Long Ball Stories

When your team’s lost three of its first four games of the season, it’s hard to go all aesthetic anticipating the cold, hard brilliance of a great pitching duel.

Baseball is a spectacle, a dance, a military tattoo. For most of the season, for its most perceptive fans, it’s a game for which the process, not the product, is its essence.

And yet it is impossible to absorb and appreciate the process without taking sides. Once you’ve taken sides you can no longer be indifferent to the product.

Winning counts, dammit. It tastes good. When your team is winning, everything is awash in a glow of celestial light. The most mundane play is a thing of beauty. The squibbiest of hits is a cause for joy. When you’re winning, you can sit back and smell the roses, and after each win the phrase “what a beautiful game” never loses its savour.

But losing hurts, dammit. It leaves the taste of ashes in your mouth. When you’re losing, every pitch is fraught. Every swing is fraught. Every play might contain the seeds of destruction. A good play brings no joy, for it only serves to ward off the inevitable, crucial failure just around the corner, the failure that will lead to another loss.

So for yer humble scribe, there was no joy, only tension and fear, in looking forward to this evening’s matchup between two of the premier pitchers in the American League, Chris Archer and Aaron Sanchez.

Both pitchers have something to prove in this first week of the 2017 season.

Archer, 28, four years older than Sanchez, with nearly four full seasons under his belt, had entered 2016 with high expectations, following a 2015 record that wasn’t marked so much by his 12-13 record, or even his very decent ERA of 3.23, but by the fact that he had amassed 252 strikeouts in 212 innings. In 2015 Chris Archer had declared himself to be a power pitcher extraordinaire.

But Archer had a tough, really tough, 2016. It wasn’t so much his record, which bottomed out at 9-19 (not a big deal on a team that went 68-94) with an ERA of 4.02, or even a fall-off in his power numbers, pitching 201.1 innings and amassing 233 strikeouts. What was really frustrating was that he had to work hard in the second half of the year just to get to those levels. The first half of his season was littered with short starts and periods of uncharacteristic lack of command.

So Chris Archer is a man on a mission in 2017. He had a solid first start against the Yankees on Opening Day, and was looking to build on that tonight.

The task for Aaron Sanchez for 2017 is a very different one. There’s no need to say much about the season-long discussion of limits to Sanchez’ work load last year. Suffice to say that we all know now that as long as he was dominant they would find a way to keep him in the rotation. Which they did, and which worked out brilliantly. He was strong to the end, and finished at 15-2 and won the American League ERA title at 3.00. It’s a feat in itself for an AL East starter to have the lowest ERA in the league, let alone coming from a guy the health of whose arm was a constant topic of discussion.

Now, in 2017, the limits are off, and Toronto’s management is going to treat Aaron Sanchez as the big boy that he is. The question he faces is how he will respond over the course of the full season. He’ll be expected to log ten to twenty more innings, and will certainly be a big-game pitcher for the Jays. (Though the conundrum still is, how do you pick your big-game guy out of Sanchez, Jay Happ, Marco Estrada, and especially the resurgent Marcus Stroman?)

So, two guys on a mission, with the added fillip that Toronto, now one and three for the season, gets a little more desperate for a breakout win with each passing loss. How did they do?

Well, toe to toe, they were fabulous. Archer went seven and two thirds innings, gave up two runs on five hits, walked three and struck out eight on 114 pitches, which I thought was a bit much for his second start of the season, but that was Manager Kevin Cash’s call, and I suppose after getting a lot of innings out of his bullpen the previous two games, Cash needed to stretch Archer as much as he could. In any case, Archer’s a grown-up, and perfectly capable of letting the manager know when he’s done.

Manager John Gibbons shook hands with his starter at the end of seven, Sanchez having given up one run on four hits with three walks and six strikeouts on 101 pitches.

The only blemish on Sanchez’ record came in the fifth, when Tampa scratched out a run on two base hits and a walk, with Corey Dickerson producing the RBI with a one-out single. The only other inning he allowed more than one base runner was in the fourth, when with two outs he walked Brad Miller and gave up a single to Steven Souza before striking out Logan Morrison with a wicked curve ball down and in that Morrison fouled into catcher Russell Martin’s glove.

As for Archer, he went Sanchez a couple better in the first six innings, retiring twelve in a row before yielding a leadoff base hit to Kendrys Morales in the fifth, but limited to the minimum number of batters when Steve Pearce hit into an inning-ending double play. In the sixth, he gave up a two-out single to Kevin Pillar which came to nothing.

So Archer came to the seventh with a one-run lead, and no reason to feel threatened. But then Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista worked him for leadoff walks. Archer induced a double-play ball to second from Morales that moved Donaldson to third, but Troy Tulowitzki came through with a ground-ball single to left to score Donaldson and tie the game.

As mentioned, Cash sent Archer out for the eighth, and it turned out to be an inning to far for his ace. He walked Russell Martin and gave up a single to Justin Smoak, Martin smartly going to third on the hit. Archer looked to be working out of it, as Kevin Pillar fouled out to the catcher and Devon Travis took a four-seamer right down Broadway on an 0-2 pitch. But once again a veteran came through with the two-out run-producer for the Jays, as Josh Donaldson scored Martin with a hard ground-ball single up the middle.

That was it for Archer, who departed on the short end of a 2-1 Jays’ lead. Tommy Hunter came in and struck out Jose Bautista on three pitches to end the inning.

Once again the game was in the hands of the bullpens, and it was all on Toronto to hold the slim lead.

In the absence of Roberto Osuna John Gibbons’ flexibility to manage his bullpen is hampered, and it’s just such a situation as this where it most comes into play. He called on Joe Biagini to start the eighth, and the two situations in which Biagini excelled last year were coming in mid-inning to put out a fire, and starting an inning no later than the seventh.

Maybe this was a factor, and maybe it was that the Rays were up for it, but after getting Kevin Kiermaier on a come-backer for the first out, Biagini gave up a single to Evan Longoria, walked Brad Miller, and gave up the run-producing single to the awesome Steven Souza. That was it for the Rays as Biagini went on to retire the side, but the damage was done and at the end of eight it was tied at 2.

From this point there was again a feeling of sad inevitability if your hopes were tied to Toronto’s fortunes. It’s now almost traditional to use your closer at home in a tie game in the ninth. Essentially you’re rolling the dice on a shut-down followed by a walkoff win. Kevin Cash accordingly brought Alex Colome in to face the Jays in the top of the ninth, and he was just as effective as the night before, dispatching Morales, Tulo, and Pearce on 13 pitches.

Playing the road team manager, John Gibbons held back his putative closer, Jason Grilli, and sent Biagini out for a second inning. One thing we did learn about Biagini last year is that he’s certainly up to two-inning stints, and this time he managed to keep the Rays at bay, though not without drama, having to retire Kevin Kiermaier on a grounder to second to end the inning with the wondrously speedy Maxell Smith just ninety feet away at third.

Biagini had walked Smith, retired Tim Beckham when the latter popped up a lame bunt attempt, given up a stolen base to Smith, and wild-pitched him to third while striking out Corey Dickinson, setting up the game-saving Kiermaier groundout.

Xavier Cedeno came on for the Rays in the tenth, and didn’t hel his team’s cause, walking Russell Martin leading off, followed by a successful sacrifice bunt by Zeke Carrera. That was it for Cedeno, and Cash made his best call of the game, bringing Erasmo Ramirez to hold the fort until the Rays could walk it off. Brad Miller at second ably assisted Ramirez in keeping the game even, though, because he ranged far to his right and skidded on his knees to corral a sure ground-ball single by Kevin Pillar, and still managed to throw the quick Pillar out while Martin moved up to third. Devon Travis flied out to centre to end the threat.

Now it was Jason Grilli’s turn for Toronto, and he did the job, with attendant drama galore, as usual. With one out Brad Miller topped a bleeder into no-man’s land between the pitcher and first base for an infield hit. Bad Man Souza singled to centre, Miller stopping at second. Logan Morrison bounced into a 3-6 fielder’s choice, advancing Miller to third with two out. Rickie Weeks hit for catcher Derek Norris, and Grilli went upstairs with heat to fan him to end the threat. Cue the fist pump, but of course it wasn’t over.

Ramirez continued his mastery over the Jays in the top of the eleventh, using only nine pitches to retire the heart of the Toronto order. Donaldson grounded out to the second baseman in the shift, and Bautista and Morales both struck out.

In the bottom of the eleventh, John Gibbons showed himself either admirably supportive of all of his bullpen, or foolhardy in the extreme, by turning things over to Casey Lawrence, just swapped in to the big league roster while Dominic Leone was sent back for a short rest with Buffalo. Lawrence couldn’t have had his feet closer to the fire for his major league debut than to come in to a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the eleventh in Tampa, home of the Blue Jay eaters. (I guess that makes sense: surely devil rays would be capable of gobbling up blue jays. Whether they’d want to is another story, of course.)

It only took one batter to determine that Lawrence’s debut would not be a good-news story. Mallex Smith, he of the flashing feet, pulled one into right field that went for an easy double. With Smith on second and nobody out, you needed the faint hope clause just to imagine that the Rays wouldn’t finish things off right then.

Kevin Cash asked Beckham to bunt again and this time, mirabile dictu!, he delivered, pushing Smith to third with one out. Now conventional wisdom was applied, but with the latest, silliest twist: Gibbie elected to load the bases by walking Dickerson and Kiermaier, so they took their bases without ever stepping into the batter’s box, as per the new rule eliminating the need to throw four balls for an intentional pass. Imagine the seconds we saved here! Even with a force at every base, things looked bleak with Evan Longoria at the plate but the 29-year-old Lawrence was up to the occasion, and blew Longoria away, bringing Brad Miller to the plate.

Was it too much to ask for Casey to do it again? Um, yep. Miller wouldn’t commit on a high inside sinker that didn’t, and took his base while Mallex Smith strolled home with the winning run.

I don’t mind walkoff celebrations, as long as they don’t result in a stupid injury, but I think it was a bit much that they mobbed Miller and dumped water over his head just because he had the common sense not to swing at a pitch that wasn’t even close. A little restraint, please, fellas, okay?

Another disappointing day at the ball yard, I mean ball cave, so disappointing that the dual pitching gems were largely forgotten in the aftermath. That’s a shame, and a disservice to Aaron Sanchez and Chris Archer, neither of whom figured in the decision, of course.

One more game in Tampa, and a chance to split this series and come home two and four, which at the moment sounds a lot better than one and five.

We can only hope.

After that bracing first win last night, things looked so-o-o good tonight, five batters into the top of the first.

Tampa’s starter was Matt Andriese, a 27-year-old righty in his third year with the Rays. If there’s a weak spot in the Rays’ rotation, it’s Andriese, who is 11-13 and 4.38 in his major league career. He started out okay tonight, with a little help from the first two Jays’ hitters. Devon Travis swung at ball four to fly out on a 3-1 pitch, and Josh Donaldson fanned on a cutter in the zone that was a little down and away, but not much.

Then things got better quick. With two outs, Jose Bautista ripped a line single into right. Kendrys Morales, hitting from the left side against Andriese, hit a blast to left that hit fair inside the line and then bounced over the low wall in the corner for a ground rule double, Bautista having to stop at third. Troy Tulowitzki, mimicked Morales from the right side and shot a liner into the right field corner, scoring Bautista and Morales. In the exhiliration of such a lightning strike, it hardly mattered that Zeke Carrera grounded out to first to end the inning.

Based on his Florida appearances, and his start against the Pirates in Montreal, if anyone looked ready to dominate right from the opening bell in the Jays’ rotation it was Francisco Liriano. He had looked really confident, especially in his ability to induce hopeless swings against his wicked low slider.

Liriano was paired with catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia tonight, Manager John Gibbons choosing game four of the season to give Russell Martin a rest and get Salty some game action and plate appearances. While pros are pros and all that, and Salty is hardly a raw rookie, it was a curious decision on Gibbons’ part. There is a palpable chemistry between Liriano and Martin, supposedly stemming from their time together with the Pirates, which, the story had it, contributed much to the rejuvenation of Liriano’s career when he was reunited with Martin in Toronto last year in mid-season.

So, to go back to the first inning tonight, Liriano pitching to Saltalamacchia. Steven Souza leads off and is gifted by Liriano with a five-pitch walk. Souza fouls off the only strike Liriano throws, and none of the four balls he serves up could have made it to the strike zone with a bus pass. Kevin Kiermaier steps in, lefty on lefty against Liriano. He takes a mildly questionable called third strike low and inside on a 2-2 pitch. Oh, that’s better. Always good to keep Kiermaier off the bases.

Little did we know that the Kiermaier strikeout was the only out that Francisco Liriano would record, in what goes into the records as the shortest, and no worst start of his career.

With Kiermaier on first, Evan Longoria stepped in. He had to skip away from Liriano’s first pitch, inside and in the dirt. Then a changeup dipped under Longoria’s bat for strike one. Then, whether out of the need to throw something, anything, in the zone to get ahead in the count, or because it was just a bad pitch, the 1-1 was a four-seamer, above the waist, inner half of the plate. Longoria did not waste it. He was all over it, and it was destined for the left-field seats from the crack of the bat.

Just like that, the fine stick work from Toronto in the top of the inning was neutralized, and we were back to square one. Bad enough in its own right, but there was more to come.

Rickie Weeks walked on a 3-1 pitch. The strike was the cripple that Weeks was taking all the way. The four balls look like a shotgun pattern on Pitchcast, outside and in the dirt.

Derek Norris walked on a 3-2 pitch. Two of the balls were up and just off the corners. Liriano wanted those, but he was in no position to get a break from plate umpire Mike Winters. Ball four sent Norris skipping out of the box to save his feet.

With Brad Miller coming to the plate, a visit from pitching coach Pete Walker resulted only (not directly, I know!) in a wild pitch, moving the runners up before Miller doubled to left, opposite field, to give the Rays a 4-2 lead. There was still only the one out.

Tim Beckham walked on four pitches, probably semi-intentional to set up the double play, but the way Liriano was going, who knew? Rookie DH Daniel Robertson lifted a soft liner into left for a single, with Miller stopping at third to load the bases.

That was it for Francisco Liriano on this night. With little choice in the matter, Manager John Gibbons pulled the plug, saving his veteran and highly-prized southpaw from further damage, to his ERA or his dignity.

In from the pen came Dominic Leone, the right-hander who had been yanked off the plane to Buffalo (well, not literally), and kept with the big team when Roberto Osuna had been put on the 10-day disabled list. Not that anybody wanted things to turn out this way, but this was a good opportunity for Leone to show his stuff.

He did a good job, too. Peter Bourjos grounded out to short with the run scoring, and the runners moving up, and Steven Souza flied out to right to end the inning. So the Rays ended up with an additional run but Leone had needed just five pitches to work his way out of the starter’s mess.

This could have been one of those games where a team just rolls over and plays dead, shell-shocked both by the loss of a first-inning lead and by the utter inability of one of their best starters to throw strikes. And for the next couple of innings that’s what it looked like. Andriese settled in and dispatched the side in order in the second and third.

Worse, the Rays added a marker in the second when Leone, after a one-out walk to Evan Longoria, gave up one of those infamous catwalk doubles to Rickie Weeks, which left runners at second and third, so that catcher Derek Norris was able to plate Longoria with his sacrifice fly to right. If you ever want to give your head a spin, look up the ground rules for Tampa Bay related to balls hitting the various catwalks of the Orange Juice Dome, and how they’re scored. It’s kinda like a pinball machine in there.

But in the top of the fourth things started to turn. Tulowitzki, who had already doubled down the right-field line, went to right field again leading off, and this time parked it for a solo homer, cutting the Rays’ lead to 6-3. Toronto had a shot at more, when Zeke Carrera singled with one out, and Kevin Pillar followed with a two-out single, but the threat ended when Devon Travis was retired on a hard grounder to second.

After the horrendous first, and trailing by three, what the Jays needed most was some serious holding on the part of their bullpen. The first up, Leone went two and two thirds, and gave up a run, a hit, and a walk, while striking out three on a total of 44 pitches.

Next up was Ryan Tepera, who just might not have to ride the Toronto-Buffalo express this year. He gave Toronto more of what it needed with two almost-clean innings, enough time for the Jays’ offence to get back in the game and even take the lead.

Tepera retired the side on nine pitches with a strikeout in the fourth, and in the fifth gave up a leadoff single to Rickie Weeks, and struck out Derek Norris before Brad Miller grounded into a 3-6 double play, with Justin Smoak taking the out at first and then throwing to Tulowitzki for the tag at second.

So Tepera got his team into the sixth without further damage by Tampa’s offence. In the meantime, Andriese’s day had come to an end, and the Blue Jays managed to claw back a little closer, thanks to the generosity of Tampa’s relievers, who seemed determined to return the favour Liriano had done for them.

Andriese started the fifth but didn’t record an out. Josh Donaldson led off with a double to left centre, and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Jose Bautista lifted a medium-deep fly ball to right, easily enough to score Donaldson from third, even if Steven Souza hadn’t dropped the ball, leaving Bautista safe at first on the error, and the Tampa lead cut to two. Mercifully, Manager Kevin Cash decided to pull the plug on Andriese, giving up on the hope that he could squeeze out the five innings needed for the win. Andriese’s line was five runs (Bautista would eventually score), 4 earned, on seven hits, with one walk and four strikeouts over 85 pitches.

Brought in to face Kendrys Morales was the aptly-monikered Jumbo Diaz, more dignifiedly christened Jose Rafael, who comes by his nickname honestly, checking in at six foot-four and 278 pounds. Diaz came to Tampa Bay from Cincinnati late in the season last year, after limited service with the Reds over the two previous seasons, and won a spot in the Rays’ pen this spring.

Diaz looked fair to keep the lead at two, as he got Morales on a fly ball to right, and caught Tulo looking, though he did uncork a wild pitch that allowed Bautista to move up to second, whence Justin Smoak delivered him by spanking a two-out double to right. Smoak would then advance to third on a passed ball, before Zeke Carrera ended the inning by flying out to left. Tampa’s lead was now one, and the collars were getting tight.

By the way, all the Smoak-haters out there might just take a breath and check out his stats so far this year. At the moment he’s at .278, five for eighteen, with 2 doubles, the one RBI, one walk, and five strikeouts. Let’s see if he continues to prosper with increased playing time.

The sixth inning was crazy times for both teams. It saw the Jays jump, er, walk, into their second lead of the game, and then the Rays jump, er walk, back into the lead, never to relinquish it. Not that either team was through scoring.

Jumbo Diaz yielded to rookie Austin Pruitt. Pruitt soon found himself surrounded with Jays with only one out, giving up a single to Saltalamacchia and walking Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson. He then struck out Jose Bautista for the second out, and he was finished. Kevin Cash called on the lefty Xavier Cedeno, apparently to turn Kendrys Morales around. Didn’t much matter, because Cedeno couldn’t find the plate, and walked both Morales and Tulo, to put the Jays in the lead. He escaped further damage when Justin Smoak stung a line drive right at Tim Beckham at short for the third out.

John Gibbons sent Tepera out to start a third inning, but yanked him right away, after Beckham led off with a base hit. He might have regretted the quick hook, though, as J. P. Howell came in and allowed the four batters he faced to reach on two hits and two walks, departing after letting Tepera’s runner, and one of his own, score.

Joe Smith did a good job of mopping up the mess, coming in with the bases loaded and still nobody out, and striking out the side. Unfortunately, mixed in with the strikeouts was a bloop single by Logan Morrison that brought in Tampa’s ninth run.

That sixth inning decided the game. The Jays cut the lead back to one when Josh Donaldson led off the eighth with his first homer of the year off former Jays’ prospect Danny Farquhar, and the Rays restored it to two in the bottom of the eighth with a run basically manufactured by Kevin Kiermaier’s speed off Aaron Loup, in his second inning of work.

Kevin Cash brought in his closer Alex Colome to get Tulo for the last out of the eighth, and went on to set the Jays down in order in the ninth for his third save in five Rays’ games.

It was nice to see the Jays show some spirit and mount a comeback, though they certainly had some help from Tampa’s pitchers. But this was just a hot mess of a game, one in which even though they regained the lead for a brief moment, they never recovered from being set back on their heels in the first inning by Francisco Liriano’s failure to throw strikes.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Jays, as Chris Archer gets the nod tomorrow for the Rays, but at least it should be a good matchup, with Aaron Sanchez making his first start of the season for the boys from the north.

We try not to panic here, and we try to keep it philosophical, but there’s something foreboding in the fact that the Jays have lost two games in which they haven’t hit, won a third one on only five hits, and tonight, when they finally broke into double digits in the hit column, their pitching let them down for the first time this season.

There, that feels better.

Not great, mind you, but definitely better.

All it took was a great effort from a little guy with big attitude and a bigger heart, and a prodigious blast from an intimidating newbie for the Toronto Blue Jays to break the jinx and ice their first win of the year.

And it all came to pass in the Orange Juice Dome of Tampa Bay, the unlikeliest of venues to host a Blue Jay breakout.

Mind you, this game hardly marked a real breakout for the Toronto bats. Tonight they had only five hits, their lowest total in the three games to date. But it sure was good to see five hits produce five runs, enough on average to have swept the first three games, given the strength of the Jays’ starting pitchers.

Like the night before in Baltimore, it was clear from the outset that the starting pitchers would have much to do with tonight’s outcome.

Lefty Blake Snell, the youngest member of the Rays’ rotation at 24, had the start for Tampa Bay. He did a good job for the Rays when he went into the rotation last year, going 6-8 with an ERA of 3.54. He was a little wild, with 51 walks in 89 innings pitched, but made up for that with 98 strikeouts. More to the point, I recall that he had at least one very good outing against Toronto late in the season, when our boys were struggling mightily at the plate. September third in Tampa, to be exact, when he gave up one run on two hits over six inning in a 7-5 Tampa win. Having suffered through too many of those poor performances against young/unknown/marginal starters, I found his long but very young face and lanky frame instantly recognizable when he took the mound.

Snell started the game by fanning Steve Pierce, then Kevin Kiermaier ran about five miles to get under a short outfield fly by Josh Donaldson. Jose Bautista worked Snell for a walk, but died on first when Kendrys Morales unleashed another one of his woulda-been-homers-at-home to Kiermaier in deep centre.

Then Marcus Stroman, the newly-minted MVP of the World Baseball Classic, took the mound for the Jays. Ever since the WBC, there has been even more bounce to Stroman, as if that were possible, but the energy hasn’t been at the expense of focus that is definitely much sharper than in the past.

All he did in the first was make the top of the Tampa Bay order look silly by fanning Corey Dickerson, Kiermaier, and Evan Longoria on 18 pitches. The only concern: it takes a lot of pitches to strike everybody out.

In the second, Snell stepped it up a notch, and carved through the Jays on just twelve pitches, popping up Troy Tulowitzki on a short fly to right, fanning Russell Martin, and freezing Justin Smoak.

In the home half, Stroman struck out Brad Miller to run his string to four, and then faltered for a minute. Steven Souza, who has worn out Jays’ pitching about as much as Kevin Kiermaier and the departed-but-not-lamented Logan Forsyth, went with the pitch, a low two-seamer on the outer portion, and grounded a single sharply through the gap opened by the shift into right field. Undaunted, Stroman called on his well-honed ability to coax ground balls, and got the left-handed Logan Morrison to roll one right to the bag at second, where Tulowitzki, in the shift, picked it up, stepped on the base, and finished an easy double play. Besides Stroman’s pitching and Kendrys Morales’ blast, coming up in just a moment, double plays were a major story for the Jays tonight. This was the first of four for Toronto’s infield, three turned behind Stroman.

Ever since the first radio broadcast of a major league game (Pirates-Phillies from Pittsburgh, August 5, 1921 on KDKA Pittsburgh, just to refresh your memory), commentators have taken it as their duty to work the sentence “Oh, those bases on balls!” into every broadcast. So, if Blake Snell’s main problem last year was too many walks, it would appear that he still has work to do in that regard. Tonight he walked five, and three came back to score on him.

So only two things separated the work of Snell and Marcus Stroman tonight: Snell’s walks and Stroman’s infield support. The only moment that made a difference in the game came in the third, when Snell issued two of his five walks. Kevin Pillar led off by hitting a hard liner right at Kiermaier in centre. Darwin Barney, inserted at second tonight to give him some at bats and to break up Devon Travis’ workload, ripped a liner to left for a single. Pearce fanned for the second out, but Donaldson and Bautista worked Snell for walks to load the bases for Kendrys Morales, who despite his deep fly ball outs had been hitless to this point for Toronto.

No longer! Morales took a called strike on a four-seamer on the outside corner, and then Snell made the mistake of throwing the same pitch waist-high on the inner half. Morales buried it in the walkway above the first twenty rows of outfield seats in left-centre, apparently some 444 feet away from the plate. The Jays had only two hits so far, but now they had four runs to show for it, and with Stroman on the mound things suddenly looked much, much better for our side.

Snell settled in, facing the minimum over the next three innings, aided by Steve Pearce bouncing into a double play after Darwin Barney worked Snell for a leadoff walk in the fifth. After his adventurous third inning, he only needed 46 pitches to navigate four through six.

Stroman actually allowed more runners in the four innings three through six, two walks that were followed by the second double play behind him in the fourth, and a Corey Dickerson single erased by the third DP in the sixth. But it was the Rays’ fifth inning that provided the biggest adventure for the diminutive righty. Steven Souza led off with a ringing double ripped into left centre. Logan Morrison moved him on to third with a ground-out to second. Then the Rays made a mistake that hurt twice over. Tim Beckham topped one back to the mound, and Souza unaccountably broke for the plate, either because of a misread of the ball, or an excess of recklessness. The athletic Stroman fired the ball high to catcher Saltalamacchia’s glove side, Salty caught it, and came down with one leg landing in Souza’s path. Souza slid into Salty’s pads, was called out on a fine tag, and shaken up by the play. Luckily, he was able to remain in the game, but unluckily for the Rays their appeal of the play, whether for a missed tag or an illegal block of the plate, was over-ruled, and the out stood.

Mallex Smith then grounded out to Tulo to end the inning and strand Beckham at first. Going Snell one better, despite his adventures, Stroman only expended 48 pitches in navigating the third through sixth innings.

As should be expected in early-season games, the seventh inning marked the end of the road for both starters.

For whatever reason, Rays’ Manager Kevin Cash gave Snell quite a bit of rope in his last inning, waiting until the Jays scored another run and got two outs before giving the lefty Snell a break from having to face Donaldson a fourth time, and bringing in the righty Tommy Hunter for the matchup that ended the inning.

Snell walked Russell Martin to lead off the inning, and gave up a base hit to Justin Smoak, with Martin alertly going to third. After Kevin Pillar hit a short fly to right, on which Martin had to be held at third, Darwin Barney brought him home with a push bunt up the first base line. Barney reached when first baseman Morrison bobbled the ball for an error, which also allowed Martin to score. Snell then got the second out when Steve Pearce flew out deep to right, with Smoak going to third. Finally, it was time for Manager Cash to bail out his young lefty, and Hunter came in to freeze Donaldson on a pitch both Josh and Pitchcast thought was outside.

So Blake Snell’s day was done, with a line of six and two thirds innings, 4 earned runs, only three hits, the damaging five walks and five strikeouts on 97 pitches. Perhaps he’ll sleep tonight, once he stops playing the pitch to Morales over and over in his mind.

Rather untypically, John Gibbons took his cue from Manager Cash and let Stroman work through a spot of trouble of his own in the bottom of the seventh before pulling the plug. It was an interesting call, because Gibbie’s usually very quick with the hook when his starter reaches the seventh. He may have wanted Stroman to stretch out a bit more, as he went into the inning at only 76 pitches. Again, he might have been worried about a bullpen bereft of its normal closer, and eager to get as much mileage out of the known quantity as he could.

So Stroman gave up singles to Evan Longoria, and Brad Miller, induced a fly-ball out to right from the dangerous Souza, and gave up an RBI single to Logan Morrison for the Rays’ first run of the game. That was it for Stroman, who went six and a third, gave up one run on six hits—three of them in the seventh—walked two, struck out five, and threw 89 pitches. Gibbons called on Joe Biagini to pick Stroman up, with one out and Rays on first and second. Biagini had to throw exactly one pitch. Tim Beckham bounced it to Donaldson, who was playing the line, and the latter stepped on the bag and fired to first to double up the quick Beckham, marking the Jays’ fourth double play of the game.

Hunter picked up right where he left off in the seventh, getting Jose Bautista on a grounder to first, and then fanning Morales and Tulo. Four outs, three strikeouts, and 18 pitches for Hunter. Not a bad night’s work for the veteran Tampa righty.

Biagini was cruising along in the bottom of the eighth, getting Mallex Smith on a fly ball to right and “Sweet Jesus” Sucre on a grounder to short, but then Corey Dickinson got his attention by going down to get a 2-1 pitch at the bottom of the zone and pulling it into the right-field corner for a double. Not to worry, though, as Kevin Kiermaier grounded out to Smoak to end the inning. Not one to waste pitches, Biagini recorded five outs and gave up one hit, for extra bases, on just 12 pitches.

The ninth was a bit messy for both sides. Danny Farquhar replaced Hunter on the hill for the Rays, and quickly got the first two outs before giving up a sharp single to centre by Pillar that raised his average to .333. But then he got Zeke Carrera to fly out to right to end the threat.

Biagini was followed by the new submariner Joe Smith, who got the first out when Evan Longoria lined out hard to Baustista in right. But then he walked Brad Miller, and gave up yet another double to that guy Souza, apparently none the worse for wear after crashing into Saltalamacchia’s pads. Down by four and the Rays playing for a big inning, Miller was stopped at third.

This brought Logan Morrison to the plate, John Gibbons to the mound, and Jason Grilli, the de facto closer in place of Robero Osuna, into the game. Perhaps a bit overly-pumped (ya think?) Grilli overthrew a slider to Morrison, allowing Miller to score Tampa’s second run, and Souza to advance to third. But Grilli went on to fan Morrison and then Tim Beckham to seal the deal and bring on the famous Grilli victory pump.

So we can’t say that Toronto’s bats have really broken out yet, but thanks to a strong start by Marcus Stroman, a much-needed blast to the stratosphere by Kendrys Morales, flawless infield defence, and solid relief work by Joe Biagini and Jason Grilli, our Torontos lifted that ohfer monkey off their back and put a big black “1” in the win column for 2017.

Three games, three great starts, what’s to complain about? The bats will come around, and if the rotation continues to deliver, we’ll soon put the opening visit to Baltimore firmly in our rear-view mirror, where it belongs.

Francisco Liriano, over to you!

Whoosh. Down went Devon Travis.

Whoosh. Down went Josh Donaldson.

Whoosh. Down went Jose Bautista.

It was a Frank the Plumber moment. Frank did our plumbing for years, though unfortunately he’s now retired. A wiry little guy, he was great. Skilled, creative at solving problems, reasonably priced.

But Frank came with one caveat: he was a bit dramatic. Like any older house, our house has a lot of quirks, not least in the area of plumbing. No matter what the job, no matter how straightforward it seemed to us, there would always be a moment soon after he started when we would hear the dreaded, high-pitched lament: “Oh, no-o-o-o!” Then we knew we were in for it.

When Dylan Bundy looked positively dominant fanning the top of the Jays’ order in the first inning last night, Frank the Plumber’s “Oh, no-o-o!” was ringing in my ears. After Monday night’s low-scoring, well-pitched opener, in which the Jays’ fell to Mark Trumbo’s walkoff homer in the eleventh having wasted numerous opportunities to break the game open, what we needed most was to break out the lumber and score some runs.

Toronto had only faced Bundy for about three innings in relief last year, so there was going to be a bit of a learning curve tonight one way or the other. Either the Jays’ lineup would give him a rude introduction to starting in the American League East, or they would have to figure him out. From his overpowering start, it was clear the learning was all on the Jays.

Jay Happ, coming off a strong spring and a great 2016, did his thing in the bottom of the first, getting the Orioles to elevate for all three outs, interrupted by Mannie Machado reaching with two down when Justin Smoak failed to scoop Josh Donaldson’s low throw from third. The error went to Donaldson on a play that I’m sure Smoak thinks he should have made.

In any case, it was clear that a night of great pitching was in the offing, and when you’re in Baltimore that’s never a great thing, with the Orioles long-standing history of playing for the long bomb at home, going back to the late, legendary, Earl Weaver, who summed it up like this: “The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.” Against the O’s in Baltimore, few mistakes go unpunished, so it’s best to put some numbers on the board early.

Bundy and Happ traded styles in the second inning, as all three Jays made contact while going three up, three down. There was an article the other day (sorry I didn’t bookmark it) that showed how Kendrys Morales was going to be a good fit in the AL East. Seems that in the whole league, Morales’ fly-ball outs averaged the greatest distance. Moving him from L.A., Seattle, and Kansas City to the bandboxes of our own division turns a lot of those 385-foot outs into home runs. So it was fitting that as the first hitter to hit one of Bundy’s pitches fair, he hit one almost to the wall in left, an easy play for Joey Rickard.

As for Happ, he caught Chris Davis looking, gave up a fly to centre to Trey Mancini, and then caught Wellington Castillo looking. It looked like Bundy and Happ were on for a classic pitchers’ duel.

But then a funny thing happened in the Jays’ third. In fact, a miraculous thing happened. Instead of flailing away ever harder in frustration at Bundy’s offerings, the bottom of the order suddenly changed the approach and concentrated on contact, with cut-down swings. After Steve Pearce popped out to second, Justin Smoak, hitting left against Bundy, held back and stroked one to left centre for a single. Kevin Pillar muscled one up the middle off his hands for a hit, Smoak stopping at second. Devon Travis held back and laid one nicely into right centre to score Smoak, Pillar going to third.

Wow. Three guys not trying to make Dylan Bundy look bad, and we’ve got a run and something still going. Unfortunately, home plate umpire Eric Cooper rung up an indignant Josh , on a four-seamer that Josh thought was both low and inside, and then Jose Bautista hit one absolutely on the screws toward right, but it was snagged by Chris Davis at first to end the threat. It was a disappointing outcome, to be sure, but still, things were starting to look up.

. . . Until the very next inning, the bottom of the third, when Happ missed his spot with two–three, actually—pitches, and the game was for all practical purposes decided. He left a fast ball up to Johnathan Schoop leading off, and Schoop rifled it into left for a base hit. Eric Cooper rung up J.J. Hardy on a pitch that left Hardy just as riled as Donaldson had been (payback?) Joey Rickard hit the ball right on the nose, but right at Steve Pearce in left. Then came mistake number two from the Jays’ lefty, a fast ball up and in that Adam Jones jumped all over, sending it a few rows deep into the short left field seats. 2-1 Baltimore. Finally, Happ didn’t quite get a two-seamer low enough on Mannie Machado, and he powered it on a trajectory right over Kevin Pillar’s head in centre. This was the cue for the first appearance of the season of Superman Pillar, who raced back, snatched it out of the air above the fence, and crashed face-on into the poorly padded wall. You had to cringe when you saw the padding absorb his impact briefly, followed by the concrete wall underneath knocking him straight back.

To everyone’s relief, after a brief respite on the warning track, Pillar was able to get up gingerly and carefully jog it off to the dugout. Whatever bruises he sustained, he was out there again next inning, and able to finish the game. Thanks to him, Happ and the Jays were only down a run.

And that was it, dear readers. It hardly mattered that Chris Davis roped one opposite field off Happ in the fourth to make it 3-1, which made it just that much harder for the Jays to forge a comeback against Bundy and the intimidating Baltimore bullpen.

Oh, Toronto made it interesting in the eighth and ninth, and we’ll give them their due in a minute, but this was a pitchers’ game all the way. Happ only gave up two more hits, a single that Wellington Castillo tried to stretch into a double, challenging the arm of the banged-up Pillar, but Pillar nailed him at second. And Mannie Machado singled off him in the sixth, after Happ had fanned Jones, and before he fanned Trumbo and caught Davis looking.

Happ went out after seven full innings, hung with a loss despite giving up three runs on five hits, with no walks and nine strikeouts on 89 pitches. Ryan Tepera mopped up for the Jays in the eighth, and only took eight pitches to get three ground balls to out machine Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop.

Bundy also went seven full, and after the brief breakthrough in the third, he was full value for the win: one run, four hits, no walks, seven strikeouts, and 98 pitches.

He was lucky to get the win, though, because Toronto didn’t show a lot of respect for the vaunted Oriole bullpen duo of Brad Brach and Zach Britton. For the second time in the game against a tough righty, Justin Smoak, batting from the port side, stroked one hard into the left-field corner for a leadoff ground-rule double. Unfortunately, Zeke Carrera, who ran for him and advanced to third on a wild pitch, died there when Donaldson struck out.

After Tepera made quick work of the O’s in the bottom of the eighth, it was Zach Britton time, and for the second time in two games, Toronto faced him down in every way possible except to tie the score.

Bautista singled to left. Morales singled to left. John Gibbons sent Ryan Goins in to run for Morales. Plate umpire Cooper intervened in events again by ringing up Tulowitzki on a checked swing without asking for help from the first base umpire. (What we have here is a basic lack of courtesy.) Russell Martin walked on a full count. This brought up Pearce and created a moment of delicious anticipation, as Pearce faced his former teammate and, apparently, good friend, Britton, with the sacks loaded and the game on the line. He saw seven pitches. Seven fast balls. Nothing but smoke. The slowest was a 95.5 mph two-seamer. He took two balls and fouled off both of them. He looked for all the world like he had Britton lined up, and would eventually do him in when he got his pitch.

But Britton won the battle with a two-seamer on the outside part of the plate at the bottom of the zone, and Pearce topped it, hitting a high bouncer to J.J. Hardy at short who turned it into a game-ending double play.

So Baltimore sweeps the two-gamer, taking advantage of a serious lack of production from the Jays’ lineup, and as if to answer his critics from the Wild Card game Buck Showalter gives Zach Britton three innings in two games. But is it the Zach Britton of 2016, or not? Consider his results over those three innings against a Jays’ lineup that wasn’t hitting much: 3 innings pitched, five hits, two walks, three strikeouts and 48 pitches. Trouble in the land of the steamed clam?

And what do we make of our Jays’ first two games?

Now, I try not to over-react to things. Of course it’s only two games, and of course it’s not statistically out of the question that a team can run into two fine pitching performances in a row. After all, look at what Marco Estrada and Jay Happ threw at the Orioles in the same games.

But.

But. Weren’t we here last year, same time, same refrain, almost?

Didn’t we start hearing Manager John Gibbons insist he wasn’t worried about the hitting pretty darn early in the season last year?

After the disappointment of these first two games in Baltimore, it’s definitely time for the Jays to storm into that perennial hell-hole in Tampa, knock some balls over the wall, and put up some seriously crooked numbers.

The resurgent Marcus Stroman will be first man up in Tampa tomorrow night. On with the show!

Talk about your topsy-turvy outcome!

In a near mirror-image of last year’s American League Wild Card Game, the Baltimore Orioles captured today’s opener of the 2017 season with an eleventh-inning walk-off home run by Mark Trumbo, served up by the grizzled Jays’ veteran reliever Jason Grilli

Dial it back to October 4, 2016. Change the venue from Orioles Park at Camden Yards to the TV Dome. Put Ubaldo Jimenez on the mound for the Orioles, and Edwin Encarnacion at the plate for the Blue Jays. Will we ever forget the image of Edwin’s majestic three-run shot, followed by a majestic bat drop that ended the season for the O’s and sent the Jays on to the ALDS? Of course not.

I’m sure if the Orioles had their druthers they druther trade today’s exciting victory for a reversal of that game in October last year. But that’s not possible, so it’s some consolation for them to have turned the tables on Toronto and hung a tough loss on them in the first game of the 2017 season, a game in which the pitchers dominated the hitters, and both teams missed opportunities to put things on ice in regulation.

Of course there can be no comparison between the electricity generated by the wild card game last fall and the atmosphere of today’s opener. But this game indeed had its own moments, its own important actors, its own interesting plays, both sizzling and otherwise. It introduced some new aspects to the Jays’ narrative, and revisited some of the old through lines.

There are, no doubt, those commentators and fans alike already groaning about the same-old same-old of Toronto’s bullpen giving up a loss after a fine performance by starter Marco Estrada.

But let’s be clear: we cannot hang this loss on bullpen failure, nor can we hang it on defensive lapses. While it is true that there was a single odd moment of failure to execute, when Zeke Carrera and Kevin Pillar played excuse-me as Wellington Castillo’s easy fly ball fell for a double, that embarrassing moment passed without inflicting any harm on the Blue Jays. And it was more than compensated by not one, but two marvellous defensive plays by, who’da thunk it, Jose Bautista.

The fact is that, contrary to most expectations for an early season match, this was a finely-pitched game on both sides, the totality of the pitching far outshining the ability of either team to deliver in the clutch.

And, Breaking News here: Baltimore manager Buck Showalter did not leave premier closer Zach Britton moldering on the bench like he did in the Wild Card game. Wonder if Showalter has really changed his approach, or if he’s just gotten tired of listening to all the criticism? In the event, Britton pitched six outs, the ninth and tenth innings, in a tie, and kept the Jays at bay, though he didn’t exactly blow them away, giving up three hits, to Devon Travis, Josh Donaldson, and newcomer Steve Pearce, while walking Russell Martin and fanning only Darwin Barney.

Pearce, by the way, acquitted himself very well in his first game with Toronto. He went three for five, hitting three ropes for base hits, scored the tying run all the way from first, going with the pitch on a 3-2, 2-out count that Zeke Carrera scalded into the right-field corner for a double. Pearce handled first base without any difficulty, and then moved to left for the homer-shortened eleventh, giving way to Justin Smoak at first after Smoak had hit in the top of the inning for Barney, who had hit for Carrera in the ninth against the lefty Britton and taken over in left. Have you got all that?

It was a measure of the hitting futility of the Jays that both Barney and Smoak struck out as pinch hitters. To reiterate, it was not a day for the hitters.

It’s not really surprising that after a winter of fine-tuning their rosters, both the Orioles and the Jays, who finished in a dead heat for second in the American League East last year, still line up pretty equally against each other. Potent offensive potential up and down the batting order, each oriented toward the big blast rather than small ball. Solid, in some cases outstanding, defensive capability. Very good pitching, with an edge to the Jays in starters, especially with Chris Tillman on the shelf, and an edge to the Orioles in the bullpen, especially with Jays’ closer Roberto Osuna not available to come off the disabled list until April 11^th.

The starters were Marco Estrada and Kevin Gausman, tabbed as Showalter’s number two, but temporarily elevated by the absence of Tillman. Estrada had an interesting first start, in that he struggled for his first three innings before turning out the lights in his last three. In the first Adam Jones nicked him for a double down the line, and he walked Mannie Machado, before geting Trumbo to fly out to right with runners at second and third. He was better in the second, but had to induce three ground balls after Castillo led off with the aforementioned bloop double to left.

Then, in the third, Baltimore teed off on him and put up two runs, though a great play by Bautista kept it from being worse. Leading off, newcomer Seth Smith pounded a double over Kevin Pillar’s head. Jones walked. Machado hit a lazy fly to left for the first out, but Chris Davis rifled one down the line in right that bounced off the top of the fence and back to Bautista, who turned and fired a one-hop strike to second to nail Davis trying for the double. The ball had been hit so hard that while Smith scored Jones was held at third. Trumbo then cashed Jones with another double to right for a 2-0 Baltimore lead and Castillo made the third out on a deep fly to Carrera in left..

So after three innings, Estrada had given up two runs on five hits, with two walks and no strikeouts, and had thrown 55 pitches. Then he settled into the kind of groove that we often see with him. Starting with Wellington’s deep fly, he set down ten straight batters, striking out four, and departed after six innings having thrown 89 pitches, only 34 in the last three.

He also departed with a tie, which would have seemed unlikely through the first four innings as Gausman frustrated the Jays while playing with fire against Toronto for the first three innings before setting them down in order in the fourth. The Jays finally plated their first run of the season in the fifth, through no merit of their own. Gausman grouped three walks around a single by Carrera, Kendrys Morales picking up his first Toronto RBI with the bases-loaded pass. Troy Tulowitzki followed by battling Gausman through nine pitches before the struggling righty got him to roll over and ground weakly to Machado at third to end the inning.

But in the fifth the Oriole starter’s pitch count ballooned from 62 to 97, and Gausman was definitely gassed. Surprisingly, Manager Showalter sent him out for the sixth and he got Russell Martin to ground out to short before giving up Pearce’s second base hit, which ended his day but left Pearce on first as his responsibility. Showalter turned to his hard-throwing first-man-up Mychal Givens, against whom the Jays have had mixed results in the past. This wasn’t one of his better outings as the first two batters hit the ball hard on him, Kevin Pillar flying out deep to Jones in centre for the second out before Carrera drove Pearce home to tie the game, finishing Gausman’s record for the day.

A word is in order here about Mr. Ezequiel Carrera. In the run-up to the final roster decisions before opening day, much was made of John Gibbons’ apparent affection for Carrera, which might have led to his making the team rather than Melvin Upton Jr., who has arguably better tools all the way around. And here he was today, starting in left, when the expectation had been that Pearce would be in left and Smoak at first. And there he was in the second inning, trading puzzled looks with Kevin Pillar as the two of them failed to camp under Castillo’s easy fly. Yet, there he also was, with the only base hit, sharply grounded up the middle, to combine with the three walks for the Jays’ first run in the fifth, and again driving in the tying run in the sixth with a double.

There’s something about that guy, Carrera. Maybe manager Gibbons isn’t so sleepy after all.

Mention needs to be made here about Carrera’s partners at the bottom of the order. Pearce, Pillar, and Carrera combined for six of the team’s eleven hits, set the table for their first run, and produced the second one. Meanwhile, despite two hits from Travis and three from Donaldson, none of which figured in the scoring, Bautista, Morales, Tulowitzki and Martin went a combined zero for 17, and left 15 runners on base. If you’re looking for the key to defeat on this day, there it is.

Except for Martin, the other three meat-of-the-order guys all had good springs, so one would hope this is only a one-day glitch.

With the score tied and the starters out, the game settled into nearly six scoreless innings of effective work by the two bullpens. There was little to choose between them. Gyvens, Brad Brach, Britton, and Tyler Wilson gave up six hits, walked two, and struck out four in five and two thirds innings.

For Toronto, Joe Biagini, J.P. Howell, Joe Smith, Aaron Loup, and Jason Grilli gave up one run, Trumbo’s walk-off against Grilli, four hits, walked one, and struck out none, also over five and two thirds. Biagini and the newcomer Smith both worked one and two thirds giving up just one hit each, Howell got the left-hander he was assigned, Loup gave up a hit to the only batter he faced (to be fair, he came in for a lefty matchup, and then had to face the right-handed pinch-hitter Trey Mancini, who singled to centre, then was stranded by Grilli).

Besides the good work of the relief pitchers, both Jose Bautista and Manny Machado contributed brilliant plays to keep the game tied. With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Wellington Castillo picked up his second hit of the evening, bringing up Joey Rickard, a regular pain to Toronto last season. The right-handed Rickard took an outside pitch to right. Bautista, having already picked up an assist on Davis in the third, and shaded toward centre, raced to his left and launched a desperate dive, just snaring the ball above the turf in the webbing of his glove. Jumping to his feet, he launched a wrong-footed shot-put back to first to double off the lumbering Castillo, who, smelling a chance to score from first as the ball went all the way to the wall, was dead to rights. There is no doubt that Bautista’s heroics kept the game-winning run off the board.

In the top of the eleventh it was Machado’s turn to shine. After Smoak led off by striking out hitting for Barney, Devon Travis, who already had two base hits, came to the plate and hit a hard grounder that was destined for the left-field corner until Machado went down to his right in approved Brooks-Robinson Baltimore style, snagged it, turned his upper body around to the left toward first, and fired a bullet from his knees to nab Travis at first. Wondrous on its own merits, the play took on new meaning when Josh Donaldson followed with a single to left that would have scored Travis with the lead run.

After five-plus innings of gritty relief pitching, and two game-saving plays, it was inevitable, given that these two lineups feature numerous hitters who can end it with one swing, that sooner or later one of them would. And as always in these cases, it was advantage home team, looking for the walkoff.

And so it fell to Trumbo to attack a Grilli mistake with two gone and nobody on in the eleventh, and that was the ball game.

A fitting, if disappointing, end to an Opening Day thriller between two tough teams who will be going after each with everything they have for the rest of the season.

And we get to watch.

ALCS GAME FIVE, CLEVELAND 3, JAYS 0:

THE KID WAS ALL RIGHT,

THE JAYS, NOT SO MUCH!

Let’s be clear on this right from the start: I had my hopes that the Jays’ offence would suddenly wake up and stomp all over this young Ryan Merritt’s tra-la-la, and that our boys would be off to Cleveland for game six on Friday night, for another go at Josh Tomlin, but I wasn’t really expecting it.

Hoping for a win, sure, but beating up on a rookie pitcher whose utter lack of experience meant he had no business starting an ALCS game? Why would they, when they’ve faced similar circumstances a dozen times before in this maddening season, and have almost always been stymied by the upstart, whoever he might have been?

I can’t think of a worse set of circumstances than Toronto going into a must-win game against a pitcher they had never seen, and carrying the weight of expectation of an entire nation on their backs. Over the last two years this team has on many occasions shown a remarkable ability to rise to the challenge and come through in dire circumstances, but it has also, especially recently, shown a frustrating tendency to come up flat at the worst time.

Thus it was today, as the Jays took the field behind Marco Estrada, hoping to consolidate the gains they made yesterday when they temporarily, anyway, derailed the Cleveland locomotive’s drive to the World Series. Needing a win to extend the season, the team had pushed all the right buttons to turn in a crisp and commanding performance. Could they do it again today? The auguries were all there, to be sure, but sometimes the damned entrails of the damned birds just flat out lie.

Not to belabour the obvious, but giving the ball to Ryan Merritt today in game five of the LCS was the ultimate proof of the chaos into which Cleveland’s starting rotation has descended in the course of this post-season. Having started the LDS short-handed already, they benefitted from great performances from the three established starters they still had, who over the season had in fact been their one, four, and five starters, to sweep the Red Sox. In a five-game series they would have been in immediate difficulty if the Sox had even extended the series to four games.

Then on the eve of the LCS came the unbelievably unlucky/stupid injury to Trevor Bauer’s finger that reduced the team’s starters even further, to Corey Kluber, Josh Tomlin, and Mr. Mangle. The first two pitched well enough in Cleveland to beat a hitting-challenged Jays’ team, despite Manager Terry Francona having to move up Tomlin’s start in place of Bauer. Then came Monday night’s gore fest, when the Jays on home ground couldn’t light up a succession of Cleveland relievers. Tuesday Kluber was mediocre on short rest, and Toronto won handily, and today with Tomlin not ready to go again Francona was left looking under rocks to find a starter.

We may never know if it was dumb luck or if Francona’s crazy like a fox that the lot fell on Ryan Merritt, a twenty-five-year-old left-handed rookie with all of one start, four appearances, and a grand total of 11 innings pitched in the major leagues. Hell, Merritt was drafted in the sixteenth round in 2011, exactly the 488^th name to be called in that draft.

But it was neither dumb nor crazy that Merritt’s instructions were: do not throw a fast ball for a strike, and the only time you’re throwing a pitch on the inner half of the plate it’s to hit somebody, and don’t hit anybody. And it was utterly to Merritt’s credit that whatever other merits he may have (sorry, just once, okay?) he sure can follow directions.

Before Merritt even got to the mound he had become the beneficiary of one of those weird and unlucky first-inning runs that seem to have been allowed by the Jays far too many times already this season. Marco Estrada retired the first two hitters on nine pitches, Carlos Santana fouling out to Russell Martin on a full count, and Jason Kipnis hitting a 1-1 fast ball admittedly on the nose but right at Zeke Carrera in left. The fast ball Kipnis hit clocked in at 88, typical velocity for Estrada. The fastest fast ball Merritt threw in the bottom of the inning clocked out at 86 plus. Slower than Estrada. Just sayin’.

But then with two outs Francisco Lindor, who’s both good and lucky, completely mis-timed a curve from Estrada, made bad, late contact with it, and looped a soft little liner over Donaldson into left for a base hit. That brought Mike Napoli to the plate, and, like Kipnis, he hit one on the screws to left. Lucky it stayed in the park as it shot over Carrera’s head and banged high off the wall. The ball came off the wall and right back to Carrera, so fast that Lindor had already been stopped at third. But Carrera tried to bare hand the ball off the wall and it spun out of his hand and bounced away, allowing Lindor to crank it up again and score the first run on Carrera’s error. Jose Ramirez followed with a routine grounder to second for the third out, which made the Cleveland run unearned.

No problem, really, because, well, you know, the rookie on the mound and all . . ..

Thirteen pitches later, the Clevelands were back in the dugout, and the Jays were in deep doo-doo already. Jose Bautista rolled over on a cutter and grounded to short. Josh Donaldson rolled over on a cutter and grounded to second. Just for variation Edwin Encarnacion took a 71.8 mph curve ball for strike three. I think Edwin may still be waiting for that pitch to reach the plate. You can come in now, Edwin. The inning’s over. The game’s over. The season’s over. Worse, you may never hit for us again. Sob.

It really helped the Jays’ cause that Estrada settled down in the second and fanned Lonnie Chisenhall and Tyler Naquin on either side of an easy fly ball to centre by Coco Crisp. 14 pitches in the second looked like he might be able to keep the overall pitch count down to a reasonable, clocking in at 35 for two innings.

It didn’t help the Jays at all that Troy Tulowitzki led off the Jays’ second against Merritt with a short pop fly to right, and that he was followed by not one, but two, called third strikes, on Russell Martin and Melvin Upton. On both hitters Merritt threw a terrible 1-2 change up, to Martin low and way outside, to Upton down the middle but in the dirt. Then he threw his roughly 87 mph fastball for strike three, to Martin up but on the outside corner, to Upton near the bottom of the zone but right down Broadway. What were they expecting on a 2-2 count, another waste changeup? I wish I could get into the minds of these guys to figure out how they’re thinking. Merritt didn’t have to worry about knowing what the Jays’ hitters were thinking; he was already in their heads! Six up, six down, and no hope in sight.

Marco Estrada is a fly-ball pitcher, so he’s going to give up a home run here and there. You just hope that there’s nobody on base when somebody connects. That’s what happened in the third. Carlos Santana lined one into the stands in right with one out and nobody on. After Kipnis flied out to right, Lindor hit another single to left, but was stranded when Estrada caught Mike Napoli looking for his second strikeout of the inning, and fourth of the game.

The Jays were just down 2-0, on the homer and the unearned run, but it might as well have been ten as the clocked ticked and Merritt survived yet another inning. Zeke Carrera led off the home third by putting a charge in one to deep left for Crisp, but it hung up and stayed in the park. Then, more of the same: Kevin Pillar grounded out to Ramirez at third, and Darwin Barney popped out to the shortstop. Three innings, nine up, nine down, 31 pitches. Tick, tick, tick.

Estrada continued to induce soft contact in the Cleveland fourth, popping up Ramirez and Naquin, and fanning Chisenhall again. Oh, except for little Coco Crisp, if you can believe it, who’d been marking time with Oakland as a part-time platoon outfielder until Cleveland acquired him at the trade deadline and turned his world upside down. With two outs Crisp timed a 2-2 changeup and drove it over the wall in right, the second solo home run by a left-handed hitter off Estrada in the game. The Clevelands now held a 3-0 lead, and the sense of desparation in Blue Jay Land was growing stronger by the minute, or by the out, to be more accurate, as their aspirations for 2016 dribbled away in a series of ineffective and feckless plate appearances.

In the bottom of four, Bautista flew out to centre. Donaldson finally broke the ten-out string and the hitless day by lining a single into left centre. Edwin Encarnacion then had an at-bat that could serve as a microcosm for every game the Jays lost this year because of lack of hitting. Merritt threw a cutter, a changeup, and a cutter, all wildly outside the strike zone, running the count to 3-0. Then Edwin took not one, but two waist-high batting-practice fast balls on the outside corner to go to a full count. Then the rookie threw him a changeup in the same location, and he grounded into a double play. Four innings, twelve up, twelve down, 44 pitches. Tick, tick, tick.

Just for a moment there, in the fifth inning, it seemed like the clock stopped ticking. First, Estrada breezed through Cleveland on nine pitches; after five innings his pitch count was 79, low enough to stay around for a while, if his mates could get something going. In the Jays’ half of the fifth, Tulo hit one deep to left field, but like Carrera’s in the third, it stayed in the park. Russell Martin blooped a single into right, and then Terry Francona threw a little surprise at Toronto, immediately popping out of the dugout to yank Merritt. Or was it a surprise? Merritt had done a great job for him, and he really didn’t owe a raw rookie any consideration for leaving him in to qualify for a win. Besides, Francona knows the horses in his stable of relievers very well, and he had a good notion that he had enough fresh ones to take over from here.

He brought Brian Shaw in, to face Melvin Upton, and John Gibbons responded by pinch hitting the left-handed Michael Saunders for the right-handed Upton. On a 1-2 pitch, Shaw made a mistake to Saunders, leaving a cutter up in the zone, right down the middle. Unfortunately for the Jays, Saunders only lined it into centre for a single, instead of hitting it out of the park. Shaw recovered, though, and fanned both Carrera and Pillar, leaving the two runners on, and snuffing what was, basically, Toronto’s last real opportunity to climb back into the game.

Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t like game two, when we only had one base runner after the third inning in the 2-1 loss. Cleveland only retired the side in order in the seventh, and there was a glimmer of hope wasted in both the eighth and the ninth, but after the fifth Toronto never had more than one base runner per inning.

Shaw stayed in to start the seventh and got Darwin Barney to ground out to short for the first out, then gave up a single to Bautista. Enter Andrew Miller, who threw one pitch to get the last two outs: Donaldson grounded into a double play to erase Bautista. Miller stayed on in the seventh and retired the side on twelve pitches.

He came back out for the eighth to face Dioner Navarro hitting for Saunders. Navarro, who so far had the only Jays’ hit against Miller in the series, did it again, lining a sharp single into left field to give Toronto a leadoff base runner. Now here’s where I get upset with the way John Gibbons runs his team, nice guy, funny guy all very well, but why doesn’t he ever act?

The team is down 3-0 in the eighth inning of an elimination game, and the slowest—by far—guy on the team leads off with a base hit. Your team has devoted a full roster spot to Dalton Pompey, for the sole purpose of pinch-running for a Dioner Navarro in a situation like this. You haven’t had the opportunity or reason to use him yet in the first four games of the series. This is the second-last inning of what may be the last game Toronto plays in the series, unless the team avoids outs and scores runs. When else would you insert Pompey for Navarro??

Surely, with possibly only one inning left in the season, there’s no point in worrying about taking your spare catcher out of the game; you’ve already hobbled your options by inserting him as the designated hitter. And no one is suggesting here that this was a steal situation, when the team needed three runs, not one. The only point is to have someone faster than Navarro (the peanut vendor? Gregg Zaun?) on first so that what happened next would not have happened! Because after Zeke Carrera struck out, Kevin Pillar hit a hard ground ball into the hole between third and short, that Francisco Lindor barely got to, and had absolutely no play on, to first base. A gold-standard infield hit, except . . . Here came Navarro, bless his heart, chugging into second like Tommy the Tugboat. There have to be twenty-two players on the Jays’ LCS roster who would have beaten Lindor’s throw to second. But none of them, specifically Dalton Pompey, was running. Instead of having runners on first and second with one out, we had a runner on first with two outs. A promising rally was now just a blip to be overcome, and Miller did just that, getting Darwin Barney to hit a short fly to left for the third out.

Not to beat a dead manager here, but did anyone else notice that even with two outs it would have been appropriate for Justin Smoak to have hit for Barney? After all, Ryan Goins was still on the bench, and able to take Barney’s place at second for the ninth inning. Sure, Smoak was as likely to strike out against Miller as Barney was to fly out to left, but Smoak had at least a chance of getting hold of one and hitting it a long way.

So—last word on this—here’s my best case scenario: Pompey runs for Navarro, Pillar is on with an infield hit, Smoak hits for Barney, and, miracle of miracles, hits one out to tie the game. That could have happened in my world, but not in Gibbie’s, no sir.

With the help of the one-pitch double play, Andrew Miller kept the Jays off the board for two and a third innings on only 21 pitches. It was no surprise that Terry Francona turned to his closer, Cody Allen, to get the last three outs of the American League season.

First up against Allen was Jose Bautista, who pulled a 3-2 fast ball that Allen threw right down the middle into the left-field corner for a double. One more time the hopes of Jays’ fans everywhere rose from the ashes: in possibly his last at-bat ever for Toronto, Joey Bats had shown the way, and somehow the great sluggers who followed him to the plate would pull this thing out, and send the Series back to Cleveland. But Bautista never strayed from second, and spent his last inning as a Blue Jay (we assume) watching Josh Donaldson strike out, Edwin Encarnacion strike out, and Troy Tulowitzki foul out to the first baseman to end the game, the series, and Toronto’s season.

But it would be completely unfair to end on the note of hitting futility, without addressing the noble souls who took up Marco Estrada’s cause on the mound for Toronto.

Not to skip over Estrada’s efffort today. Repeating a sentiment I’m really sick of, Estrada, of course, pitched well enough to win. He went six innings, gave up two earned runs on five hits, walked none, and struck out seven, on a tidy 92 pitches. It was a microcosm of Estrada’s season that he received so little support from the Jays’ offence. How did he compile the metrics he did this season while having a record of only 9-9? Then in the playoffs he was 1-2, but his ERA was 2.01 over 22.1 innings. I mean, what the hell?

In fact, this is a good time to mention that the Jays lost this ALCS in five games while giving up only twelve runs, an average of 2.4 runs a game. We needn’t really say another word about how and why the Blue Jays didn’t make the World Series this year. Not only Estrada, for whom the team scored zero runs in fourteen innings, but Jay Happ and Marcus Stroman, for whom they scored one and two runs respectively in their starts, are all clearly owed dinner by Aaron Sanchez, who feasted on five runs in the Jays’ only win in the series. Given Sanchez’ relatively impoverished contract status, though, I’d think that Swiss Chalet might be a wise budgetary choice for Aaron’s treat.

So today Brett Cecil followed Estrada and pitched the seventh, retiring the side on thirteen pitches with one strikeout. It’s certainly representative of Cecil’s entire Toronto career that what was probably his last, and a very effective, relief appearance for the Jays (like Bautista and Encarnacion, not to mention Michael Saunders, Cecil is headed for free agency this fall) went largely unnoticed by the fans in the ball park, and, I’m sure, the rest of the country in the Blue Jays’ diaspora.

Joe Biagini also retired the side in order in the eighth while striking out one, and he did Cecil a little better, taking only ten pitches to do it. Though there is absolutely no question which team will remain Biagini’s home for the foreseeable future, we won’t know until well into spring training next year whether this was his last relief appearance for Toronto. The plus side of Biagini transitioning into a starter role would be the addition of another hard thrower with great stuff, a twin peak, so to speak, for Aaron Sanchez, to complement the more refined and versatile skills of Estrada, Happ, Stroman, and Francisco Liriano. The minus side, of course, is that Biagini’s would be the sixth name in a very strong mix, and how does that work itself out? A season starting in Buffalo might be in the offing for big Joe, but how do you keep him down on the farm . . . ?

In some ways Roberto Osuna is like a chess player, who sharpens his skills by solving set problems. The difference is that Osuna sets the problems for himself, and then wiggles out of them. Today was no different when Gibbie sent him out to keep Cleveland in sight before the bottom of the ninth.

This time he gave up a ground-rule double to Francisco Lindor, who finished up a fine series with another productive three-for-four night, though the fluke RBI single in the first still rankles. With Osuna sufficiently aroused by the ringing crack of Lindor’s bat, he managed to keep Mike Napoli in the park, though Napoli did hit the ball right on the nose and drive it on a hard line to Kevin Pillar in deep centre. Credit Pillar with a strong throw in to keep Lindor at second, and thus keep Cleveland from adding a fourth run when Jose Ramirez followed with a ground-out to second which only moved Lindor to third instead of scoring him. Osuna then fanned Lonnie Chisenhall to end the inning on his eleventh pitch.

So Cecil, Biagini, and Osuna threw 34 pitches, gave up one hit, and struck out three in three innings of work. In the five games of the ALCS, Osuna, Biagini, Cecil, and Jason Grilli, the only relievers who worked, threw 12.2 innings, gave up no runs and allowed only one inherited runner to score, on five hits, two walks, and twelve strikeouts.

In short, the Toronto pitching was outstanding in this series. Full credit to the starters who went deep enough in the five games to preserve the relievers, and full credit to the four relievers who were in effect perfect in fulfilling their roles.

As for the bats, back to the woodshed you go, where a nice big chipper is waiting to turn you into garden mulch. The order for new, better bats for next year is already being written up.

Thus the 2016 ALCS: Cleveland is on to the World Series, having won seven of eight post-season games, and being full measure for the ALCS win. The Blue Jays scatter to the winds for the off-season, after winning the Wild Card game, sweeping the Rangers, and being brushed aside by Cleveland. Winning five of nine is normally a good thing, but just wasn’t good enough for our contact-challenged sluggers in this 2016 postseason.

Wait ’til next year! What’s the temperature in Dunedin tomorrow?

Look at it this way: we won the wild card game, right? Sudden-death, one-and-done and all that rot. But, we won. This afternoon we won another wild card game: win and you play on, lose and you’re done. Now we just have to do that three more times. Gulp.

On the other hand, if I were in the Cleveland camp right now, I wouldn’t be feeling all that positively, and the reasons are, first, that they’re hardly hitting better than we are, and, second, their pitching, both starters and bullpen, has achieved well above reasonable expectations, and it becomes increasingly questionable whether or not the Cleveland management is going to be able to keep patching together a starting rotation with little more than spit and bailing wire.

Consider tomorrow’s game, which the Jays’ win today has put on the menu. The great Cleveland rotation from mid-season is now down to two starters: Corey Kluber and Josh Tomlin. The mangled Trevor Bauer has to be out of commission at least for the rest of this series, however long it may go. Kluber pitched today on three days’ rest and didn’t blow anybody away, throwing five innings on 89 pitches and taking the loss. Josh Tomlin, who pitched game two, isn’t being asked to pitch on the same short rest as Kluber, so he is pencilled in for a possible game six in Cleveland. Terry Francona has to find a starter for tomorrow. Pitching Kluber today was a bit of a gamble: if Cleveland won for the sweep, the staff would have a full week to recover, which would bring Bauer, probably, and Danny Salazar, possibly, back on line. If they lost, they’d be up 3-2, with only Tomlin and question mark left in the tank.

But they had to get past Aaron Sanchez and a restive Blue Jay team, playing in front of even more restive fans, to earn a respite. Today was the last stand for Toronto in so many ways. Yes, first, it was the game we had to win to avoid the sweep. But it was also a chance for redemption after the overwhelming embarrassment of Monday night’s loss to a string of Cleveland relievers.

Although you had to be concerned about the Jays’ return to the hitting doldrums seen in the first two games of the series, and it’s never good to start out in the hole, losing both games in Cleveland hardly seemed fatal. After all, they’d experienced even worse last year in the division series against Texas, by losing both games at home in a five game series, before prevailing. They even made a series out of last year’s ALCS, coming so close to taking it to game seven, after losing the first two in Kansas City. And they were returning to their home digs in the TV Dome, a venue that has proven especially friendly to them in big games over the last two seasons.

Moreover, the Cleveland pitching was in apparent disarray. After two serviceable starts in Cleveland against Toronto bats gone silent again, there was a major question about their game four starter, not to mention the fact that it was altogether uncertain as to whether Bauer would be able to make a go of it in game three. There’s no need to reiterate the gory details (for once the adjective is, if anything, understated here) of last night’s 4-2 Cleveland win. The fact that the Jays could only score two runs in eight and two thirds innings off a string of six Cleveland relievers speaks for itself; but the angst created by this sad exhibition hung over the stadium like a bad smell at the end of the game.

So the Blue Jays needed to come up big, stop their own bleeding, and give themselves at least a ghost of a chance in this series that had suddenly gone so very, very wrong.

And if anything has gone right for Toronto in the last week, it has been the way manager John Gibbons and his pitching coach Pete Walker have manipulated the pitching rotation. Faced with the need to control as much as possible the number of innings pitched by Aaron Sanchez, yet recognizing that he has become without question their stopper, their best chance in a must-win game, it had to have been some sort of divine providence guiding the decisions that led to his being ready to start today.

The fact that he would face off against Cleveland’s only recognizable ace, Corey Kluber, was of little concern. The Jays had, after all, let him off the hook in game one of the series, and in some respects he was fortunate to have survived the first inning. Today this less-than-intimidating presence would be taking the mound on only three days’ rest, an almost unthinkable assignment in the contemporary game.

Can you imagine we’re talking about the same sport that saw both Bob Gibson and Mickey Lolich start three games each in the 1968 World Series? And both pitch three complete games? With the same ERA of 1.67? And Lolich, in one of the greatest pitching performances in World Series history, pitch a complete game win in game seven, giving up one run on five hits, on October tenth, after pitching a complete game win in game five on October seventh? Denny McLain, who won 31 games in 1968 and entered the series as the team’s number one, had started games one, four, and six, but went one and two. The only reason he started game six on the same rest as Lolich had for game seven was that he didn’t get out of the third inning in game four, which ended up a 10-1 rout by the Cardinals.

Back in 2016, when iron horse pitchers are just a dim memory, neither team managed much of a threat in the first two innings, but the Jays touched up Kluber with a two-out single by Edwin Encarnacion in the first, and a one-out single by Michael Saunders in the second. On the other hand, Sanchez got the results that the Jays were looking for through the first two. Three strikeouts and three ground ball outs, with only a leadoff walk to Mike Napoli in the second inning. If anything, he had a bit too much movement, resulting in a higher number of pitches outside the zone, especially in the first inning, when he went 3-2 on two of the three hitters. But after the walk to Napoli in the second, he set Cleveland down on just twelve pitches.

The first threat came from Cleveland in the top of the third, and from an unlikely source, as Tyler Naquin drove a ball into the alley in left centre to lead off with a double. Robert Perez nicely bunted Naquin to third and a Cleveland chance to take the early lead again was staring Toronto in the face. In an unusual move (for him) Manager John Gibbons brought the infield in. Normally, Gibbie would concede an early run for an out, trusting in his offence to be able to overcome a one-run deficit. But with his team in such a hitting funk, it was a smart move, and it paid off.

Carlos Santana hit a bullet to the right side. Ryan Goins, on the edge of the grass, was able to snag it before it got past him, the momentum of his reaction to the ball bringing him to his knees. Still kneeling, he stared Naquin back to third and threw Santana out at first for the second out. Back at normal depth, Goins handled Jason Kipnis’ routine grounder to end the inning.

Kluber looked to be getting stronger, striking out Goins and Jose Bautista to start the third, but then two hard shots put Toronto in the lead and showed that the Cleveland ace was hittable after all. He hung a two-two curve ball to Josh Donaldson, who was all over it and deposited it in the seats in left centre. This was the shot we had been waiting for since the beginning of game one, a lightning strike that would give us our first lead in the series. Then Edwin punished a waist-high slider on the outside corner, going with the pitch and driving right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall back to the wall for the third out, but the relief in the stadium, not to mention living rooms around the country, was palpable.

Sanchez came out for the fourth and presented a gift to the Jays’ multitudes, swiftly dispatching the heart of the Cleveland order, Francisco Lindor, Napoli, and Jose Ramirez, on only nine pitches, giving us the shutdown inning we needed after finally scoring the first run of a game for the first time.

Kluber’s fourth inning suggested that the strain of pitching on such short rest was starting to tell on him. He walked Troy Tulowitzki on four pitches. He went 3-0 on Russell Martin before battling him back to a full count, but then lost him on the eighth pitch. Kluber braced up to fan Michael Saunders, but then Zeke Carrera, moved up to seventh in the order to face the righty (and as a sort of reward for the contributions he has made this post-season; who can not see Carrera as a candidate for the left-field starting position next year if Saunders signs elsewhere?) yet again put the ball in play with little fanfare on the first pitch. He lofted an easy little bloop single into centre which Tulo read perfectly off the bat, got a great jump on, and scored easily from second. Though Kluber fought back to fan Kevin Pillar and Goins for the second time, that big 2-0 on the scoreboard was looking pretty good with Sanchez throwing so well.

But Sanchez notwithstanding, this Cleveland team has a lot of grit in it, and the two-run lead lasted only a little longer than the interminable network commercial break, Sanchez helping out as Cleveland cut the lead in half. But the fact that the visitors’ comeback was stopped at one is a measure of the determination of the Blue Jays to reach a different outcome from the first three games of the series. It was also a measure of how much Josh Donaldson means to this team.

This time, though he did get Lonnie Chisenhall to ground out to short for the first out, Sanchez didn’t achieve the desired shutdown-after-scoring result. He walked Coco Crisp, then struck out Naquin, but in the process threw a wild pitch that advanced Crisp to second. Then he threw a 95 mph two-seamer to Roberto Perez on a 1-2 count that Perez must have thought was a nice round vanilla ice cream scoop, waist high over the heart of the plate. He doubled to left centre to knock in Crisp, bringing Carlos Santana to the plate, the cue for Donaldson to take centre stage.

With two outs and the switch hitter Santana hitting from the left side, the Jays’ infield was in a modified shift, with Donaldson playing in what would have been the hole, rather than at straight-up shortstop, as in a full shift for a left-handed pull hitter. Santana managed to make contact with a 2-2 curve ball that broke well outside on him, and lashed it toward left centre, to Donaldson’s left. It skipped once and looked like it was already by him when he dove and pulled it back from the outfield. He leapt to his feet and barely was able to plant before firing it to first, just in time to nip Santana, who, despite his bulk and the fact that he has caught nearly as many games as he has played first base, is pretty fast down the line. The 2-1 lead was preserved, which was important enough, but even more significant to me was the fact that the play broke the back of a dangerous threat posed by the Indians, and was truly their last gasp at the plate.

In his last inning of work, the sixth, Sanchez worked quickly through Cleveland’s dangerous two-three-four hitters, Kipnis, Lindor, and Napoli, on 13 pitches. Given the start in a game that his team had to win, Aaron Sanchez gave his mates six innings of one-run ball on two hits, with two walks and five strikeouts on 95 pitches; he had done his job, and it was up to his mates to pad the lead and the bullpen to protect it.

Terry Francona decided not to risk another inning with Kluber, and brought in Dan Otero to pitch the sixth against Toronto. Although they touched him up for two hits, a rocket off the wall in right that Chisenhall played well to hold Tulo to a single, thereby saving Cleveland a run, and a Michael Saunders single to centre, he held the lead at one, thanks to the unfortunate GPS coordinates Zeke Carrera imparted to the bullet he hit to right field that was right at Chisenhall, and drove him to the base of the wall to reach up and make the catch. Funny that. Zeke hits a soft touch into centre that falls in for a run-scoring single, and then crushes one right at an outfielder, and gets nothing for his pains.

Aaron Sanchez was followed on the mound by Brett Cecil in the seventh, Jason Grilli in the eighth, and Roberto Osuna in the ninth. Did I mention that when Donaldson robbed Santana to end the fifth it was Cleveland’s last gasp at the plate. Well, it was. Sanchez finished up with a clean sixth, making for his last four outs in a row. Then the Indians went nine up, nine down against the relief trio. Cecil got a fly ball and fanned two. Grilli got a fly ball, a grounder to first that Edwin made a nice pick on, and a popup to Russell Martin. Osuna got a grounder to second and two strikeouts. Thirteen batters in a row and four strikeouts, on 46 pitches. Remember way back when, when we all said that the Jays wouldn’t get anywhere with such a leaky bullpen?

While the Jays’ bullpen was stonewalling Cleveland, the offence set to work to try to add a little cushion to their slim lead. In the seventh, with Brian Shaw on for Cleveland, Ryan Goins, hitless for the series so far, fell behind one and two leading off, but Shaw left a 96 mph cutter out over the plate and Goins rifled it to left for a solid base hit. Shaw then committed his team’s first error of the series, and dug a pretty deep hole for himself. Jose Bautista hit a little squibber up the right side, between the pitcher and first. Shaw got to it first, and very energetically threw the ball right past Napoli’s frantically outstretched glove. Bautista was safe at first, and Goins came around to third on the play. In an unusual but not terribly surprising move, Francona elected to put Donaldson on, even though first was occupied, to load the bases for Edwin. Edwin produced for the first time in this series, pounding a grounder right back up the middle and through to centre.

Goins scored easily, of course, with Bautista following, but Donaldson as he rounded second, with the throw going to the plate, suddenly broke for third, forcing Napoli to cut the throw to the plate from Rajai Davis and firing to third, where Jose Ramirez easily put the tag on Donaldson for, oh no, the first out of the inning at third base, as Bautista scored. Those of you who might be wondering if Donaldson had made some sort of blunder probably didn’t notice that, as he popped up from his slide and headed for the dugout, he gave two short, sharp little claps of his hands. He had purposely drawn the throw to third to protect Bautista from being thrown out at the plate. Securing the fourth run to give your team a three-run lead in the seventh inning is clearly a good trade for being thrown out at third.

Mike Clevinger came in to replace Shaw and ended the inning without further damage by getting Tulo and Martin to ground out, even though he bounced one in the dirt that allowed Edwin to move to second with only one out before retiring the side.

Francona left Clevinger, who had been considered a possible starter for this game, in for the eighth inning, and he gave up a fifth run that truly sealed Cleveland’s fate. After he struck out Saunders to lead off the inning, Clevinger gave up two really hard hit balls that produced the fifth run for the Jays. Zeke Carrera swung at and missed the first changeup from Clevinger, took two more for balls, and somehow managed to pull the fourth one, which was on the outside corner, sending a shot into the right centre field alley that ran to the wall, and by the time it was recovered he was on third with a triple.

With one out Cleveland suspected a squeeze play because it was Kevin Pillar at the plate. They threw a pitchout on the first pitch, then Pillar fouled off a four-seamer at the bottom of the zone. The next four-seamer was up and in, and like Carrera Pillar managed to hit it the wrong way, a rocket of a line drive right at right-fielder Brandon Guyer in medium-deep right. Carrera scored easily, and Clevinger should have been relieved that there wasn’t more damage.

So riding behind a fine start by Aaron Sanchez, perfect bullpen stints by Cecil, Grilli, and Osuna, fine power, base running smarts, and scintillating defence from Josh Donaldson, and some clutch at bats, Toronto finally managed to break the horse collar that Cleveland had hung around their necks. They still have a really tough hill to climb, but they do play on, tomorrow afternoon behind Marco Estrada, going up against we-don’t-know whom.

Stay tuned at eleven for further details.

Artwork courtesy of storyboard artist Ed Chee.

To view more of his work please visit   http://www.edwardchee.com

With apologies to the late, great Yogi Berra, who would perhaps not mind the emendation:

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings;

And you ain’t toast till the dinger dings.

Well, Brunhilda’s not on stage yet, but we can hear her trilling scales in her dressing room. And the toast isn’t brown, but the aroma is starting to fill the kitchen . . .

Images, key moments, inconvenient truths: where to begin?

Images: the gnarled hamburger meat that was Trevor Bauer’s pinkie. The blood dripping from the wound, white uniform pants already spotted. Bauer’s face glistening as he left the game, raising his glove to the acknowledgement of a hostile crowd. The ball excruciatingly spinning out of Jose Bautista’s glove, and hitting the wall. Toronto hitters perpetually out at first “on a close play.” The shock on Josh Donaldson’s face as Coco Crisp pulled the horseshoe out of his glove just in time to rob him of immortality. The dazed look of John Gibbons as the Toronto tragedy unfolded in front of him.

Key moments: a leadoff walk to Santana by Stroman. Otero facing down the drama after Bauer’s exit to retire Russell Martin. Napoli finally making contact. Twice. Kipnis going deep on Stroman. Francona going to Allen in the seventh. Napoli advancing on a wild pitch, scoring on a two-out hit by Ramirez. Crisp’s—let’s face it—lucky snag. Zeke Carrera flying around to third to give fleeting hope. Saunders’ wrong-way homer. Miller, dominant to the end.

Inconvenient truths: Three runs in three games. Excellent starting pitching and a near-perfect bullpen dumped at the side of the road by dispirited hitters carrying useless bats. A worse than decimated* pitching staff striking out major league hitters almost at will. The Jays’ only offence provided by the role players at the bottom of the order. Andrew Miller may not be human. The impossibility of hoping for a shutout, every game. The history: of 35 teams that have gone down 3-0 in a seven-game series in major league baseball, only one has ever come back to win, the Red Sox over the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

Tonight’s game three of the 2016 ALCS started with a sudden, two-out RBI when Santana scored from first as Jose Bautista tracked Mike Napoli’s drive to the wall, timed his jump, met the ball, but had it escape his glove for a double. The Blue Jays were behind the eight-ball already, with no report yet on whether the hitting shoes had arrived from cold storage. Spoiler alert: they hadn’t.

But the top of the first was quickly overshadowed in the home half by one of the strangest and saddest spectacles that you may ever see in an extremely important professional sporting event. Trevor Bauer had calmly told the workout-day press conference on Sunday that his cut pinkie with its ten stitches was “healed” and wouldn’t bother him in the least.

The rules of major league baseball had a direct bearing on what took place. The relevant rule states:

“The pitcher may not attach anything to either hand, any finger or either wrist (e.g., Band-Aid, tape, Super Glue, bracelet, etc.) The umpire shall determine if such attacment is indeed a foreign substance for the purpose of [the rule], but in no case may the pitcher be allowed to pitch with such attachment to his hand, finger or wrist.”

It wasn’t until Bauer, in full compliance with the above rule, took the mound for his warmup pitches that it was revealed to the world just how bad his injury was. His pinkie was swollen, split along the top of the knuckle, with the split engorged with drying darkened blood. It looked exactly as you would expect a badly mangled finger to look, and in no way “healed”, as he had stated the day before.

Bauer took his warmup pitches and there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. When the game started he “ernied” Jose Bautista (caught looking), walked Josh Donaldson, which is not unusual, considering he leads the league in walks. (His 109 walks this season was third in the majors, and second to Mike Trout in the American League.) Edwin Encarnacion flied out to centre. But as the inning continued, the cameras started focusing on Bauer’s pitching hand.

First you noticed the spots on his white uniform pants, and that he was rubbing his finger on his uniform. Then it started dripping. A lot. Almost a steady stream. He walked Troy Tulowitzki on a 3-2 count; Tulo was the last batter he faced. Manager John Gibbons initiated the discussion after strolling laconically up to the plate umpire and crew chief Brian Gorman. He later reported that his video crew had called the dugout to tell him that blood was actually running from the wound.

I can imagine how Gibbie might have approached this: “Say, uh, Brian, ya know he’s bleeding pretty bad from that finger, eh? Well, I was just kind of wonderin’ ya know, isn’t bleedin’ on the ball about the same thing as puttin‘ spit on it? Jus’ sayin’, ya know?” Well, as Gorman, Terry Francona, and the trainers gathered around the distraught pitcher, it became pretty obvious that Bauer couldn’t continue,. The camera focussed on Bauer’s glistening face as he tried to hold back the tears while he walked off the mound. The local crazies in the crowd showed a little respect for once, and gave him a bit of an ovation as he walked off, and he waved his glove in acknowledgement. He had retired two batters, walked two batters, and thrown 21 pitches.

So at least one game before he planned to, Francona was forced to manage a “bullpen” day, and without the luxury of having a fill-in starter go three innings or so. First up was Dan Otero, who managed to come in and calmly work through all the pent-up drama of the moment to induce Russell Martin to ground out to second to end the inning.

Before I leave the subject of Trevor Bauer, nobody seems to have noticed the level of cynicism that was displayed by Cleveland’s management in this business. It did not take a medical genius to know that with this injury that Bauer was not going to be able to pitch in this game. I don’t understand why they even tried, because it was pretty clear that the wound would open as soon as he started throwing. The only thing I can think is that the whole thing was an attempt to disrupt the Jays’ preparation for the game–oh, Bauer’s okay, he’s starting, let’s look at the video one more time. Naming someone else to start off a “bullpen day” would have given the Jays the opportunity to prepare for the pitcher(s) they’d actually see.

After the two losses in Cleveland, in the best of all worlds Marcus Stroman would have mowed through the first inning on eleven pitches or so, with a couple of ground outs and a strikeout. Then the Jays would have cashed some runs after the two walks in their half of the first. However, none of this happened, and the pattern of Cleveland scratching out a lead and the Jays not being able to counter seemed destined almost from the beginning of the game to continue.

Despite eventually giving up four runs, one scoring after Joe Biagini had replaced him in the sixth inning, Stroman pitched well enough to have kept the Jays close, which he did until he gave up the lead run in the sixth inning on a home run to right by Jason Kipnis. The gopher ball has been Stroman’s problem in a number of his starts this year, and it was tonight as well, though both Mike Napoli in the fourth and Kipnis hit theirs with nobody on base. Stroman’s line was 5.1 innings, four runs on only three hits (all for extra bases, the Napoli double in the first and the two homers), three walks and five strikeouts on 94 pitches.

Manager John Gibbons pulled Stroman after he walked Napoli with one out in the sixth. Kipnis had already led off with the home run that gave Cleveland the lead. Unfortunately, Joe Biagini wild-pitched Napoli to second, so he was able to score on a single by Jose Ramirez. Biagini then finished the inning with two fly-ball outs to centre.

No matter how this series turns out, and, at the moment, it is looking pretty grim, not only will the Toronto starters not be to blame, but the bullpen has been spectacular in keeping the Clevelands in check, theoretically giving the Jays’ hitters a chance to battle back in these low-scoring affairs.

Tonight was no different. After Biagini, Jason Grilli started the seventh, and gave up a one-out single to Robert Perez. After recording the second out, Gibbie brought Brett Cecil in match up with the left-handed Kipnis, whom he retired on a fly ball to right. Cecil then pitched the eighth inning, yielding only a leadoff walk to Francisco Lindor. He tightened the screws after that, fanning Napoli and popping up Ramirez to Edwin Encarnacion in foul territory. Then, with Lonnie Chisenhall at the plate, Francona decided to start Lindor, and he was DOA at second on a strong throw from Russell Martin to Troy Tulowitzki for the tag.

Following his controversial (listen to Gregg Zaun on this issue; on second thought, don’t) pattern of using his closer when his team is tied or behind in a close game, manager Gibbons brought Roberto Osuna in to finish off the game. This almost backfired as Osuna got into trouble and then had to really buckle down to keep Cleveland off the board. After Chisenhall flied out to centre, Coco Crisp singled to right, and then Osuna and the Jays caught a big break. Tyler Naquin hit a gapper to right centre that would easily have scored the speedy Crisp, but it took one hard bounce on the turf and skipped over the fence for a ground rule double, sending Crisp back to third.

(Rule alert, for those who aren’t aware of this: when a ground rule double has been hit, the batter is entitled to two bases, but any base-runner is also only entitled to two bases; a runner on first goes to third, a runner on second or third scores. Crisp, on first when the ball was hit, had to stop at third.)

When Osuna went to 3-0 on Roberto Perez, it looked like the “semi-intentional” walk, intended to load the bases to set up the double play. But then he fought back on Perez, throwing three straight 96 mph fast balls, the first high and down Broadway for a called strike, the second at the bottom of the zone that Perez fouled off, and the third up and in, for a swing and miss. With two down Osuna could focus on Carlos Santana, who jumped at a waist-high four-seamer on the outside half, and pulled it on the ground to the second baseman for the third out.

So it’s the same old story, isn’t it? Marcus Stroman pitched well enough to win and the bullpen shut Cleveland down, so what happened? Well, the Jays’ hitters hopes must have really swelled at the prospect of chewing through a half-dozen Cleveland bullpen arms after Bauer’s inevitable first-inning exit. But it didn’t quite work out.

It would seem that the combination of carrying the huge weight of a prolonged batting slump to the plate and facing a different pitcher every time they hit gave the Jays’ offence just as much trouble as a lights-out starter would have. Oh, sure, they weren’t completely shut down. Michael Saunders surprised with an opposite-field home run in the second inning off Dan Otero, and Ryan Goins’ hard grounder up the middle in the fifth scored Zeke Carrera, who had put a little life back in the ball park by leading off with a triple to the gap in right centre off Zach McAllister.

But Francona’s parade of relievers, who threw eight and a third innings, held things together enough for Cleveland’s scratchy four-run output to prevail. The sequence of Otero, Jeff Manship, McAllister, Brian Shaw, Cody Allen, and Andrew Miller ended up with a combined line of eight and a third innings, two runs, seven hits, one walk, and ten strikeouts. It was just what the doctor had ordered, after he tended to Trevor Bauer’s wound.

Even a leadoff single by Dioner Navarro, hitting for Saunders, was easily stranded by Miller, who retired the next three batters for the save. And, yes, that was Miller in for the ninth: Terry Francona used Cody Allen in the seventh, and then brought in Miller to finish off. Just to keep us guessing.

So our backs really are against the wall. Tomorrow afternoon it’s Aaron Sanchez taking the hill for what is clearly the most crucial game of his career. He will be facing Corey Kluber, starting on only three days’ rest, as Francona starts to scramble to cover for his paper-thin starting rotation. But if the Blue Jays can’t produce a base hit when it matters, Francona could throw Pee Wee Herman and Tiny Tim out there, and it would be all the same. Time for some Blue Jays’ hitters to get crackin’.

Remember the Bosox of ought four!

*”Decimated” is one of the most consistently misused words in the lexicon. Everybody but yer humble scribe uses it to mean slaughtered or destroyed in large numbers, but it’s a word with a much more restricted meaning. It stems from the practice in the army of Ancient Rome of taking every tenth man out of the line to be executed, either as an example for the sake of intimidation, or in punishment for a failed attack. (“Decima”–tenth). If you say that the troops were decimated, that means one in ten was lost, and no more. Just sayin’.

The most depressing thing about watching yesterday’s game two of the ALCS was not that the Jays’ hitters fell like tenpins before the unhittable darts of Andrew Miller, but that I constantly needed to write “g6-3” (ground out to shortstop) in my notes. It doesn’t matter if they can’t hit Andrew Miller, because he can’t pitch every out in the series. It does matter if they can’t figure out a way to stop rolling over on off-speed pitches and hitting easy ground balls to the Cleveland infield.

Francisco Lindor is reputed to be a great defensive shortstop, in addition to his obvious relish at hitting in clutch situations. But so far he hasn’t had to flash his superior glove at all, as our heroes have hit easy grounder after easy grounder right at him.

The worst thing that could have happened to the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2016 ALCS was for their offence to go in the tank again.

Well, it happened in Cleveland this weekend, and all we can do is hope that it’s over, and the bats will venture out of their bat cave when they realize they’re back in the friendly confines of the TV Dome.

Jeff Blair wrote truly on Sportsnet.ca this morning that what the Jays’ hitters need to do is forget about trying to solve Andrew Miller, and focus totally on attacking any Cleveland pitchers not named Andrew Miller, because it’s their failure to create any runs against two run-of-the-mill starters that has made them vulnerable to the overwhelming left-handed slants of Mr. Miller. Hear, hear, Mr. Blair!

If we don’t create conditions which make it unlikely that Cleveland manager Terry Francona brings in Miller, we will be looking at a short, untimely end to this long-awaited opportunity. But if we do put up some runs early against our opponents’ starters, I know this seems obvious, the series is eminently winnable.

Because the Clevelands aren’t exactly tearing the cover off the ball against the Toronto starters either. In fact, consider the combined lines of Corey Kluber and Josh Tomlin, versus Marco Estrada and Jay Happ. Kluber and Tomlin: 12 innings pitched, 1 run, 9 hits, 4 walks, 12 strikeouts. Estrada and Happ: 13 innings pitched, 4 runs, 10 hits, 2 walks, 10 strikeouts. What stands out here is that the only appreciable difference in the performance of the starting pitchers is that ours have given up four runs, theirs only one. In fact, they’ve also given up four walks to only two free passes by our guys, which should have been a boost to our production, but wasn’t.

Marco Estrada and Jay Happ are both fly-ball hitters. As such, they are both somewhat more susceptible to the home-run ball than, say, Aaron Sanchez. If you had asked me, going in, if I’d accept, sight unseen as it were, that is, without knowing what our offence would produce, one solo shot off Jay Happ, and one two-run shot off Marco Estrada, I would jump at the chance, especially if you told me that these two dingers would produce 75 per cent of the runs scored by Cleveland in these first two games of the series.

Toronto’s first inning performance against Josh Tomlin really set the tone for the entire game. Unlike Friday night’s game, when Corey Kluber had to work himself out of a serious jam right away against aggressive Toronto hitters, today the Jays opened the game with three easy ground-ball outs, two to second and one to short.

Tomlin, who got the start thanks to the bloody doins’ at the Bauer Drone Service repair facility on Thursday night, is one of those relatively soft-tossing junk-ball pitchers, the kind whose stock-in-trade is the 58-foot curve ball that good hitters just ignore. Unless they’re in a funk. What’s more, he regularly starts out ahead of the hitters by throwing a batting-practice fast ball right down the middle on his first pitch, a pitch that he should get away with exactly once. To exactly one hitter. But what actually happens to that lame-duck first-pitch fast ball? Either the Jays’ hitters take it, or they lunge at it like a cat after a bird, though less gracefully, and over-eagerly beat it into the ground. Right at somebody.

You’d think that this is an LCS for which both teams had to qualify by showing how they could swing the bat with just one hand. The two offensively-challenged teams produced the three runs scored in the game by the end of the third inning, and after that the hitters were so ineffective that the pitchers for both teams must have been laughing behind their gloves in the dugout between innings. Well, the Cleveland pitchers, anyway.

After Toronto’s meek first inning against Tomlin, Russell Martin did manage to single with two out in the second (another ground ball, let it be noted, that ran up the middle), but he was stranded at first when Michael Saunders was ernied by Tomlin. (“Ernied”: out on a called third strike, in honour of Ernie Harwell, who always said that the batter took the strikeout pitch standing “like a house by the side of the road”.)

Jay Happ had given up his first hit in the opening inning when Francisco Lindor lofted one over Troy Tulowitzki’s head into left on a pitch that broke his bat. However, there were two outs already, and Happ fanned Mike Napoli to retire the side. But in the second, Carlos Santana, leading off, and not carrying a guitar to the plate, did not break his bat on a 1-1 two-seamer that was down and in, and barely lined it over the wall in left for a 1-0 Cleveland lead. A strikeout and two ground outs followed to retire the side.

In the top of the third came the only glimmer of hope we’ve had at the plate in two games. After Kevin Pillar—guess what—grounded out to third, Darwin Barney hit a—guess what—ground ball single to left. When John Gibbons sends a runner with one out you know he’s getting desperate. Gibbie sent Barney with Zeke Carrera hitting, so you get the picture of the manager’s state of mind. Carrera hit a—guess what—ground ball to short, Barney made it to second and Lindor made the out at first. This brought Josh Donaldson to the plate. Donaldson took a four-seamer (87 mph—Tomlin sounds like Estrada) and then reached out and drove a waist-high cutter on the outside corner on a—surprise—line drive into right field and hustled into second as Carrera scored to tie the game. That little rising was more than enough work for the Jays’ lumber on this day; they immediately went back to sleep. Edwin Encarnacion raised some hope by taking a walk on a 3-2 pitch, but the slumping Jose Bautista fanned to strand Donaldson and Encarnacion.

In the top of the third Cleveland “rallied” to take a 2-1 lead and settle the whole affair right then and there. They utilized a walk, a stolen base, a wild pitch, and one legitimate two-out base hit by Lindor to plate the only run that mattered. Happ walked catcher Roberto Perez leading off. Rajai Davis hit a double-play ball to Tulo at short, but, Davis being Davis, he beat the throw to first for a fielder’s choice. Replacing Perez at first with Davis: not good.

The one part of Jay Happ’s game that is problematic is that for a left-handed pitcher he gives his catcher little help if a runner might be going. You could see at home with the angle they were showing how Davis took a one-way lead, and practically pointed to second to signal his intention, while Happ studied him, and then just continued his delivery to the plate. Davis could have walked there. It may not have mattered because Happ wild pitched him to third, so he would have been on second anyway when Lindor hit the RBI single. But, still.

Once again Happ retired Napoli, who did not have a good day, to strand Lindor, but that gigantic, terrifying “2” was up there for all to see, and the countdown was already starting to “Miller time”. (I wonder how Andrew Miller feels about having his name mixed in with the slogan for a really awful, pissy beer?) With three innings in the books, and the way Francona has been bringing Miller in willy-nilly regardless of the inning, Toronto at this point might have been looking at only two more innings to get to Tomlin.

They actually had two and two thirds innings of Tomlin left, but it didn’t really matter. At all. They could no more hit Tomlin than they can Miller. After he walked Encarnacion in the third, Tomlin retired nine in a row, five by strikeout. When he walked Bautista with two outs in the sixth, Francona pulled the plug and brought in, not Miller, but the right-handed Brian Shaw, to face Tulo and possibly Martin. Shaw got Tulo to hit a comebacker to end the inning.

In the seventh Shaw yielded to Miller, who threw two innings on 24 pitches, striking out five of the six batters he faced. Then Cody Allen breezed the ninth, adding two more punchouts on 13 pitches. So, in case you’re not keeping track, from the time Donaldson knocked in the then-tying run until the end of the game, the walk to Bautista produced the only base-runner the Jays had. Tomlin, Shaw, and Miller faced one over the minimum to retire nineteen batters.

The only thing wrong with Jay Happ’s outing, besides the fact that Toronto was unable to provide him any support at all, is that, like his appearance in game two of the LDS, he did let the pitches accumulate, and though he could have gone one more inning, John Gibbons decided to pull him after five innings and 94 pitches. At two runs, four hits, one walk and four strikeouts, he had nothing to be ashamed of.

After the long break since the last game of the LDS, Gibbie took the opportunity to give two of his three major bullpen arms some work, to make sure that they hadn’t gotten too rusty, and, not incidentally, to keep Cleveland from adding to its lead. Joe Biagini pitched the sixth and seventh, gave up one walk and struck out two on 29 pitches. Roberto Osuna retired the side on 13 pitches in the ninth.

So the Blue Jays leave Cleveland with nothing to show for it, and back in the doldrums at the plate. There are three games in Toronto, and we have to win two of the three to stay alive. We need the bats to warm up, the pitchers to stay hot, and the damned Cleveland skunks to stay on the other side of the border. How about calling the border services, to enforce no cross-border hexing? We need to do something, eh?

ALCS GAME ONE, CLEVELAND 2, JAYS 0:

HITTERS STRAND ESTRADA,

LET KLUBER OFF HOOK

Note about team names: In solidarity with Jerry Howarth, Mike Wilner, and the many other Canadian broadcasters who have pledged not to use the Cleveland team name or the term “the Tribe”, I will refer to the team from Cleveland only as “Cleveland”. From time to time I have referred to various teams by the name of the city in the plural, such as, for example, “the Clevelands”. This is a very old usage in baseball reporting, which may go back to the nineteenth century. In order to avoid the static repetition of “Cleveland” I will be using this old form a bit more frequently while covering this series.

Just one pitch. For Cleveland, it was a changeup, down and in, on the edge of the plate, that Francisco Lindor golfed into the first row of seats in centre field, scoring Jason Kipnis, on base with a walk ahead of him. The Lindor homer would produce the only runs of the night off either pitcher, and was the difference in the game.

As for the Blue Jays, you could say that it was also just one pitch that could have changed the entire course of the game. We can take our choice on this one, because it could be any one of the eight pitches that Jose Bautista and Russell Martin did not take for a base hit with runners on second and third in the first inning. Toronto’s best chance, though not their only chance, died early, with Martin’s bouncer to first following Bautista’s strikeout in the opening inning.

After that, watching this game only provided clinical observaton of the scientific hypotheses that, one, it is not a good idea to let Corey Kluber off the hook, and two, you definitely do not want to let Cleveland’s starter turn a slim lead over to the back end of their bullpen after the sixth inning.

Marco Estrada demonstrated in spades tonight why he was a good choice to start the first game of the ALCS in Cleveland. He pitched a complete game, gave up only two runs on six hits, with one walk and five strikeouts on 101 pitches. His only mistake came in the sixth inning, with one out. Two mistakes, actually. He issued his only walk to Jason Kipnis, and then gave up the home run to Lindor. The extra run from the walk might as well have been Mount Everest looming behind K2 to the Jays’ hitters once Andrew Miller came into the game.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the hitters to sweep all the spiders out of the bat rack, and the middle part of the lineup was unable to capitalize on six base runners against Cleveland starter Corey Kluber in the first three innings, five reaching on base hits. After that, Kluber settled in and kept the Jays in check just long enough to benefit from Estrada’s gopher ball to Lindor, and hand the ball over to Andrew Miller.

If the general perception that there was far more pressure on Cleveland to win the first game of the series was extant before today, this morning’s news out of the Cleveland camp made it all the more imperative that they carve out a win behind Corey Kluber.

Since the season-ending injuries to their numbers two and three starters, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, predictions about the early demise of the team’s playoff hopes have been rife. They were fortunate indeed to get past Boston in the first round behind Kluber, Josh Tomlin, and Trevor Bauer, and even more fortunate that the series didn’t go to a fourth game, because now that the team is facing a seven-game series, the issue of who is available, let alone strong enough, to be a fourth playoff starter has become critical.

Cleveland’s original projection was that the first three would be followed in game four by Mike Clevinger, who hasn’t even been stretched out as a starter, and Manager Terry Francona is referring to game four as a “bullpen day”; a term you don’t really expect to hear used about a game in an LCS. I have no doubt that if Cleveland were to lose two of the first three games, that Clevinger would be bypassed to bring Kluber back on short rest.

But today, on the very day of game one, we hear the news that Trevor Bauer, who was slated to start game two, will have to be pushed back until at least game three in Toronto on Monday, after the travel day. The reason for the delay is hard to credit, and in fact seems to fall into about the same level of strangeness as the long-ago ankle sprain suffered by one-time Blue Jay Glenallen “the Thrill” Hill. For those among you who don’t go back that far, Glenallen Hill, a big, strapping guy with loads of power, had an inordinate fear of spiders. One night during the season he experienced a very troubling nightmare that prominently featured his least favourite creepy-crawlies. Waking in a panic, he leapt out of bed and started stomping around, presumably trying to dispatch his tormentors. Unfortunately, he lost his balance, tripped, sprained his ankle, and had to go on the disabled list.

Funny, huh? How about this: Trevor Bauer, who pitched so well against Toronto to get the win in the epic Canada Day 19-inning marathon, is a great fan of drones. He owns them, flies them, and fixes them when they need fixing. So, the night before his team is to open its ALCS against Toronto, he is working with one of his drones, trying to fix it, and somehow, he’s not saying, at least publicly, he slipped with something sharp and gashed the pinkie on his pitching hand, to the tune of “stitches”, rather than just one stitch. Thanks to this bloody incident at Bauer Drone Services (“you fly ’em, we fix ’em, and mind the blood stain on that chair—it’s fresh!”), Tomlin gets moved up to game two, Bauer (maybe) pitches game three, and now there is uncertainty about the Cleveland rotation for game three as well as game four. Anyone betting against Kluber getting the game four start is really eager to lose money on the deal.

Toronto wouldn’t go into a game facing Corey Kluber with quite the same awe and respect that they would facing, say, a Rick Porcello or a Chris Sale, or even a Yu Darvish. They’d faced him only twice this year, a consequence of the unbalanced schedule in the American League that saw Cleveland and Toronto only meet for a single series in each city. They’d cuffed him around in his shortest outing of the year in Toronto in July, and then he’d held them to two runs over six and two thirds innings in Cleveland in August in a no-decision that Cleveland eventually pulled out late.

And after three Jays’ hitters in the top of the first, it was clear that Kluber would be getting little respect from the visitors tonight. After Zeke Carrera struck out to lead off the game, Josh Donaldson lashed a single into centre on a 2-2 pitch, and Edwin Encarnacion followed, also on a 2-2 pitch, by going the opposite way, pounding the ball over the head of a frantically retreating Lonnie Chisenhall. The ball short-hopped the fence and just died there, without much of a carom, allowing the Cleveland right fielder to get to it quickly and get it back in, holding Donaldson at third.

Surely, Jose Bautista would at least plate the first run of the game. But in an appearance that would set the tone for the rest of the game, Bautista took a suspect called strike on a slider that was down and in, and then swung over two curve balls that dove into the dirt off the outside corner for a strikeout. It would be up to Russell Martin to come up with a two-out base hit, which has been less of a rarity for Toronto since the start of the month. But Martin reached out for another low outside curve ball and tapped it meekly toward Mike Napoli at first for the third out.

For a scoreless game through five and a half innings, it seemed like Kluber’s efforts to keep the Jays off the board sucked up all the oxygen in the stadium, leaving Marco Estrada to toodle along in relative obscurity, doing what he does best: efficiently keeping the opposing hitters off balance and off the bases.

Leading off the bottom of the first, Carlos Santana pulled a little surprise out of the bag for the Blue Jays by steering a bunt down the third base line, which of course was vacant because Josh Donaldson was playing shortstop in the shift. No problem, though. Jason Kipnis grounded into a double play started by Travis, and Francisco Lindor grounded out to Travis to end the inning.

Estrada gave up three hits by the end of the fifth, stranding a single by Lonnie Chisenhall in the third, a single by Lindor in the fourth, and a leadoff single by Chisenhall, his second hit, in the fifth. Chisenhall in the fifth was the only Cleveland runner to advance past first base. Coco Crisp bunted him to second, Tyler Naquin advanced him to third on a comebacker to the mound which Estrada had to play on to Devon Travis covering first. Estrada then calmly threw three off-speed strikes to catcher Roberto Perez, who didn’t offer at any of them, to end the inning.

The great Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell popularized the phrase that characterizes a hitter taking a called third strike as “standing there like the house by the side of the road.” Maybe I should coin a usage here for taking strike three. It could be that the ineffectual hitter has been “ernied”, or “harwelled”. What do you think?

On Naquin’s comebacker to the mound, Edwin Encarnation had to try to play the ball, which was eventually handled by Estrada, so Travis had to cover ground quickly to get to first to take the throw from Estrada. As he came off the bag after the out, it was obvious that whatever “bone bruise” they had been treating while he sat out two games in the division series had either recurred, or was significantly worse than they had let on. Travis was hobbling and unable to continue. Ryan Goins came in to replace him for the last out of the inning. At this point it is unclear what the young second baseman’s status will be for the rest of the post-season, but the team management must have had an inkling that this might happen, since they had opted to include Goins on the LCS roster, at the expense of Justin Smoak.

Estrada was through five innings on three hits but only two left on base, with a pitch count of only 59, though no one was noticing, mainly because the attention of most fans was riveted by the spectacle of Corey Kluber dancing around on the mound, dodging bullets and escaping from traps set by the Blue Jays’ hitters.

In the second inning, Kluber got a double-play ball off the bat of Travis to escape after Michael Saunders had singled and he had walked Kevin Pillar with one out. In the third, with two outs, Edwin singled to left and Jose Bautista walked, but Kluber fanned Russell Martin. In the fourth the Cleveland starter got a big boost from Jason Kipnis after Saunders had crossed up the shift and singled to left. Kevin Pillar hit a hard bouncer into the hole off first base that seemed destined for a base hit to right. But Kipnis ranged far to his left, fading back as he went for the ball. He dove, and snagged it when it seemed already past him, leapt to his feet, and fired out Pillar at first. The diving Kipnis had erased a likely first and third with one out, and Kluber was able to end the inning by retiring Travis on a fly ball to centre. In the fifth inning, though, Jays’ fans had to be getting a little worried that Kluber was finally able to retire the side in order: was he settling in? Was that all there would be? After four innings Kluber had struggled to 69 pitches, but he only needed eleven more for the fifth, taking him to 80.

Through five innings Estrada clearly had the best of Kluber. But baseball is a funny game, and the funniest (sorry, in this case not funny) of them can be the low-scoring pitchers’ duel, since it can turn on almost anything. Much like a fight between two unevenly matched boxers, sometimes the wrong guy loses. You can have one fighter miles ahead on points, even with a couple of knockdowns, where the decision is a foregone conclusion, but the guy who’s losing manages to line up one magnificent punch, and wins with a knockout.

While the analogy is not perfect—Estrada and Kluber were not throwing directly to or at each other, obviously—it still serves to explain how Marco Estrada might give up the only runs of the game. Maybe Carlos Santana foreshadowed what was to come as he smashed a one-hopper directly at Ryan Goins in short right field to lead off the sixth. Goins played it like a goalie, blocking and dropping to cover the rebound, though in this case picking it up and firing it to first for the out, rather than smothering it. Estrada then walked Jason Kipnis, his only walk of the game.

This brought up Lindor, who already had one of the four hits to this point off Estrada. On an 0-2 pitch, Lindor went down and in to hit a ball hard to the power alley in right centre. All you needed to know about the hit was what you could read in Kevin Pillar’s back, as he raced over and back for the ball, then, shoulders sagging, slowed and watched it clear for the only two runs that would be scored in the game.

Estrada quickly retired Mike Napoli on a popup to second, and fanned Jose Ramirez, but we headed for the top of the seventh with a sinking feeling in the pits of our stomachs: regardless of how much longer Kluber lasted, we were well within the range of the possibility of Andrew Miller and the closer Cody Allen picking him up without any other bullpen help needed. We would need a quick strike right away, or we were probably looking at the end, well before the end would be played out.

We were encouraged when Kluber came back out to start the seventh inning, but Manager Terry Francona was too smart for the Jays, and too smart for our taste. He let the right-handed Kluber face the right-handed Kevin Pillar. This gave us one last shot at Kluber, which at best would only yield a single run to shorten the lead. And when Kluber got Pillar to ground out to short, his day was over, and so was ours, if we couldn’t create any chances against Miller and, eventually, Allen.

Well, we couldn’t. Francona brought Miller in. John Gibbons pinch-hit Darwin Barney for Goins and Melvin Upton for Carrera. Miller struck them both out, to end the seventh.

For the Clevelands, the Lindor shot was the only damage against Marco Estrada. After finishing the sixth, he gave up Chisenhall’s third base hit in three at-bats against him to lead off the seventh. Coco Crisp sacrificed Chisenhall to second, and then Estrada struck out Naquin and got Perez to fly out to centre.

Ironically, Gibbons sent Estrada back out for the eighth, and he responded with a final three-up, three-down inning on 13 pitches. Carlos Santana popped up, Jason Kipnis flew out to centre, and in an almost Quixotic gesture, Estrada struck out his tormentor Lindor after going to 3-0, throwing 3 straight fastballs. The first was a called strike. Lindor fouled off the second, and he swung and missed at the third.

So for the first time all season, a Blue Jays’ starter pitched a complete game. For the first time in Marco Estrada’s career, he pitched a complete game. In the opening game of the 2016 American League Championship Series. In a losing cause.

Oh, and the Jays’ hitters? The last-minute dramatics? The tying run dying on third? Huh. Josh Donaldson ripped a single to centre off Miller to lead off the eighth and hopes soared. But Miller “ernied” Edwin (struck out caught looking), fanned Bautista, and fanned Martin, Donaldson withering on the vine at first.

Cody Allen threw eleven pitches in the ninth. Troy Tulowitzki grounded out. Michael Saunders struck out. Kevin Pillar grounded out. End of game one of the ALCS, Cleveland two, Toronto no score.

We can take any number of consolations from this game. The Indians absolutely did not beat up on Marco Estrada, and won’t be facing him with a lot of confidence if his number comes up in the series again. Corey Kluber didn’t exactly blow the Jays away; it was rather that they beat themselves for the most part: no need to be intimidated if we face him again. Then again, it’s a seven-game series, and a split in Cleveland at the start would be an excellent result. Then again, the Cleveland rotation is very much up in the air from this point forward, starting with Tomlin replacing Bauer tomorrow afternoon. Then again, Miller threw 31 pitches tonight.

So let’s not get all bent out of shape over this. It’s one game, folks, and Cleveland needs four to win the series. No big deal. Only a shutout in game one of the LCS, that’s all.

Ask me if I feel better now. No, don’t. I have to go pull some blankets over my head and not sleep.