Bolsinger only gave up six hits, but unfortunately for him two of them were of the very long variety. He gave up a solo homer to Machado in the third, and the two-run job to Trumbo in the fifth, which followed one of his five walks. The walks ate into his pitch count, and kept the rhythm of the game slow, with lots of base runners on both sides. The Toronto starter ended up throwing 102 pitches.

With Aaron Sanchez back on the DL, Bolsinger will clearly be kept around to fill a spot in the rotation. He’s put in some hard innings to earn that trust, and I admire his pluck, but he really hasn’t show enough to give the coaching staff much thought to his future with the organization. He’s a curve ball and control pitcher who’s walked 11 batters in 15 and two thirds innings in his three starts, not to mention the bizarre three hit batsmen in his start in Atlanta. Like I said, I like the guy’s grit, and he’s also come up big against some tough hitters in clutch situations, but with an ERA sitting at 6.32 . . .

After all this Toronto fan-boy type navel-gazing, it’s really most appropriate to wind ourselves back around to the beginning of this piece, and end where it started: All hail to the new Duke of Welington! He may not be the Sultan of Swat, because there was only one of those, but to the Toronto Blue Jays at least, One-ell Welington Castillo is the Duke of Destruction.

Tonight was supposed to be all about Aaron Sanchez. Instead, it was all about the Baltimore Orioles’ slugging catcher Welington Castillo.

And maybe to a certain extent about Jays’ Manager John Gibbons. But that’s just me.

Not sure what the weather was like at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, but it was pretty dodgy around Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore for tonight’s opening game of the current three-game series between the division-contending Baltimore Orioles and a Toronto Blue Jays team that is desperately fighting an injury jinx, one that bodes fair to keep them from ever recovering from their terrible April start.

The start of the game was delayed for about 30 minutes because of a passing shower. Once started, it was a brisk and entertaining affair that from the Blue Jays’ point of view went on just a little too long. The fact that the teams had to wait out a further downpour that took an hour to clear just after Toronto had failed to score in the top of the tenth inning made it even more of an anticlimax when the Orioles took little more than ten minutes to wrap up a walk-off win over a Blue Jays’ team that seems to carry a hex around with it wherever it goes these days.

Maybe they would have had better luck if the bottom of the tenth had been washed out completely, and the game resumed before Saturday evening’s scheduled affair. Maybe Welington Castillo would have gotten hold of some spoiled crab cakes for lunch on Saturday and been unable to do the good guys in when the game resumed.

And maybe if Napoleon had had a couple more horses, or maybe a few Sherman tanks and a couple of Kim Jong Un’s bargain-basement Explode-a-Phone missiles, he might have fought off that wily old two-ell Wellington, and changed the course of history. But, he didn’t.

Well, the bottom of the tenth was played Friday night, and one-ell Welington did hit his second dinger of the game off poor bewitched Jason Grilli to salt away a game that the Torontos should have won in regulation, extra innings be damned. So much for trying to avert the course of history.

Though it was Castillo’s night, as Toronto observers we really must start, after all, with Aaron Sanchez. And I think we have to start with this: no miracle is going to happen any time soon to transform this year’s Aaron Sanchez into the brilliant dominator of 2016. The team has to stop hoping/pretending that his blister and fingernail problem will soon be fixed.

As much as we all had waited longingly for him to return to the rotation, and as much as his pitches tonight showed much of their wicked nuance, he wasn’t quite right. We could see that from the very beginning, and we were deluding ourselves if we didn’t realise that his return is going to continue to be a work in progress.

He was uncomfortable on the mound. From the beginning he struggled with his control. Sure he caught the hapless-looking Chris Davis gazing at a brilliant curve ball to end the first, but he had walked Jonathan Schoop—which is actually hard to do—leading off the game.

In the second, he hit Trey Mancini, which gave the Orioles just the extra base runner they needed to combine with three base hits to score the first run of the game. Why did they need three hits and a hit batsman to score a run? Because the lead runner, the one who scored, was the labouring Mark,Truck Trumbo, who can only advance one base at a time, like a pawn in chess, if he only reaches first on his at bat. Good job for the Orioles that he hits lots of homers.

Sanchez was able to retire the side in order in the third, but gave up a single to Castillo in the fourth (maybe a small victory, in retrospect), and then walked Schoop—again—to lead off he fifth. More concerning than the walk to Schoop was that the last two outs were hit hard, Mannie Machado driving the ball into right centre for Pillar, and Chris Davis hitting a hard grounder that Justin Smoak coolly picked at first for the third out.

In the meantime, the Jays were up against Chris Tillman, the erstwhile ace of the Baltimore staff, who was making just his third start of the season after starting the season on the disabled list. Prior to today’s start, he had accumulated only nine and a third innings so far this year. We should point out that the injury woes being suffered by Toronto’s pitchers this year are not uniquely a Toronto problem. If you survey the whole array of both leagues, the number of starting pitchers facing arm trouble is astonishing. The marginal starters thrust into action by Seattle in the recent Toronto four-game sweep were just one of the more egregious examples of how teams are scuffling to deal with this problem.

Like Sanchez, Tillman had a bit of a sketchy start. He retired Zeke Carrera, who was leading off in the stead of the still-suspended Kevin Pillar, on a comebacker, but gave up a single to the resurgent Jose Bautista, whose every plate appearance tonight was greeted by vigourous booing on the part of the Baltimore fans, eager to prove their general manager’s off-season comments about Bautista to be correct. Then Kendrys Morales hit a rope to left, but right at Kim. We need to start noticing how many times Morales hits the ball really hard the opposite way when he’s batting left. At some point teams are going to have to start moderating the shift they employ against him. Then Tillman went 3-0 on Justin Smoak, none of them close, before Smoak finally bit on what was ball four away, and looped it the wrong way to Kim in left. No real damage here, but, like Sanchez’ first inning, there were intimations.

Tillman settled in a little better than Sanchez, and the Smoak fly ball to left was the start of seven outs in a row, including two strikeouts, which took him, comfortably enough, to the top of the fourth, now protecting that one-run lead tallied by Trumbo in the second.

Unlike Sanchez, though, Tillman failed to scatter his little stumbles. They were concentrated in the Toronto fourth, led to three runs, and could have resulted in a fourth, were it not for a curious decision, the first of two on the night, by Manager John Gibbons.

To the delight of the Baltimore fans, Tillman led off the fourth by plunking Bautista. Then he walked Morales, and the marvelously maturing Smoak took what he was given and knocked Bautista in by crossing up the shift and singling to left, with Morales chugging up the ninety feet to second. In all fairness, if I point out that Mark Trumbo clogs the bases if he only hits a single, the Jays are in a similar situation with Morales and Smoak on base, although we have witnessed some stirring runs to freedom by both of them this year.

Smoak’s RBI single brought Devon Travis to the plate, Travis, who delights me as much every time he slashes out another base hit—watch that batting average climb— as he scares me whenever the ball seeks him out at second in a tight situation, or whenever he’s on second and somebody hits a ground ball left side. But now Travis was at the plate, so it was all good. He chipped in another trademark double to right, which scored Morales with the second run and moved Smoak on to third.

Then the Jays resorted to some small ball to try to extend the lead. The first instance, which simply arose from the circumstances, involved a cool piece of hitting by Ryan Goins, and a very sharp baserunning read by Smoak from third. Smoak may be slow on the bases but he certainly ain’t stupid. On a 1-0 pitch, Goins hit the ball just sharply enough, and just far enough away from Tillman toward first, to bounce on toward second. Smoak, watching from third and inching farther off the bag, recognized at the very first instant that Tillman wasn’t going to field he ball, broke for the plate, and scored without a throw while Schoop, with no other option, took the out at first for the first out of the inning. Travis, of course (or perhaps we shouldn’t take this for granted) moved to third on the play.

Now came the decision by John Gibbons to attempt the most radical of all small-ball plays, the suicide squeeze. He had the right guys at hand to give it a try with Travis’ quickness at third and Barney’s veteran calm at the plate.

Now, time out for some commentary from yer humble scribe. I love the suicide squeeze. When successful, it’s one of the most beautiful plays in baseball. I even wrote a little piece about squeeze plays last year for my site that you can check out here if you’d like: http://longballstories.com/baseball-101-coach-dave-explains-the-squeeze-play/

But the suicide squeeze isn’t always appropriate. Here, we were only in the third inning. Tillman was scuffling, and you kind of knew he wasn’t going seven and two thirds on this night. If you think you need to try the suicide squeeze against, say, Brad Brach in the ninth inning of a tie game, that’s one thing. But I’m not convinced that it’s appropriate in a situation like this.

Now a lot of the “informed” commentary about tonight’s game suggested that the Jays botched this squeeze attempt. But if you’ve read my little Baseball 101 piece , you know that if the defensive team smells it out, there are some easy ways to foil the play. The Orioles smelled it out, and defensed it properly. Tillman wasted the pitch low and outside as Travis broke for the plate. Barney couldn’t have reached the pitch, even to foul it off, with a clothes pole. (I just realized many of my readers wouldn’t even know what a clothes pole is.) Travis was a dead duck.

The ultimate irony, of course, was that with two outs and nobody on, Barney got hold of one and drove Kim right back to the wall in left for the third out, which would have been a sacrifice fly had they not tried the squeeze. So, we ended up with three runs instead of four, and, going back to history for a minute, if wishes were horses . . .

We should mark the major league debut tonight of Anthony Alford, who was called up from Double A New Hampshire to replace the injured Darrell Ceciliani, and got the start in left. He went hitless, but in the top of the fifth he hit likely the hardest shot of the night off Tillman, a liner right at Kim in left that never cleared more than maybe twelve or fifteen feet off the ground.

The sixth inning represented a potential turning point in the game for Toronto, and a real one for the Orioles. In the top of the inning the Jays accumulated some base runners but let Tillman off the hook again. In the bottom of the inning, John Gibbons intruded his thought process, or rather lack thereof, into the game, to my mind directly contributing to the loss of the Toronto lead.

Normally, I tend to question Gibbie’s judgement when he comes out with the hook for his starting pitcher. I often think he’s hasty, and I generally am uneasy seeing a starter pulled in the top of the seventh, say, when he’s just given up a hit or a walk with one out.

Tonight, on the other hand, I have to fall on the other side of the issue. As we’ve said, Sanchie was clearly not quite back to optimum, and there had been concern and discussion in the dugout among the coaches during his stint. He was up to 82 pitches at the end of five innings, and was just back from supposedly resolving his finger problem. To me, it was time to shake hands and look to the Leones, the Barnes’s, and the Teperas to pick him up.

But Gibbie was all no, no, he’s fine, he’s strong, his stuff’s good, he’s got some mileage left. Of course, hindsight is always more accurate, but he trundled Sanchez back out there, and here’s what happened:

In two pitches, the game was tied. Mark Trumbo pulled a single, not with a late swing to right, into left, and Castillo jumped all over the next one and pounded it over the centre-field fence. Beyond that, after he caught Mancini looking on a 2-2 pitch, Hyung-Soon Kim drilled one right at Pillar in centre, and Jay Hardy sent Alford back to the wall to pluck his drive from above the fence with a well-timed leap. This was Alford’s first real major league test in the outfield, and he passed with flying colours. But Baltimore had tied the game off Sanchez.

Historically, and this year as well, when you’ve got a tie game after six innings between Toronto and Baltimore, there’s a pretty good bet you’re looking at extra innings. Tonight, you’d have won your bet.

Actually, but for a video review to confirm that a ball brushed Justin Smoak’s leg, the Jays would have taken the lead, admittedly on a bit of a fluke, in the seventh inning, and that run would have stood up in regulation, because Danny Barnes, Joe Smith, and Ryan Tepera were extremely effective out of the bullpen for Toronto.

Barnes gave up a two-out walk to Mannie Machado in the Baltimore seventh, but then blew away Chris Davis to end the inning. Joe Smith nearly had to be shot with a tranquilizer gun in the eighth, but came out all right in the end. With two outs, after getting Trumbo on a comebacker and freezing Castillo, Smith absolutely had Trey Mancini caught looking on a beautiful strike three that plate umpire Jerry Meals missed, plain and simple. You can look at pitch number six of the at-bat for yourself on PitchCast. Smith was beside himself. It was all Luke Maile could do to calm him down enough to get Kim to pop out to end the inning. Anyone for computerized strike zones? Tepera, who is getting more effective every time out with his combination of killer stuff and the occasional wild and wooly pitch just to keep the hitters honest, then breezed the ninth.

To go back to the seventh, old Blue Jay nemesis Darren O’Day put himself in a world of mess, and was lucky to get out of it with the help of the review team in New York. Chris Coghlan pinch-hit for Alford and singled to centre. Manager Gibbons put the bunt on for Luke Maile, and kept it on even after he’d fouled off two; he then bunted through for strike three. O’Day wasted this reprieve by trying a silly pickoff attempt on Coghlan, who wasn’t going anywhere, and threw it away, allowing Coghlan to move up anyway.

Zeke Carrera grounded out to first for the second out, with Coghlan moving to third. Then O’Day dug himself deeper by walking Bautista, then Morales, bringing Smoak to the plate. On a 2-2 pitch, crazy things happened. O’Day threw a wild pitch that bounced away from Castillo, but Smoak swung at it anyway for what would have been strike three, except that Castillo had to finish the strikeout by throwing down, and he was still chasing the ball when Smoak crossed first and Coghlan crossed the plate.

But here the rule book intervened. No doubt you already know that a strikeout is not recorded until the catcher either: (1) secures the ball in his glove before it hits the ground, i.e., catches it cleanly, (2) picks up the ball and tags the batter-runner out, or (3)throws the ball to first base to complete the out before the batter-runner reaches the base. EXCEPT: if in the process of swinging and missing for strike three, the ball hits the batter, the batter is automatically out. Why? Because if the ball deflects away from the catcher after hitting the batter, the catcher has no chance of completing the strikeout, so it’s not fair that the batter-runner reach base.

The video review in this case showed that the ball did indeed brush Smoak’s pant leg above his foot. There was nothing for it but to accept that Smoak was automatically out, and soCoghlan’s crossing the plate was irrelevant. The score remained tied.

As it did through the ninth, when Brad Brach breezed through the Jays as easily as Tepera had through the Orioles. Michal Givens retired the Jays in the top of the tenth despite walking Smoak with two outs.

Then the deluge came. It had been predicted that the rains would come again at about 11:00 in the evening and they were right on time. They lasted for about an hour before they slowed and the grounds crew were able to start uncovering the field and preparing it to resume play.

While Givens pitched the top of the tenth, Roberto Osuna had been warming up for Toronto. But after the rain delay it was Jason Grilli who came in to pitch rather than Osuna. There’s nothing surprising about this. Presumably Osuna would have been “hot” as the top of the tenth ended, and there was no way that he would have been able either to stay ready or get ready again to resume an hour later. You can’t treat bullpen arms like that.

Grilli looked well up to the challenge, until he wasn’t. Facing the fearsome heart of the Baltimore order, he completed the extraordinary feat of throwing called strike threes past both Machado and Davis. But it’s a tough crowd, this Baltimore lineup. With two outs, Trumbo swung late and hit a popup down the right field line that Bautista couldn’t get to. Trumbo was beaten on the pitch; it should have been the third out, but that’s baseball. It was also baseball that this brought the one-ell Welington to the plate, who had homered to tie the game in the sixth. Of course, he did it again, for the Baltimore win.

All you could think after the ball went out : I stayed up and waited out the rain just to see that?

Toronto has played seven games with Baltimore this season. Baltimore has won six. All but one of the games was decided by two runs or less. The record between the two teams could easily be reversed. But they’re not, and that’s why the Orioles are fighting with the Yankees for first in the division, and we’re still in last place.

After the mess and the drama of the last three nights, this should totally have been Marcus Stroman’s night. Unfortunately for Stroman, the ugly hangover from last night’s game and the off-field repercussions today of what went down then took most of the oxygen out of the world of Toronto baseball long before the game started.

We found out what Kevin Pillar said to Jason Motte in the seventh inning last night, and it wasn’t pretty. In fact, given the incredible popularity of the feisty centre fielder with Toronto’s fans around the country, it couldn’t have been worse.

It’s been a frustrating week losing three sloppy games to the rebuilding Atlanta team, and emotions were at a peak after Aaron Loup had hit Freddie Freeman on the wrist and, as we subsequently learned, put Freeman out with a broken bone. Then Atlanta pitcher Mike Foltynewicz delivered some payback to Devon Travis in the top of the seventh.

At the end of the Jays’ seventh, Motte struck out Pillar with a caught foul tip, but Pillar thought Motte had quick-pitched him, and lost it in the worst way possible. He shouted something at Motte, but we only found out later that it was some version or other of calling Motte a “fucking faggot”.

From all reports it was immediately apparent that Pillar realized that he had put himself into a really bad spot with his outburst. His immediate response after the game was that he was appalled that he had lost control of himself. He reported that he had already conveyed his apologies to Motte and the Atlanta organization, and he had made a passionate declaration that this was not who Kevin Pillar was, and that he had lost control out of frustration in the heat of the moment.

The only problem was that he didn’t directly address the essential awfulness of what had come out of his mouth in his moment of frustration. In 2017 in western society, regardless of what retrograde infant has managed to bamboozle his way into the White House, there is a huge difference between calling someone, for example, a “fucking asshole”, and using the homophobic slur used by Pillar.

Had he said in his immediate comments something to the effect that “what bubbled to the surface in my moment of frustration was a reflection of the casual verbal homophobia that I have not yet been able to expunge from my private persona. My embarrassment over this having happened in such a public way will inspire me to make a real change not only in the way I express myself about other human beings but in the way that I actually feel about them”, he would have hit the mark, and, along with accepting whatever punishment was meted out to him, would have gone a long way toward defusing the storm that raged around him for the next twenty-four hours.

But, he didn’t manage all of that in his first comments after the incident. Perhaps it’s not surprising that he didn’t. He is, after all, a ball player, a young guy who has devoted his life to perfecting his craft on the field, not to perfecting a public relations strategy that would enable him to handle successfully any and all problems that might arise in his public life without the aid and guidance of advisers wiser than he.

By the next day the story had changed. His formal response, his public statements, and the team’s response had all been brought into alignment to make the best out of a bad situation. General Manager Ross Atkins, who had booked a quick flight to Atlanta (he wasn’t travelling with the team, not even on their first visit to Atlanta’s new stadium?) presumably spearheaded the rescue operation when he arrived.

A most proper public apology, including a specific reference to what he said, was issued. “I had just helped extend a word that has no place in baseball, in sports or anywhere in society today.” He went on specifically to add “most importantly” the LGBTQ community to the list of entities to whom he was apologizing.

In comments to the press that I heard on the radio, he expressed the odd but extraordinarily humbling acceptance of whatever treatment would be meted out to him by the public. In essence what he said was “I have been given the opportunity to be made an example of how not to show respect to a valued segment of society, and I embrace that opportunity to be made an example of.”

Now, I’m a retired high school teacher, as you might have guessed. One of the more onerous experiences that all teachers have had to endure from time to time is to have to sit and pretend to accept a faux apology leveraged out of a misbehaving student who feels no remorse whatsoever over what she or he has done, and has no intention of actually apologizing. This situation would always result from the administrator recognizing that she or he had no other choice than to pretend to support the teacher but actually not being willing to risk evoking a complaint to either a superintendent or a trustee from a student backed by parents not willing to concede the error of the student’s ways.

As you can imagine, the “apologies” I have been pressured to “accept” in my career ranged from the almost real to the laughably inadequate. The worst, or funniest, depending on your point of view, was the hand-written note I received saying “Sir, I’m sorry for you thinking that I was rude to you but I wasn’t.” Whatever vice principal was involved in that transaction assured me that it was a perfectly acceptable apology. Maybe that’s why I retired early . . .

After consultation with whomever he met on Thursday, the statement issued by Pillar was spot on. If its essence had been delivered spontaneously by Pillar the night before, it would have gone much farther to defusing the situation much more quickly.

In addition it was announced that Pillar would serve a two-game suspension starting immediately, a suspension imposed by the team, not MLB headquarters. This was done, it was said, after consultation with the player, the team’s manager and coaches, the offices of MLB, and the players’ association. Kevin Pillar would not appear in tonight’s series closer with Atlanta, nor in Friday night’s series opener in Baltimore. The fact that the team imposed the penalty rather than MLB makes it appear to be very proactive, but there was something self-serving about it as well.

In short, if the league imposes a suspension on the player, the team has to play with a short bench for the duration of the suspension. If the suspension is imposed by the team, the playing roster remains at 25.

The Jays called up Dwight Smith Jr. to fill the roster spot vacated temporarily by Pillar. When the lineups were finally released for tonight’s game, though, Smith was on the bench, Zeke Carrera in left, Jose Bautista in right, and Darrell Ceciliani, who had been recalled recently from Buffalo to help cover the shortage caused by the injury to Steve Pearce, in centre. With Dalton Pompey still in rehab from his spring-training concussion, it was easy to imagine the Buffalo outfield being patrolled by an army of yellow rubber duckies.

There are some advantages to being behind in my reporting. I’m actually writing this piece on Sunday morning, I blush to admit, and the news has just come out that Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks, currently playing in the Western Conference Finals of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, has been fined $10,000 by the league, but not suspended, which says something about the National Hockey League, for uttering a homophobic slur at a referee.

I just caught an interview clip in which Getzlaf was “manning up” and “taking responsibility”, and the contrast was interesting. The best Getzlaf could say about taking something positive forward from the incident was that it showed that “we all have to show a little bit more respect”. This sounds a little closer to some of my old high school students. Respect toward whom? Refs, or the LGBTQ community? A little bit more? What, softer homophobic slurs? More inclusive ones?

Sorry, hockey fans, I’ll take Kevin Pillar’s response, scripted or not, over Ryan Getzlaf’s any day.

So with that last sentence I’m at nearly 1400 words, and not a word about the first game of the two games that would be played without Pillar in the lineup. I’m sorry, Marcus Stroman, it’s not often that your exploits take a back seat to anything.

And tonight they shouldn’t have taken a back seat to anything on earth. Oh, it wasn’t like he mowed Atlanta down or anything like that. Oh, well, in one respect he did: he went five and two thirds innings, that’s seventeen outs, fanned six, and got ten ground ball outs. So what he did on the mound today was to deliver the very best Marcus Stroman performance that he could. He did it with electrifying stuff, mesmerizing to watch from behind the hill as his slants darted, dived, hooked, backed up, and went any which way but straight.

So, why the quibble about his performance tonight at the beginning of the last paragraph? Simply enough, these Atlanta hitters just don’t go down quietly, and he not only gave up seven hits in his five and two thirds, he did not have a single three-up, three-down inning in the entire stint. Which also would explain why he ran up his pitch count to 103 to get those seventeen outs.

I’m not complaining, mind you; it can be highly entertaining to watch a talented pitcher dodge bullets (not literally at him, but situations, right?) through an entire start, and get away with it.

It also didn’t hurt that his team-mates posted a three-spot for him in the top of the first, before he even took the hill, and never looked back.

Julio Teheran had the start for Atlanta, a guy the Blue Jays have handled reasonably well in a few encounters in the past. He’s a lanky, right-handed Cuban with really good stuff but a tendency to be all over the place.

However, after the innocent Zeke Carrera, leading off in lieu of Pillar, skied out to right, Teheran had to fine-tune his aim, er control, a little, to settle a matter that was palpably hanging over the game. In the midst of all the controversy about Pillar’s outburst and suspension, it hadn’t been forgotten that there was unsettled business between the teams.

Not only Pillar’s words, but Freddie Freeman’s broken wrist bone and Jose Bautista’s unnecessary (in the circumstances) bat flip were all still in the ledger book, and one thing yet was needed to balance things out in the cockeyed world of baseball logic: Bautista had to feel the sting of a baseball on a fleshy part of his body.

Maybe Teheran really does have control problems, because it took him two shots to hit Bautista in the thigh, putting him on with one out. Baseball logic’s one thing, but putting yourself in the hole is another. Somebody should do a study of what happens after a payback pitch is made. You wonder how many times the hit batsman comes around to score, and/or it leads to a rally.

I don’t think it’s ever a great idea if the payback is made by a guy who doesn’t really know where his next pitch is going to go. In Teheran’s case, with Bautista on first and one out, we only know what happened to the last pitch to each of the next three batters: it touched green, and Toronto had a quick and satisfying three run lead. Kendrys Morales singled to left, bumping Bautista up to second. Darrell Ceciliani, the callup hitting cleanup, pulled a double into the right-field corner, scoring Bautista.

When Chris Coghlan’s hitting fifth, you gotta know the lineup’s depleted. With all the other injuries, and Pillar out, and the pitcher hitting, this is what you get. But he’s got some pro chops, this Coghlan guy. He was with the Cubs last year, you know. Instead of being an automatic out, Coghlan hit one the other way for a second consecutive double, plating Bautista and Ceciliani. I certainly hope the Atlanta players and coaches felt vindicated by their retaliation against Bautista. I imagine it didn’t bother him all that much.

While Stroman bobbed and weaved his way through the fearsome Atlanta batting order, Teheran managed a quiet second, and then got rocked again in the third. It was another quick-strike attack. Bautista led off with a double (maybe Teheran should have aimed for his butt again), Kendrys Morales singled down the left-field line, showing a continued penchant for hitting hard opposite the shift while hitting from the left side, and callup cleanup man (I just like writing that) Ceciliani drilled one over the right-field fence and it was 6-0.

Bizarrely, in this season of injury after injury, Ceciliani, at the moment of his first real triumphs at the plate for Toronto, six total bases and four RBIs, became likely the first Blue Jay in Toronto history to put himself on the disabled list by hitting a home run.

As soon as he left the batter’s box after putting a tremendous swing on the ball, Ceciliani grabbed his left shoulder, and held it all the way around the bases. After being gingerly greeted by his mates in the dugout, he disappeared down the tunnel, and did not return. The rookie Smith would end up making his MLB debut under less than positive circumstances. We later learned that Ceciliani’s left shoulder had been dislocated.

So, back at the baseball game, once again Teheran settled in and retired the side, now down 6-0. At this point, clearly, the intention on the part of Atlanta manager Brian Snitker was to raise the white flag, in the sense of leaving Teheran out there to absorb whatever, while saving the rest of his pitching staff.

But after Stroman’s realitively easy bottom of the third inning, in which he only had to pitch around a walk to Brandon Phillips, Toronto forced Snitker’s hand and drove Teheran from the game.

The Jays employed the most unlikely of all weapons to finish off the Atlanta starter, Luke Maile’s first home run as a Blue Jay, after previouslyarnering only two base hits, both balls dropping in the outfield after bouncing off charging fielder’s gloves. And then—wait for it, as if you didn’t already know—Maile’s blast was followed by Stroman’s second at bat of the game, his third of the season, during which he delivered his second base hit, his second extra-base hit, and his first major-league home run—to the opposite field.

Were it not for the Kevin Pillar story, surely the story of this day would be the Maile-Stroman back-to-back jacks. But, life has a way of interrupting . . .

Brian Snitker, who may have a bit of sadist in him, didn’t even pull Teheran after Stroman took him downtown. Oh, no, he let him pitch to, and walk, Zeke Carrera before taking him out for left-hander Sam Freeman, who is not related to Freddie Freeman. To add insult to injury, Freeman proceeded to give up base hits to Bautista and Morales, the latter of which brought in Toronto’s ninth run, also charged to Teheran.

Atlanta relievers Freeman, Josh Collmenter, and Ian Krol managed to keep the Jays off the board for the rest of the game. Ryan Tepera picked up Stroman in the sixth inning and pitched the seventh. Joe Smith pitched the eighth, and Jason Grilli the ninth. Notably, Smith struck out the side in the eighth, putting down Nick Markakis, Matt Kemp, and Tyler Flowers.

So this day that started so badly for Kevin Pillar and the Toronto Blue Jays ended on a positive note for Marcus Stroman and his team-mates, but if we look back on this day and try to remember why it was significant, while we may remember Marcus Stroman’s home run, it will be far overshadowed by what happened off the field in the Blue Jays’ family.

Maybe it had to happen sooner or later. We’ve all taken Joe Biagini far too much for granted. No matter how talented someone is, no matter how comfortable they seem in their own quirky skin, there has to be hidden, somewhere in the inner recesses of their being, a vulnerable child half of the man-child that plays this children’s game as an adult on display for the world to see.

How else to explain what happened to Joe Biagini tonight? No need to fill in much of the back story here: Rule 5 success story, rock of the bullpen last year, future rotation fixture, all the tools, quirky personality, gives good interview. Not to mention that he’d been well nigh untouchable in his first two starts once thrust into the rotation this year because of injuries.

But there he was standing off to the side of the mound, shoulders sagging, shaking his head, obviously beside himself. We’d never seen him in such distress before.

After the two awful—I used the word “disgusting” at the end of yesterday’s game report—games in Toronto with Atlanta, the Jays needed some good news in a big way tonight, and it seemed right that Joe Biagini would be getting his third start on the mound. After the success of the first two, the prospects were pretty good that he could help turn things around.

But after Atlanta pitcher Mike Foltynewicz stranded a one-out Zeke Carrera single in the top of the first, it took very little time for the wheels to fall off Biagini’s wagon, in a most personal yet most public and most unusual way.

Leading off for Atlanta, left-handed-hitting centre fielder Ender Inciarte reached out in his aggressively insouciant National League kind of way and slapped a 1-2 pitch that was way outside, into left field, through a shift-abandoned, unmanned left side of the infield. After this rude little introduction, though, Biagini got just what he wanted, a nice one-hopper right back to him, ripe for turning two.

Biagini picked it, whirled, and, shock of all shocks, because among the many things Biagini does well, fielding his position is one of the best, he uncorked a high throw to second that pulled Devon Travis off the bag. All hands were safe on the throwing error charged against the pitcher.

And there he stood for a moment, to the first-base side of the mound, back to the plate, wondering, along with all of us, what had just happened.

And this is where we all—Blue Jays’ fans everywhere—failed Joe Biagini. No big deal, we thought, he can fix this. He’s Joe Biagini. He’s a pro. He’s the best. Strikeout, popup, easy fly, he’ll be out of there in no time.

But we forgot. Not that Biagini is a kid, because he’s not. He’s 26, played college ball, and is in his sixth year of pro ball. It’s just that he’s so good, that we forget that in almost every interview he does, he takes a moment to remind us all that he can’t believe his luck, that he can’t believe he’s landed where he has, in the middle of the big leagues, pitching meaningful innings for a powerful contending team.

We forgot that he is in many ways a wide-eyed every man, more like us than many of his team-mates, and potentially more vulnerable than most, though he’d never shown it yet.

Back on the hill, his world came crumbling down. He walked Freddie Freeman on four pitches to load the bases. He walked Matt Kemp on a 3-2 pitch to force in Inciarte. Nick Markakis lofted a teasing opposite-field fly ball to the left-field corner. Zeke Carrera, handling his first ball hit in anger in this brand new left field in this brand new ball park in the early evening lost track of the ball and it fell in safely as he twisted himself into a pretzel trying to see where it was. Because the ball was catchable, Kemp had to hold up and only got to second, so Markakis stopped at first, but Phillips and Freeman scored for a 3-0 lead. Then catcher Kurt Suzuki rounded on an 0-1 fast ball right down the middle and hit it out of this hitter-friendly new yard, over the left-centre field fence.

Six batters, four hits, 1 error, six runs, and nobody out.

To his credit, Joe Biagini did what few adults could ever manage being able to do when faced with such shocking adversity. He took a deep breath and started all over again. In eleven pitches he had retired the side. Two ground balls and a line out to centre, and he was able to escape the mound that had become his personal chamber of horrors.

When a starting pitcher takes the ball for his team after his staff has been beaten up pretty badly for a couple of games in a row, there’s a certain onus on that starter to, as they say, suck it up, no matter what, and try to put in some innings to take some of the heat off an overworked bullpen. Joe Biagini knows that. All starting pitchers know that. When Manager John Gibbons didn’t get anybody up in the bullpen, didn’t pull Biagini after the homer, he was sending him two messages: first, we need you, son, so get to work out there, and second, we trust you to find a way.

Joe Biagini could have come into the dugout a beaten man, but he didn’t. As a near-rookie fill-in, he knew his role, and he knew what he had to do. In the kind of fluke that can only happen in baseball, he got a form of do-over in the second inning. Since he had gone through the lineup exactly once in the first, giving up six runs and recording three outs, there was Inciarte at the plate again to start the second.

This time, Joe Biagini made no mistakes, and retired the Atlanta batting order, nine up, nine down, on 31 pitches, after throwing 36 in the traumatic first inning. Counting the three batters he retired to end the first inning, Biagini retired twelve batters in a row on 42 pitches, and showed his team-mates, the Atlanta team, and the world of major league baseball, that Joe Biagini can pitch.

In fact, were this not an inter-league game, at 67 pitches total he certainly would have gone out to pitch the fifth, but with his turn in the batting order coming up second, and his team down six to two, it was time for the manager and everyone in the dugout to shake hands with Joe on a brave stand and a job well done, and send Darrell Ceciliani up to hit for him.

Speaking of Biagini hitting, by the time of his first at bat in the third inning, not only had the irrepressibility of his spirit returned, but also his consummate professionalism. You couldn’t help but mark his eager grin as he grabbed his bat and headed for the on-deck circle. Then, when Luke Maile reached on a fielding error by shortstop Danby Swanson, Baseball Joe came out to play as he laid down a pretty fine sacrifice bunt to move Maile up to second.

Mike Foltynewycz, who’s filled a lower rotation spot with Atlanta for the last couple of years, with accompanying numbers you’d expect from a four/five starter on a rebuilding team, was the beneficiary of the Atlanta outburst in the first, and he did a decent enough job of protecting the lead. He escaped a small bullet in the third after Biagini’s successfull sacrifice. Kevin Pillar had followed with a nubber back to the pitcher that allowed Maile to advance to third with two outs, and Zeke Carrera hit one right on the nose, but right at Freeman at first for the third out.

In the fourth Toronto started to measure him and cut two runs into the early Atlanta lead. Jose Bautista, who is looking more like Jose Bautista, and not some pale (not really) imitation every day, led off with a hard liner to left centre that didn’t get to the wall but that he hustled into a double anyway. Justin Smoak followed with another blast to right for the Jays’ first two runs of the night. Devon Travis followed with a base knock for three hits in a row off Foltynewycz before he settled down and induced a fielder’s choice and a double play.

Biagini might have had some hope of getting off the hook for the loss as the Jays picked up another run in the fifth, when he was pulled for a pinch-hitter. In fact, only an egregious base-running error by Carrera kept them from the possibility of creeping a little closer. It’s not like they were bashing it around, though.

Luke Maile led off with a bloop single to left that ticked off Matt Kemp’s glove. (No, Kemp’s glove wasn’t really mad.) That’s Maile’s second hit as a Blue Jay. Both have ticked off outfielder’s gloves. Ceciliani, hitting for Biagini, grounded weakly to second. Phllips had no play on Maile so it served as a bunt. (The grumpy part of me says “hell, Biagini coulda done that and stayed in the game!”) Kevin Pillar grounded out to short and with a smart bit of running Maile timed his break and made it to third. It’s always good to get yourself to third base with two outs, because the pitcher might throw a wild pitch or something, which is what Foltynewycz did, allowing Maile to score.

With two outs the Jays continued to put pressure on Atlanta, until a bizarre and unfortunate baserunning mistake by Zeke Carrera took the Jays out of the inning in one of those turning points that you recognize as such right on the spot. After the wild pitch, the Atlanta pitcher finished off the walk to Carrera, and Bautista followed with his second of three hits on the night. This brought Justin Smoak back to the plate amid rising tension that something really big might happen. Instead, Smoak bid for his first infield hit of the year, hitting a dribbler off the end of the bat down the third-base line. Third basman Jace Peterson, stationed toward shortstop, had to go a long way to field it, and wasn’t going to get Smoak at first or a force at third, which would have loaded the bases. Except that Zeke decide to dance the meringué with Peterson and got called out for interference for the third out. Smoak later said that he was really mad to lose the infield hit, because he’d kicked it into high gear going down the line when he could smell the base hit. Right, Justin.

With Inciarte hitting first and Freeman hitting third in the bottom of the fifth Manager John Gibbons naturally brought Aaron Loup in to pitch. He got Inciarte to ground out, but then gave up a ground-rule double to Brandon Phillips. Phillips, remember, thus became the first Atlanta hitter to reach base since the Suzuki homer off Biagini in the first. This brought Freddie Freeman to the plate, and us to the moment when the entire game took a terrible turn.

In the first game of the series in Toronto the Jays had recorded a not-very-admirable new record of hitting five batters. Never was there any intent, and the Atlanta players knew this. In fact, the first three were by the breaking-ball specialist Mike Bolsinger, whose curve ball couldn’t break a pane of glass, let alone a bone in somebody’s wrist. In fact, there is probably not a case in recorded baseball history of a pitcher intentionally hitting a batter with a curve ball: In fact, how do you even do that?

But Aaron Loup is another story. Not that he’s a headhunter, or even a particularly aggressive guy. It’s just that he throws a lot harder than Bolsinger, for sure, and some of his most effective pitches come sweeping across the plate from a dropped arm angle. And there’s no way that Loup would have been throwing at Freeman, a left-handed hitter he was supposed to get, with Phillips on second and the Jays trying to claw back into the game.

But hit him he did, and the sound of the ball off his back wrist was so loud that at first everybody thought it was a foul ball. But Freeman’s reaction made it clear that it was no foul. His wrist was attended to on the field, he was escorted off, and Johan Camargo came in to run for him. I’ll cut to the chase here, and jump ahead to the fact that Freeman indeed suffered a broken bone, and the hottest hitter in the National League is going to be sidelined for a minimum of eight to ten weeks. I do this because Atlanta knew it was bad, the Blue Jays knew it was bad, and the tenor of the game and the series changed instantly for the worse.

With the righty Matt Kemp coming up and Loup likely too shaken to go on, John Gibbons brought in Dominic Leone, who fanned Kemp, and then got Markakis to ground out to end the inning.

Foltynowycz came out for his last inning, the sixth, with a message for Toronto, hitting Devon Travis on the thigh, if I remember correctly, with an obvious intent pitch on his first pitch of the inning. He then settled back to business, but benefited from a strange double play initiated by shortstop Dansby Swanson grabbing and dropping probably intentionally a sharp liner by Ryan Goins. Travis, of course, held first, so Swanson tossed to Phillips for the force, and Phillips threw on to first to complete the double play while Travis and Goins convened at first like they were meeting up for a coffee. Foltynewicz then finished up for the day by getting Darwin Barney to ground out, completing a workmanlike line of 6 innings pitched, three runs, six hits, one walk, one strikeout, and one statement hit batsman, on 102 pitches.

Leone returned to the hill for the Atlanta sixth, and if the Jays had any hopes of working their way further back into this one they were dashed by more weirdness that benefitted the home team. Kurt Suzuki, whose dagger had put the finishing touches on Joe Biagini’s nightmare first, hit a simple bouncer toward third. Barney went behind the bag to time a hop and toss out the slow catcher. But the ball hit the base and bounded over Barney’s head into the corner for a double.

If the Jays had been somewhat unhinged by Biagini’s start, this finished them off. Leone walked Jace Peterson. While receiving a pitch to Swanson from Leone, Luke Maile thought he saw enough daylight at second to take a shot at Suzuki—he didn’t belong there anyway. But Maile made a bad throw, the ball ended up in no man’s land, and Suzuki and Peterson advanced. Leone fanned Swanson for the first out, but former and mostly unremarkable Blue Jay Emilio Bonifacio, hitting for the pitcher, hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Suzuki, who of course shouldn’t have been there.

Gibbie turned to the lefty J.P. Howell to face Inciarte, which worked out just great . . . for Atlanta. Inciarte singled to right to score Peterson, and advanced to second when Bautista mishandled the ball in right. Phillips drew a walk before Camargo, hitting in Freeman’s spot, grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the mini-agony. With the score now 8-3, and everybody’s mind on something else, there wasn’t much likelihood of a Toronto rally.

But that didn’t mean the fireworks were over. Both teams were helped in the seventh by sparkling plays in the field, Inciarte making a leaping grab of Ceciliani’s deep drive in the top of the inning off Jason Motte, Ryan Goins making a very fine backhand stop, spin, and throw to get the no-longer-very-fast Kemp, and Howell making a nice pick on a sharp hopper to get Markakis.

But the inning, the night, the remainder of the Toronto stay in Atlanta, and the rest of the “news cycle” as they say on CNN, was dominated by something else that happened in the seventh that would not show up in the box score. With two outs and nobody on, Motte struck out Kevin Pillar, with Suzuki holding on to the foul tip. But Pillar, frustration obviously boiling over, thought Motte had quick-pitched him, and shouted something out to him as Motte headed for the dugout. Motte started to veer back towards Pillar and the plate, but plate umpire Brian O’Nora ordered him back to the dugout, some sullen shuffling around took place, and Pillar returned to fetch his glove while order was restored.

But unfortunately Jose Bautista sometimes doesn’t have the greatest sense of timing. After the Freeman injury, after the payback to Travis, after the unpleasantness directed toward Motte, with lefty Eric O’Flaherty pitching and one out, Bautista capped off his solid day at the plate with his third hit, a rocket no-doubter over the left-field wall. Then he chose to resurrect the Bat Flip in a modified way. Bad choice, wrong time. As Bautista rounded first, Peterson, who had moved over to first when Freeman came out, jawed something at Bautista as he passed, and by the time Bautista reached the plate the benches had emptied somewhat; again, to no great mayhem.

The game ended uneventfully, as the Jays went quickly after the Bautista homer, Danny Barnes took only ten pitches to mow down Atlanta in the eighth, and the Jays went very meekly against Jim Johnson on thirteen pitches with two strikeouts.

It was almost as if both teams were really eager to get into the shower and wash the stink of this one away.

Lost in the mess of the end of the game was the tragedy and redemption of Joe Biagini, which should have been the only story of the night. Instead, in the story of this season, if the Jays’ now-stalled recovery from their bad start never gets going again, we may point to this night as a key moment in the incipient tragedy of the 2017 Toronto Blue Jays.

A note from yer humble scribe: what follows is a truncated version of a very nice piece that I wrote about a very bad ball game that took place on Tuesday night. Somehow I chose a Mac “command” key that I didn’t know existed and sent over 2200 words tumbling off into cyberspace. I have tried not to recreate the piece verbatim, but to preserve its themes and reflections, and I hope that it will serve as a useful, if not complete, place-holder in the chronicle of the season. As for my careless computer work, I have been chastened. Bigly.

It would have been easy to dismiss Monday night’s dismal Jays’ performance as a one-off, an inevitable slack night after a run of really good ball. Besides, with a fill-in pitcher going for the Jays, and so on . . .

So tonight, the monkey of the streak off their backs, and the redoubtable Marco Estrada on the hill for Toronto, our boys would surely revert to their recent sterling play and winning ways.

Too bad nobody told these pesky Atlanta guys, wallowing as low in the standings as we are, but who are able to put up a two-through-five batting order of Brandon Phillips, Freddie Freeman, Matt Kemp, and Nick Markakis that’s awfully robust for a team that’s supposed to be in the depths of a complete rebuild.

So although it was disappointing, it wasn’t surprising that Atlanta jumped on Estrada for two quick runs in the top of the first, matching their start on Monday night, and introducing a game sequence that ended up being remarkably like Monday’s: Atlanta would jump ahead, the Jays would claw back, Atlanta would put a little more distance between them, the Jays would almost get it back to even, and so on.

So cue all the clichés, like too little too late, like Sisyphian task, even harken back to good old Lenin’s “One step forward, two steps back”. It was so much the pattern, that in the course of these last two games, once the first pitch was thrown, the Blue Jays never once had a lead, and only once, in the sixth inning of tonight’s game, did they tie it at 5-5, only to have Dansby Swanson hit a home run leading off the seventh to restore the Atlanta lead, which was only relegated to a tie for the duration of one commercial break.

Like his previous start when he gave up a first-inning two-run homer to Nelson Cruz of Seattle, Estrada again had trouble in the first, only to settle in and cruise through to the fifth, by which time the Jays had scratched it back to a 3-2 deficit. But in an uncharacteristic display for Estrada, he faltered again in the fifth, giving up a double to Phillips followed by a home run by Semi-Canuck-but-Totally-All-Star Freddie Freeman. Then he settled back in for the sixth, to finish in a breeze, though he’d given up five runs.

In the meantime lefty Jaime Garcia plowed through the Toronto lineup like a farmer tilling his field, at one point inducing 9 consecutive ground ball outs. Eventually, though, as is his pattern, Garcia started to get reachable, and the Jays had managed to package doubles by Kevin Pillar and Devon Travis around a walk to Justin Smoak in the fourth to get back into it.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Jays finished off Garcia and touched up his successor Jose Ramirez, utilizing another walk to Smoak, another double by Travis, an RBI single by Darwin Barney, and an RBI groundout by Zeke Carrera to bring the team briefly to the heady pinnacle of a 5-5 tie.

Mention should be made of the fact that throughout these two games the Atlanta lineup has shown a remarkable ability to deliver the two-out base hit to score runs, and interestingly some of the Jays started to emulate this lovely practice. Their first three runs had been delivered with two outs, the first two on the afore-mentioned Travis double in the fourth, and the third on a solo two-out homer by Pillar in the fifth.

For some reason Toronto Manager John Gibbons, aka Old Lackadaisical, decided to wake up and start managing the Jays in the top of the seventh. They shoulda let him sleep.

First, he reasoned that at 93 pitches over six innings it was probably wise to call it a night for the free-and-easy-throwing Estrada, who looked on this night as if he could go on forever. Perhaps Gibbie was covering his own buttsky here, figuring that if he sent him back out there and he got touched up, the criticism would be worse than if he pulled him. So, pull him he did, replacing him with the usual solid Danny Barnes, and Barnes immediately (well, almost, it was an 0-1 pitch) served up what turned out to be the game-winning home run to Dansby Swanson, future star who is currently hitting below .200.

Then, fast forward to the bottom of the eighth, when for once Gibbie correctly to mind my mind resorted to the bunt, but then stuck with it when it was past its due date. So Devon Travis, two doubles in his trophy bag already, was at the plate with nobody out, Darrell Ceciliani on second running for Kendrys Morales who had led off with a single, and Justin Smoak on first with his third walk of the night. (Yes, this is the same Justin Smoak of old, but these days not the same hitter at all.)

Despite Travis’ success earlier in the game, the law of averages has to catch up with him, and I can imagine Gibbie didn’t want to have to listen to the howls of Mike from Mississauga and his ilk after the game, so the bunt was on. But Travis’ first attempt was dreadful, against the reliever Arodys Vizcaino. At this point, I would have let him loose and taken my chances. “Nevertheless”, like Elizabeth Warren, “[Gibbie] persisted.” With two strikes on him and the bunt off, Travis went down on strikes.

The Jays weren’t quite done yet. Darwin Barney, frequently Mr. Clutch for Toronto, came up and blistered one that 99 times out of a hundred would have split the outfielders in right centre and gone all the way to the wall. But Brandon Phillips at second leapt up, snared it in his glove, and caught the dead duck Ceciliani two steps off the bag at second for a double play. It was just one of those dreadful, up-and-down, “eek-uk” moments.

So at this point job one was to keep the deficit at one to give us a chance in the bottom of the ninth. Manager Gibbons tabbed Joe Smith to do it, and after giving up two singles leading off the Atlanta ninth he seemed fair to be getting out of when he got Phillips to hit into a double play. The next move was to walk Freeman (great idea, that), leaving Smith with runners on the corners and two down.

Then Gibbie lost his nerve with Smith and brought in Roberto Osuna, who never pitches as well when he comes into an inning in progress, to face Matt Kemp. It didn’t go well. A Kemp double to left scored the two runners, and then Mr. I-spit-on-your-Toronto-face Nick Markakis singled home Kemp with the last, two-out coup de gràce, giving Atlanta a soul-destroying three-run lead.

After that, the air, and no doubt most of the fans, went out of the stadium.

If tonight’s game was an audition for Mike Bolsinger to stay in the rotation for a while, I don’t imagine he’s too hopeful of a call back any time soon.

There’s a spot for Bolsinger, or someone, at least until one of Jay Happ or Francisco Liriano comes back. It’s a given now that Joe Biagini has call on the last fill-in position, considering how well he’s done in his first two starts.

Bolsinger had a pretty good first outing, when he only had one bad inning out of five, giving up two runs in the second inning of a subsequent 6-0 Cleveland win in which he took the loss. Manager John Gibbons had to have hoped he might get at least a similar outing this time.

But Bolsinger, a control pitcher with a great curve ball, had all kinds of location problems tonight. Though he lasted four and two thirds innings, he gave up five earned runs on eight hits with two walks and three strikeouts, and, bizarrely, 3 hit batters. It’s a good thing he doesn’t throw very hard and they were all breaking balls or there would have been mayhem on the field. So there’s an open start in the rotation when Bolsinger’s number comes up again, but it’s an open question, or at least it should be, as to whether he gets that start.

But to be fair to Bolsinger, there was lots of other blame to be apportioned for this one, from some sloppy play in the field, to Leonel Campos grooving one late to Freddie Freeman for an extra three runs, to Manager John Gibbons, even, for giving up on this one too soon and letting Campos pitch to Freddie Freeman in the sixth inning.

And some of the blame has to go in the form of credit, to an Atlanta lineup that is relentless in attacking the pitcher, and fearless in facing down the pressure of two outs and ducks on the pond.

Right from the beginning, it seemed like Atlanta had to get down to crunch time before doing its damage. In the first inning, Bolsinger caught leadoff hitter Ender Inciarte looking on a 1-2 pitch. After the Inciarte strikeout, Bolsinger’s breaking ball riding in and hitting Brandon Phillips seemed innocuous enough, especially when sometime Canadian (kudos to him for donning the red for the World Baseball Classic) Freddie Freeman hit into a fielder’s choice from third for the second out.

But going up there with two outs was like catnip to Matt Kemp, whom I’m sure the Jays wanted to stuff in a (very big) locker by the end of the night. On an 0-1 pitch Kemp stroked a single into left. Freeman, who plays with brio, was going first to third almost from the crack of the bat.

If a first-inning mistake costing a run can be said to be a soul-destroying turning point, then a terrible throw by the normally sensible Zeke Carrera on Kemp’s ball was certainly one such. With the play in front of him, and no obvious chance of getting Freeman at third, Zeke decided to go for it anyway. Fair enough, but as he sometimes does, he airmailed it to the bag. The ball sailed over the cutoff man and of course Kemp sailed into second.

No problem. Two outs. Just get the hitter. No, big problem. Two outs is show time for these guys. And who was at the plate? None other than Nick Markakis, who spent a career wearing out the Blue Jays when he was an Oriole, and why did the Orioles let him go?

If I’m Mike Bolsinger, and in the position he’s in regarding the rotation, it bothers me a lot, a whole lot, to scuffle a bit in the first inning against a good-hitting team and come out down 2-0, rather than 1-0. So when Markakis inevitably grounded a base hit up the middle scoring two (it was remarkable how many ground ball base hits Atlanta seemed to be snaking through the infield, as if Toronto’s positioning was always just that one step off), it had to put Bolsinger in a hole in terms of his confidence, even if he did pop up Tyler Flowers to end the inning.

It didn’t exactly help Bolsinger that 43-year-old geezer Bartolo Colon whipped through the bottom of the first on ten pitches, as if he were facing a high school team.

And he sure didn’t help himself when he pinged off* right fielder Adonis Garcia on a 2-1 pitch leading off the second. Next thing you knew he was on third, stolen base to second, took third when Luke Maile’s throw ticked off Ryan Goins’ glove, and then off Devon Travis’. Well, third base and one out, since Jace Peterson struck out on the stolen base. So Dansby Swanson plated him with a sac fly, and it’s 3-0 Atlanta. Bolsie walked Ender Inciarte before getting Brandon Phillips to sky to centre.

*”Pinged off”: kid ballplayers in Toronto and area always used this term for getting hit by a pitch when I was coaching. Is it used generally, or is it local?

Maybe the baseball gods do distribute some justice, because Colon did a bit of showboating to retire his fourth straight in the bottom of the second. Kendrys Morales hit a hopper back to him, he picked it, took it out of his glove, and pretended to be counting the stitches or something while Morales laboured down the line. Finally, he roused himself from his torpor and tossed over for the out. That was immediately followed by Justin Smoak hitting one over Freddie Freeman’s head at first and into the corner where a fan touched it for a ground rule double. The outfield for Smoak was playing straight up despite the shift again. Don’t get it.

Then Devon Travis hit one deep to centre that one-hopped over the fence for back-to-back ground-rule doubles, and the Jays’ first run. Too bad they gave up the Garcia run. Too bad Zeke missed a cutoff man. Too bad it’s not 1-1 instead of 3-1 . . .

In the top of the third Bolsinger settled in and retired the side with eight pitches, though he had to throw a double play ball to Markakis to erase a Steve Kemp single. The Jays missed a chance in the bottom of the third to creep closer when Freddie Freeman made a really good snag of an errant throw from Danby Swanson at short to retire Kevin Pillar for the second out. The rushed throw was well off line and one-hopped Freeman, but he dipped way back into foul territory with his free foot to snag the throw for the out. Thing is, Colon then walked Zeke Carrera and gave up a single to right by Bautista that, with two outs, surely would have scored Pillar from second, but for Freeman keeping him off the bases. Still 3-1.

Another hit by pitch let Atlanta get another runner in scoring position to be cashed, making it 4-1, so that when the Jays answered in the bottom of the inning it was still a two-run deficit. Hard to play catchup when the other guys running away from you.

The Atlanta run was tinged with luck, but were it not for a great throw and tag by Bautista and Goins it could have been even worse. Catcher Tyler Flowers hit one off the end of his bat into centre for a single leading off the fourth. Adonis Garcia promptly replaced Flowers’ lack of speed with his own quickness by grounding into a fielder’s choice. Then Bolsinger hit the eight hitter Jace Peterson, his third hit batsman, pushing Garcia to second. Sigh. Of course the nine hitter Swanson hit one into the right-field corner to score Garcia, though he tried for two and Bautista and Goins combined for a nice throw and tag, while Peterson died at third.

So when Swanson returned the favour by throwing Travis’ infield single down the line allowing him to reach second, whence he scored on Mike Ohlman’s first major league hit and RBI, a single to centre, Toronto was still two down.

The fifth did Bolsinger in, not that you could see it coming. He quickly disposed of Phillips on a strikeout and Freeman on a lazy fly to Pillar, using only eight pitches, but then he hit the wall, and couldn’t finish the inning. You can thank Kemp and Markakis for that. Kemp waited out seven pitches then doubled to left. Markakis of course promptly singled him home for a 5-2 Atlanta lead. Bolsinger then walked Flowers. Pete Walker came out to talk to him, presumably because lefty J. P. Howell wasn’t ready. Too bad for everybody, because Garcia ticked one off Goins’ glove into centre that scored Markakis. Then Howell came in and got a groundout from Jace Peterson to end the inning, but it was now 6-2 for the visitors.

You can imagine, then, that when Kevin Pillar led off the bottom of the inning with a single and eventually came around to score on a double by Jose Bautista, it kind of felt like too little too late, and small potatoes at that, since Smoak walked with two outs after the Bautista double, but two-out base hits only seemed to be in the cards for Atlanta, as Travis grounded out to third. 6-3.

In the sixth John Gibbons sent Howell back out there, but in quick order he gave up a double to Swanson and a bunt single to Inciarte, and Gibbie came out with the hook. Strangely, with four innings left to hit and down only three runs, he brought in the least experienced member of the bullpen, the newly-returned Leonel Campos, who fanned the first batter he faced, Brandon Phillips, bringing up Freddie Freeman.

In bringing in Campos, and allowing him to pitch to Freeman, did Gibbie think based on one good inning that he was the right guy for the job? We’ll never really know why him, but we sure know what happened, as he coughed up a three-run homer to Freeman that iced the game for Atlanta.

I worry here that the Toronto manager is starting to think in rigid terms about how to use his bullpen. Tonight, Ryan Tepera and Dominic Leone, who might have filled this role in the sixth, weren’t available for sure because of significant stints on Sunday against the Mariners. But Danny Barnes was last used on Saturday, and Joe Smith on Friday. Could it be that Campos was the choice because it was the sixth inning, and not time for the seventh-inning guy Barnes, and not time for the eighth-inning guy Smith?

When I coached, I learned quickly in tournament situations that you have to win the one you’re in, and you can’t worry about the semifinal until you’ve actually arrived there. Saving your best pitcher for a final that you didn’t make would qualify as a kids’ baseball version of Showaltering Zac Britton. If you don’t put out the fire in the sixth, the rest of the game doesn’t matter.

In any case a 6-3 deficit faced by a team that’s starting to score runs in bunches was turned into a blowout because arguably the best hitter in baseball at the moment was allowed to hit against an inexperienced callup.

Once the homer had been hit, it made sense to leave Campos in and have him eat some outs if he could, since the game was out of hand. After Freeman’s blast Campos gave up a run of his own, yielding a double to Matt Kemp, hitting Tyler Flowers, the fourth Toronto hit batsman in the game, and seeing Kemp score on a little (two-out, of course) flare to right by Adonis Garcia. 10-3 Atlanta.

From this point it hardly mattered that the Jays scored in the bottom of the seventh when reliever Ian Krol got two quick outs, then walked Morales and Smoak before coughing up Travis’ second double of the night to score Morales.

It should be noted that amidst the dreary dregs of this game Aaron Loup, who came on in the eighth to pick up Campos, while going about his business hit Nick Markakis with a pitch. The five hit batsmen by Toronto pitchers set a new franchise record for a single game.

There was one last bittersweet moment in the bottom of the ninth, when after Jose Bautista led off with a single against Josh Collmenter and Kendrys Morales flied out to left, Justin Smoak who continues to surge as the team’s leading power source hit a no-doubt blast to right that made the final score 10-6. The most bittersweet aspect, of course, being that if you subtract the extra run in the first caused by Carrera’s bad throw, Garcia’s run in the second after being hit by a pitch, stealing second, and advancing to third on a throwing error, Garcia’s run in the fourth after he’d been moved into scoring position when Bolsinger hit Peterson, and add the run the Jays didn’t score because of Freeman’s great scoop that killed an infield hit by Pillar, the game was tied. And we’re not even talking about whether Smith or Barnes would have given up the Freeman home run.

Ah yes, if wishes were horses . . .

After this great run lately, we were due for a stinker. This one was stinker enough for two streaks, so let’s start another tomorrow. Please.