Long Ball Stories

Baseball is such a funny game.

Sometimes the ball flies out of the park, bangs off the walls, rattles around in the corners while the runners circle the bases and the runs tally up. But then you get a game like tonight’s.

This was a game in which two swings of the bat, one in the Toronto first, and one in the Tampa second, produced three runs, and that was it for the whole game.

Tonight, after fill-in starter Nick Tepesch stranded a Lucas Duda single and retired the Rays in the top of the first, Toronto came to the plate against Jake Odorizzi, a long-time linch-pin of the Tampa rotation who has always pitched well against the Blue Jays.

For the second game in a row, Jose Bautista ran up a multi-pitch walk to bring Josh Donaldson to the plate. And for the second game in a row, after working the Tampa starter for eight pitches, Donaldson lashed a fast ball high on the outside corner to right field for a two-run homer. Down 2-0, Odorizzi quickly retired Justin Smoak and Kendrys Morales on easy fly balls, and Steve Pearce on a liner to third.

With the two-run lead, Tepesch came out and started throwing bombs, but luckily for him only one of them left the park. Steven Souza hit one to deep right that Bautista hauled in. Brad Miller hit one to deep centre that Kevin Pillar hauled in. But Tepesch’s luck ran out with catcher Wilson Ramos, who reached down and golfed a low slider to dead centre that Pillar tracked to the wall and leaped hopelessly after as it smacked off the facing of the 200 level to cut the Jays’ lead to 2-1. It only took one more pitch for Tepesch to pop Peter Bourjos out to Smoak at first to end the inning.

Not to spoil the suspense, but that was it for the scoring. For the next seven innings, Odorizzi and three relievers, and Tepesch and two relievers, kept the scoreboard clean, racking up an unbroken string of goose eggs between them.

Odorizzi only had to deal with base runners in the third and the sixth innings. In the third, Rob Refsnyder led off with a base hit that was followed by another walk to Bautista. But Odorizzi retired Donaldson, Smoak, and Morales to strand the runners without advancing.

In the sixth inning, with two outs Steve Pearce hit a long drive into the right field corner. Steven Souza just failed to track it down after a long run, and the ball rebounded back past him, allowing Pearce to go all the way around to third. But Odorizzi had more magic in his glove than the two-out black arts in the bat of Ryan Goins, and struck him out looking on a curve ball that just nicked the outside corner, to leave Pearce at third.

In a game that either pitcher could have won, Jake Odorizzi went out after six innings bearing responsibility for the lead run. He’d given up only three hits and three walks

while fanning four on 110 pitches.

As for Tepesch, he skated around trouble in both the third and fourth innings, in the third giving up two-out base hits to Duda and Evan Longoria, and in the fourth walking Brad Miller and Ramos with one out, and hitting Daniel Robertson with a pitch to load the bases before getting Corey Dickinson to fly out to right on the most fraught at-bat for the Rays in the game.

Tepesch finished strongly, retiring the side in the fifth and the sixth, though there was a moment of cold chill with two outs in the sixth, when the same Wilson Ramos who’d taken him out to centre in the second, got into another one to straightaway centre, but this time it stayed in the park for Pillar to haul it in.

Speaking of home runs and fly balls, it’s interesting to note that in Tepesch’s first outing against the Yankees he threw only four ground balls and seven fly balls, counting the three that went out. Tonight he threw twice as many ground balls, eight, and the same number of fly balls plus homers, seven, but only one of the seven went out. So the improvement of getting a few more grounders and mostly keeping the ball in the park made the difference between going four and a third for a loss and going six for a win. He’ll have to confer with his fellow fly ball-ers Marco Estrada and Jay Happ to work on keeping the baseball in the park, if he’s to stay with the team.

Tepesch finished up at six innings plus two batters, and gave up one run on four hits with three walks, two hit batters, and a partridge . . . er, no, on 96 pitches to notch his first win in the majors since September 16, 2014.

Just because the game was scoreless after Ramos’ home run in the second doesn’t mean that it was devoid of interest. Manager John Gibbons hopefully sent Tepesch back out for the seventh, but he hit Peter Bourjos and walked Daniel Robertson on four pitches, and that was enough to call it a night for the starter. Aaron Loup came in to face the left-handed slugger Corey Dickinson.

There ensued one of the oddest plays you could imagine. It was a play that illustrated why the infield fly rule exists, because if it could have been called, a whole lot of confusion would have been avoided.

Basically, the infield fly rule was instituted to prevent infielders from deliberately dropping a popup to be able to force out a faster lead runner, or even turn a double play if the hitter is lazy out of the batter’s box. Paraphrasing, it reads that if a ball is a fair fly ball, and can be caught with ordinary effort by an infielder, the batter will be called out automatically with runners on first and second or the bases loaded and less than two outs.

Loup sawed off Dickerson, who pushed out a little hump-backed liner toward second, where Rob Refsnyder was playing fairly deep both for the double play, and because Dickerson’s a left-handed power hitter. Refsnyder charged the ball, but didn’t quite get to it and took it on the short hop. Problem was, it wasn’t a fly ball, and Refsnyder never really had a chance for it, so the condition of catching it with ordinary effort didn’t apply. Correctly, no call was made, except that the second-base umpire gave the safe sign to confirm that Refsnyder had trapped the ball, and not caught it.

Refsnyder quickly flipped the ball to Ryan Goins, already on the bag at second. The second-base runner, Bourjos, before realizing that the ball had been trapped, correctly retreated to second, and arrived on the base before the throw came from Refsnyder, which was actually irrelevant. The runner from first, Robertson, with the play in front of him, was caught in the classic no-man’s land; he had to hold first until he saw the ball wouldn’t be caught, and then take off for second. The matter should have been simple: with Goins on the bag when he caught the ball, the force was off for Bourjos, and he could run or hold at will, and just had to avoid being tagged while off the bag. Robertson was forced out, and Dickerson, of course, was on first.

Goins, however, ended up standing on second, between Bourjos and Robertson, comically tagging first one, then the other. One of them had to be out, right?

For some reason the video review took a long time, perhaps because one of the umps, or maybe two of them, had signalled more than one out, and they needed a reset: Bourjos at second, Dickerson at first, and Robertson out.

As it turned out, Loup took matters into his own hands, fanned Lucas Duda and got soft contact from Evan Longoria, who hit an easy liner to second, which was caught on the fly by Refsnyder, for the third out.

This was one of those games, it seems, and John Gibbons was prepared to go all out. Loup came back out for the eighth because two of the first three batters were left-handed, and he did his job, striking out Logan Morrison and Brad Miller, but walking Steven Souza in between. With the dangerous, right-handed Ramos due up, the call went out for Roberto Osuna to come in and try for a very unusual for Osuna four-out save. The short term worked, as Ramos grounded out to short on the second pitch.

He came back out for the ninth and quickly ran the table in eleven pitches, two ground balls and a strikeout, for his thirtieth save in 37 chances.

Meanwhile, Sergio Romo had stranded a single by Kevin Pillar in the seventh, but Brad Boxberger had a more adventurous eighth. He still managed to keep Toronto from adding an insurance run, with the help of Tampa’s newly-acquired lefty, Dan Jennings. Josh Donaldson led off with a ground-rule double to left. Justin Smoak grounded out to first, with Donaldson moving up to third. Kendrys Morales hit one in the hole between first and second that should have scored Donaldson, but Brad Miller made a great grab and threw him out at first while Donaldson had to hold at third, with no contact play on. Then Jennings came on for the lefty matchup and retired Goins on a comebacker to save the run.

So thanks to the combined efforts of Tepesch, Loup, and Osuna, Donaldson’s first-inning shot stood up for the win, and the Jays held on for a somewhat unusual in these days 2-1 win. It was good enough to push Toronto’s record to five of seven in its last seven games, and gave them an important first win in this crucial series with one of the key teams ahead of them in the wild card race.

And, they managed to steal a win with one of their fill-in starters on the mound, a real bonus.

Just in case anyone here needed a reminder of what a laugher is, today happened. After Jay Happ gave up a run on three straight hits in the top of the first against the Pirates in this afternoon’s rubber game of the series with Pittsburgh, Chad Kuhl walked Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson delivered him with another first-inning smash, and then Toronto piled on Kuhl for three more runs to take a 5-1 lead into the second inning.

After that, Happ settled in to pitch six innings of one-run ball and we got to relax and sit back and enjoy the sunshine and the good vibes emanating from the giant clamshell on the lakefront. Isn’t this the way baseball in August in Toronto is supposed to be?

All the elements of today’s win, Happ’s progressively more effective shutdown of the Pittsburgh lineup, Donaldson’s blast, Ryan Goins’ amazing focus at the plate with ducks on the pond, the bullpen’s effectiveness—three innings, four pitchers, no runs, no hits, two walks—have appeared in various combinations in many games over the course of this curious season. But seldom have all four combined on the same day to give such a satisfying outcome.

I won’t bother going into the stats but, let’s face it, the Jays’ pitchers have stunk in the first inning this season. None of the starters, whether regulars or fill-ins, has been immune from this problem. Yesterday’s nine-pitch gem in the first by rookie Chris Rowley was such a shock that we had to shake ourselves to be sure it was actually over so quickly.

So it was with a resigned shrug that we watched, after Starling Marte skyed out to Jose Bautista in right, as Josh Harrison, Andrew McCutchen, back in the lineup as the DH after taking yesterday off to tend to his injury, and David Freese knocked out clean base hits to give the Pirates a quick one-run lead. And, as so many times before, it was with a profound sense of relief that we watched Happ go on to control the damage, stranding McCutchen at second and Freese at first by fanning Jose Osuna and retiring Sean Rodriguez on a fly ball to centre.

It’s often said that facing imminent death has a way of marvellously focussing the mind. Maybe that works for the Blue Jays’ hitters when they give up that quick run in the first inning. Okay, that’s a stretch, but who knows? Anyhow, Bautista did his annoying thing that he does, annoying to opposing pitchers that is, by falling behind 1-2 to Pittsburgh starter Chad Kuhl, taking two perfectly hittable pitches for strikes, laying off tempters, fouling off another hittable strike, and then walking on the eighth pitch. It’s almost like they plan it, he and Johs, you know? (Of course they do.) All the while Bautista is wrecking Kuhl’s good pitches, Donaldson’s watching like a hawk, so we shouldn’t be surprised when he takes one strike and crushes the next one.

Bottom of the first homers to take the lead back from the visitors are all well and good, but what happened next was crucial to the outcome of the game. Kuhl failed to get the first out of the inning, as Justin Smoak delivered a blast to right centre for a double. Kuhl caught Kendrys Morales looking for the first out, but Zeke Carrera drew a walk, bringing Ryan Goins to the plate. Wait a minute, you say, Zeke Carrera hitting fifth, Goins hitting sixth? Well, with both Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki on the disabled list, with Kevin Pillar producing inconsistently, and Raffy Lopez and Darwin Barney pressed into action, where would you hit Carrera and Goins against right handers?

One thing I don’t understand is why teams continue to disregard Goins’ strength with the bat. The Pirates were definitely playing “pitch ’em away, play ’em away” for Goins, but it was amazing how far into right centre the right fielder was stationed when Goins pulled the second outside strike from Kuhl into right field, not even right down the line. Goins’ double was a given, but what the positioning did was enable Carrera to score all the way from first, behind Smoak, and it was 4-1.

Then the Bucs (for Buccaneers) played give-away again. Kevin Pillar bounced one hard to third and it went right through David Freese for an error. Goins advanced to third, perfectly positioned to be the second man to go on an audacious double steal. Pillar broke for second, and as soon as Francisco Cervelli let go of the ball for second, Goins broke for the plate like a streak. Shortstop Jordy Mercer charged the ball and fired it back to the plate, but Goins slid across easily as Pillar took second, and it was 5-1.

As far as the starting pitchers were concerned, that was all the scoring. Happ only gave up one more hit, a single to Sean Rodriguez in the fourth. He stranded a walk in the second, and two walks in the sixth, his last inning of work. His first two innings, when he accumulated 42 pitches, the three walks and the eight strikeouts extended his pitch count to 104 over six, and he deservedly received a warm handshake from manager John Gibbons for a job well done.

After the rough start, Kuhl gave the Pirates another four innings, and gave up only one more hit, an infield single to Josh Donaldson in the second. His 40 pitches and two walks in the first inning, three more scattered walks, and six strikeouts stretched him out to 96 pitches over the five innings.

Left-handed former Buffalo Bison Wade LeBlanc came in and pitched the sixth and seventh innings for Pittsburgh, and if the Pirates had any hope of cutting into Toronto’s lead, LeBlanc didn’t help their cause much by giving up solo homers to Darwin Barney in the sixth and Justin Smoak in the seventh, extending the margin to 7-1.

Daniel Hudson walked Kevin Pillar to start the eighth inning but then retired the side.

The Toronto bullpen once more gathered up its strength, which must surely be on the wane by now, and kept the Pittsburgh offence from threatening over the last three innings to maintain the lead for Happ’s well-deserved win. Danny Barnes threw a thirteen-pitch seventh. Leonel Campos came in for the eighth, retired Josh Harrison on a fly ball, and then, presumably, annoyed John Gibbons no end by walking Andrew McCutchen and David Freese, necessitating his removal and replacement by Ryan Tepera, as if he needed the work. Tepera finished things off with a strikeout and a popup on only five pitches, so at least it was a short stint for him.

The beleaguered J.P. Howell was asked to mop up, and did an admirable job, getting three ground-outs on only twelve pitches.

That’s two series wins in a row for Toronto, and it’s been just enough to keep them on the fringe of the wild-card race. Next comes a four-game series at home with their worst division tormenters, the Tampa Bay Rays. If they can navigate those dangerous waters, they might get just a little closer to the pack. At the very least, they’ll keep us from writing them off if they manage to win more than they lose against the Rays.

The Toronto Blue Jays have had to use an inordinate number of fill-in starting pitchers this year, thanks to the rash of injuries that has riddled their rotation, a wave that has washed over all but Marcus Stroman. Now, with Francisco Liriano gone to Houston and Aaron Sanchez shelved for most of the rest of the season, there are two holes in the rotation that need to be filled on a regular basis for the foreseeable future.

One of the interesting side lights of keeping up with the revolving door of replacement starters is delving into their back stories, and the various paths they’ve taken to their moment in the spotlight.

None can match the story of Chris Rowley’s map to today’s start against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Toronto, for being both unique and fortuitous.

For starters, Rowley is the first ever graduate of West Point, the United States Military Academy, to play in the major leagues. There are a couple of intertwined reasons for this. One is that though West Point’s baseball team plays in the top tier of U.S. college baseball, it seldom attracts top level prospects. The other is that graduates of West Point normally have a five-year commitment to military service following graduation. Obviously, five years in uniform would be a career-killer for any real major league prospect, and by the same token the commitment would deter top-notch prospects from signing on with the cadets.

Undeterred by these circumstances, Rowley chose to accept an appointment to the Academy, since it would offer him the best opportunity to start with a tier-one baseball programme. His career at West Point marked him as a possible future pro, and he was fortunate in being able to take advantage of a special provision offered by the army and navy academies to shorten the commitment of graduates who are prospective professional athletes to two years.

Rowley wasn’t picked in the 2013 draft, but was invited to pitch in the Gulf Coast rookie league that summer by the Blue Jays, in the time he had remaining before reporting for duty. He impressed them enough during that time that they were willing to sign him after he completed his two years’ service. During his time in uniform, he never pitched off a mound, and managed to keep loose while serving in Bulgaria and Rumania by throwing to an army medic who had some catching experience.

His age and physical/mental maturity no doubt contributed to his rapid rise in the Jays’ organization. Once shorn of his uniform, he spent 2016 in Dunedin at advanced A ball, and started this season at New Hampshire in Double A. Seventeen game appearances with the Fisher-Cats and 10 with the Buffalo Bisons, and here he was, taking the mound for the Blue Jays in Toronto on a grey afternoon with the roof closed.

There was no debut nervousness in Chris Rowley as he faced Starling Marte in the top of the first. I love a first-pitch strike. Even more do a I love a second-pitch slider that gets chased. I especially love when the leadoff hitter gets in the hole and grounds out weakly to the second baseman. Adam Frazier lined out to Steve Pearce in left on the first pitch, and Josh Harrison chased a sinker and two sliders to strike out on four pitches. Ex-Lieutenant Chris Rowley was through his first inning in the majors on nine pitches, had his first strikeout, and could stand at ease while his team-mates went to work on Pirates starter Trevor Williams.

Williams is a 25-year-old Californian who was a September callup to the Pirates last year and made the team out of spring training this year. He started in the bullpen, was slotted into the rotation in early May, and has been there ever since, compiling a 5-4 record with an ERA of 4.17 over 111 innings with a WHIP of 1.27, and averaging less than three walks a game.

However, he walked Jose Bautista to lead off the game, as who hasn’t, and that led directly to the Jays’ first run. After Josh Donaldson struck out, Justin Smoak singled him to third, and Steve Pearce hit a grounder up the middle for a fielder’s choice that allowed Bautista to score.

Rowley was rudely greeted in the top of the second when Josh Bell, the imposing young Pittsburgh first baseman, hit a liner to the opposite field that split the outfielders in left centre; Bell can fly, and fly he did, all the way to a close arrival at third for a triple. This posed a new situation for Rowley, suddenly confronted with a serious scoring threat, the ultimate test, a leadoff triple. He came so close to getting out of it. He fanned David Freese. Gregory Polanco lined out to Smoak at first. But shortstop Jordy Mercer confounded everyone by swinging at an 0-2 sinker that rose instead, almost above his head, and somehow getting on top of it to ground it up the middle for a base hit scoring Bell. John Jaso grounded into a fielder’s choice and the game was tied.

So, no fairy-tale no-hitter, or even shutout for Rowley, just a 1-1 baseball game after one and a half innings. That is, until Williams reached his game-average for walks in two innings and added a hit batsman to help the Jays go ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the second. First off, Williams hit Kevin Pillar, then retired Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney before giving up a ground single to centre by Rob Refsnyder, who broke his strikeout streak from last night’s game. Then he walked Bautista on a 3-2 pitch, and Donaldson on a 3-2 pitch to force in the run before striking out Smoak.

Rowley and Williams both settled down in the third inning, Rowley stranding a one-out Starling Marte single, and Williams retiring the side. The fourth mirrored the third, Rowley stranding a one-out single by Freese, and Williams putting the Jays out in order again.

In the fifth inning Rowley dismissed the Pirates on ten pitches, fly ball, two ground balls. After having a few rocky spots, he’d started looking like he was in it for the long haul, with his pitch count at only 64. Williams, on the other hand, came a-cropper in the bottom of the fifth, and not only did he contribute to his downfall, but his defense let him down, much as Stroman’s had the night before.

But Williams started it by hitting Bautista, leading off, adding to the right fielder’s phenomenal on-base percentage as leadoff man, despite his low batting average. Josh Donaldson lofted a tricky short fly into no-man’s land near the right-field line. Gregory Polanco raced in and nearly picked it off, but had to take it on the short hop. Unfortunately, he injured himself trying to make the play and had to be removed from the game, taking a potent bat out of the lineup.

Williams got the first out by fanning Justin Smoak, but then walked Steve Pearce. This loaded the bases and brought Kendrys Morales out of the dugout to hit for Raffy Lopez, his first appearance since reporting back for duty after his bout with the flu. Though he didn’t make a dramatic impact on the game, he did put his bat on the ball, and drove it on the ground toward short, where Jordy Mercer turned it over to Adam Frazier at second for the force on Pearce, but Frazier’s throw to first got past Josh Bell, and both Bautista and Donaldson scored, to bump the Toronto lead to 4-1. Kevin Pillar hit the ball hard, but right at Mercer on a line for the third out.

As it turns out, Trevor Williams took the loss and Chris Rowley got the win, but ironically Williams lasted longer on the mound than Rowley. With a three-run cushion, Rowley retired Frazier on a fly ball to left, but Harrison singled and Bell drew a walk. Manager John Gibbons decided that his rookie starter had reached his best-before, and turned the ball over to Dominic Leone, who brilliantly stifled the threat by fanning Freese and retiring Sean Rodriguez, who’d come in for Polanco, on a come-backer, taking only five pitches to preserved Rowley’s chance for a win in his first start.

So Rowley went out with five and a third innings pitched, giving up one run on five hits, walking one and striking out three on 75 pitches. First West Point grad to play in the majors. First West Point grad to start on the mound in the majors. First West Point grad to record a win in a major league start. And recipient of a warm ovation from the faithful in attendance, acknowledged by a modest tip of the cap.Well done, soldier!

In the sixth Williams survived a two-out single by Refsnyder, who had three hits in this game of redemption after last night’s debacle, and applauded Marte’s sliding catch of a blooper to short centre by Barney. Williams finished 6 full innings, gave up 3 earned runs on only four hits with seven strikeouts, but his kryptonite was four walks and two hit batters, both leading off, both of whom scored. When you factor in the error in the fifth, he still deserved a better fate.

Dominic Leone finished a powerful and effective performance by coming back and striking out the last two batters in the top of the seventh, stranding John Jaso, who had doubled with one out, at second. Five outs, one hit, three strikeouts, 19 pitches. You can’t post a better hold.

Joaquin Benoit was the sad man on the sidelines when Toronto made its playoff run last year. You’ll recall that Benoit had worked his way into the seventh-inning reliever position with the Jays after arriving in Toronto on July twenty-sixth in a trade for the disappointing Drew Storen (remember him?) Benoit made 25 appearance for the Jays, throwing 23 and two thirds innings to an incredible ERA of 0.38. But in the famous beanball game with the Yankees on September twenty-sixth, he tore a calf muscle while rushing out of the bullpen to join the melee. Thus he was sidelined for the playoffs, and then chose to sign with the Phillies as a free agent after the season ended. But his contribution to last year’s regular-season run for Toronto was undeniable.

Benoit has arrived by way of trade to the Pirates, and came into the game against his former team for the Toronto seventh. He didn’t fare well, either, but once again it was the Pittsburgh infield that contributed to the problem.

Benoit popped up Donaldson for the first out, but Smoak and Pearce followed with singles, with Smoak stopping at second. Catcher Mike Ohlman topped a little squibber to third that Josh Harrison should have eaten, but he tried to be a hero and threw the ball away; it went so far down the line that both Smoak and Pearce scored, and Ohlman ended up at third. Kevin Pillar followed with a sacrifice fly to plate Ohlman, and the Jays had three, but only one earned, off Benoit.

A.J. Schugel came on to finish up in the eighth for Pittsburgh, pitching around Refsnyder’s third base hit of the night. Aaron Loup and Ryan Tepera shared the eighth inning, Tepera coming on to strike out Sean Rodriguez to strand a couple of base runners.

Leonel Campos got the ball in the ninth to mop up for the Jays. He allowed a leadoff home run by Jordy Mercer to make the final score 7-2 before finishing off the Pirates, stranding a two-out walk to Marte.

The inter-league series between Toronto and Pittsburgh is now knotted at one game apiece, and Jay Happ will face a reputedly tough right-hander, Chad Kuhl, in the rubber game tomorrow afternoon. Here’s hoping that, for the first time in this series, the game will be decided on the merits of one team or another, and not on mistakes. Sure, errors are part of the game, but they’re not all that edifying to watch.

(With apologies to the beloved childrens’ novelist Judith Viorst, whose wonderful title of her best-known book I have ripped off above.)

(And with apologies to Rob Refsnyder, who will surely see better days in a Toronto uniform.)

A couple of weeks ago, looking ahead to this weekend inter-league series in Toronto between the Blue Jays and the Pittsburgh Pirates, I caught myself thinking that it would be interesting to see an unfamiliar team in town, and always fun to watch major league baseball, but that the series wouldn’t have much meaning beyond the games themselves.

Now it looks a little different. For all the doom-saying, Toronto continues to slog along, playing slightly better than .500 ball since the All-Star Game at 16-14, and still not definitively out of the hunt for a wild card slot. And the Pirates, surprisingly, while coming in one game under .500 for the season, and seven and a half games behind the second wild card slot, find themselves only three games out of the division lead in the winning-challenged National League Central, where the defending World Champion Cubs hold the lead with a mediocre 59-54 record.

So, a series that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t mean a whole lot, but on the other hand certainly does not mean nothing.

The matchup tonight would seem to have favoured the home team, with marquee starter Marcus Stroman taking the hill against Canadian-by-descent Jameson Taillon. However, you can never discount the emotional response of a “home-boy” making his first start on Canadian soil. Taillon, born in Lakeland Florida of Canadian parentage on both sides, has been vocal in his feelings for his country of origin once removed, and had intended to pitch for the Canadian team in the World Baseball Classic, to repeat his participation for Canada in the 2013 tournament.

Taillon has had to traverse a rocky road to have become a semi-regular member of the Pittsburgh rotation in 2016, and a solid starter for the Pirates this year: Tommy John surgery in 2014. Recovery from a hernia operation which cost him all of 2015. And this year, surgery for testicular cancer on May 8, followed by only three weeks of recovery before making his first rehab start. Despite all, tonight he was making his eleventh consecutive start without missing an assignment since his return from the cancer surgery.

Taillon is a big strong guy who relies on a two-seam fast ball that usually runs upwards of 95 mph; when he throws a four-seamer, it can reach 97 and better. His mound opponent, Marcus Stroman, well, you know, bend but don’t break, as always.

After a first inning in which both sides went down in order, we realized that there was a real problem with Russell Martin, who had come out of the box slowly on his grounder to third in the bottom of the first; he came out for the warmups, took them from Stroman, made a weak throw down, and then was removed/removed himself from the game, causing a short delay while Raffy Lopez, who had never caught Stroman before, suited up and took some warmup throws on the field.

After getting three groundouts in the first inning, with Lopez behind the plate Stroman varied his approach, retiring the side in order again on a fly ball to left, a strikeout, and another groundout.

The Jays struck for a run in the bottom of the second to take the lead, but could have had more, as they missed an opportunity to get a real leg up on Taillon and the Pirates. Justin Smoak led off with a solid single to right centre. Steve Pearce was hitting cleanup tonight in the absence of Kendrys Morales, who, along with Nori Aoki, is fighting a flu bug and was unavailable. Pearce walked, and was followed by Zeke Carrera, who hit one hard the opposite way to left, but it stayed in the park for the first out. This brought Ryan Goins, hitting sixth tonight—strange things happening in the absence of Morales—to the plate. Goins hit a rope single to centre, but Smoak had to stop at third, loading the bases for Kevin Pillar, hitting behind Goins in seventh. Pillar hit a sacrifice fly to centre that scored Smoak, but Rob Refsnyder struck out—remember that—to end the inning.

I’d like to pause here for a consideration of the effect of the departure of Edwin Encarnacion on this year’s Blue Jays. The immediate comparison that want to make is between Encarnacion’s increasingly productive year with Cleveland, and Kendrys Morales’ record with Toronto, since that was the straight-up swap, if you will, of free agents that took place. This comparison favours Cleveland, both in terms of the numbers and in terms of clutch reliablity. While Morales hit a few dramatic shots earlier in the season, it’s obvious that his ability to deliver with runners on base is significantly less than Encarnacion’s, with his vulnerability to the breaking ball the obvious problem.

But the real comparison should be between Encarnacion and Justin Smoak, who took over from Encarnacion as the regular first baseman, and here the comparison is definitely skewed toward the Blue Jays, except in one important respect, which is actually my point here. In all other respects, Smoak has it over Edwin: five more homers, six more RBIs, hitting thirty points higher and flirting with .300 the whole year. When you add to that the fact that Smoak is markedly better defensively than Edwin, who’s not even playing in the field in Cleveland, where Carlos Santana has his occasional adventures at first, he’s four years younger, and way cheaper, it’s no contest, as much as I love Edwin Encarnacion.

Except. The only thing Encarnacion has over Smoak is that, though he’s not much faster, he’s a more instinctive and opportunistic base runner than Justin Smoak, and therein lies the only problem we’ve had with Smoak this year. Like David Ortiz in his last years with Boston, if Smoak leads off an inning with a base hit, it slows down the whole operation. Thus, tonight, he couldn’t score on Goins’ base hit after moving up on the walk. If Pillar comes to the plate with a run already in and runners on first and second, or even first and third, his approach is different, as he’s not governed by the notion of, above all else, get that run in from third. Maybe something different, and better, happens.

After this rather long digression, we need to turn to the nub of tonight’s game, the horrendous events of the Pirates’ third inning, during which the Jays threw this game away, pure and simple.

It’s important to set the context here, to understand how frustrating it was, for both Marcus Stroman and his team, that this game went south all in the one inning. Stroman had retired six in a row to start the game, on 26 pitches. Three pitches into the inning and he had seven in a row, shortstop Jordy Mercer flying out to centre. Three more pitches into the inning and he was 1-2 on John Jaso, who was hitting .212. Then Stroman threw one down and in, headed for Jaso’s back foot. Following typical modern baseball practice, Jaso didn’t move a muscle, and let the ball nick his foot, in violation of the rule that players have to make a reasonable attempt to get out of the way of the ball. Whatever.

The Jays asked for a review, but Jaso was awarded first. Franco Cervelli came to the plate, a catcher, mind you, and no twinkletoes he. Cervelli bounced one to Rob Refsnyder at second. Therewas one out already, Cervelli a perfect candidate for turning two. But Refsnyder uncorked a wild throw that sailed past Goins into short left, Jaso went on to third, and Cervelli was safe at first. With a clean exchange, the inning should have been over.

Adam Frazier then hit one hard to Donaldson at third, so hard that it spun him around and he went to his knees. But he was still able to fire a bullet to Refsnyder at second, though it wasn’t likely they’d turn two on the play. But after review they hadn’t recorded any outs, because it was clear that Refsnyder came off the bag before catching the ball. Cervelli was safe at second, Frazier at first, and Jaso in with the first Pirate run, to tie the game. Refsnyder was tagged with his second error of the inning on the play.

Josh Hamilton singled into right centre, a ball that Pillar had to hustle to cut off to keep from going to the wall. Cervelli scored for the Pirates’ lead and Frazier came around to third. Andrew McCutchen hit one in almost exactly the same direction as Harrison’s ball, but harder. Pillar was on his horse, and nearly tracked it down, but it deflected off his glove to Carrera playing right. Frazier scored, but Hamilton, who had to wait on a possible catch, only made it to third, whence he scored on a sacrifice fly by Josh Bell—remember, there was still only one out! But of course if Pillar had held the ball, and if Refsnyder had stayed on the bag . . . If . . .

Unfortunately, at this point McCutchen was removed from the game limping, and Starling Marte came in to run for him, but he was stranded at second when David Freese struck out to finally end the agony.

The final tally was four runs, all unearned, on two hits and the two errors by Refsnyder. Jose Bautista gave the Jays some faint hope by homering to lead off the bottom of the third, cutting the lead to 4-2. Raffy Lopez, hitting in Martin’s spot, singled following Bautista, and Donaldson hit one deep but catchable to Marte in centre, but Taillon, who’d had an extended rest on the bench in the top of the inning, settled down and retired Smoak and Pearce on a popup and a strikeout.

Believe it or not, that’s basically the whole story of the ball game. After the Lopez single, Taillon mowed down eleven Jays in a row, which took him to the top of the seventh. Zeke Carrera led off with a double over Frazier’s head in left, and then Ryan Goins hit one hard up the middle for a base hit. Marte was playing shallow in centre, and Jays’ third-base coach Luis Rivera played it safe and brought Carrera to a screeching halt. That was it for Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle, and Taillon was finished after a tidy six innings plus two batters, responsible for two base runners, having given up two runs on six hits with one walk and seven strikeouts on 93 pitches.

Hurdle gave the ball to George Kontos with the tying runs at first and third and nobody out, in what became the only other defining moment of this game when Kontos turned Toronto away without a run and stranded Carrera and Goins. Pillar popped out. Refsnyder fanned (remember that). Jose Bautista grounded into a fielder’s choice.

After that, Juan Nicasio gave up a two-out single to Smoak in the eighth, and closer Felipe Rivero gave up a two-out single to Pillar in the ninth, but both were stranded, Pillar, when Refsnyder made the final out with, not his third, but his fourth, strikeout of the game. Refsnyder fanned one other time that didn’t figure into the narrative, so his day ended up like this: two errors that allowed four unearned runs, oh for four at the plate with four strikeouts leaving five runners on base.

Was it a “horrible, terrible” and so on day for Rob Refsnyder? You can be the judge of that.

As for Marcus Stroman, he deserved better. Boy, did he deserve better! After the third, he gave up a two-out base hit to Harrison in the fifth, he walked Bell in the sixth but erased him with a double-play ball. He gave up a single to Frazier in the eighth but he erased him with a double-play ball.

Wait a minute, did I say the eighth? I sure did. Marcus Stroman pitched eight innings of shutout ball today (except for the four unearned runs in the third), giving up four hits and one walk while fanning four on 109 pitches. Too bad MLB doesn’t have a pitching category for virtual wins!

At the very least, Toronto has to win every series from here on in. They just made their job a little harder by throwing away game one of this series to the Pirates.

Tomorrow they get to try to win the first of two in a row to win this series, and they do it behind call-up Chris Rowley, who will be making his major-league debut on the mound for Toronto. Gulp.

While winning two out of three from the wild-card leading Yankees doesn’t help the Blue Jays’ near lost cause of making the playoffs as much as a sweep would have done, it’s not bad to kick back and watch an effective Marco Estrada, a shutdown bullpen, and well-executed small ball combine to keep the playoff door open for our heroes, even if only by a teeny crack. As in tonight’s nice, crisp, 4-0 Toronto shutout of the maybe-not-quite-there-yet New York Yankees.

By the way, if I haven’t ever actually defined “small ball” in the way it is commonly used in the baseball lexicon of today, the shortest explanation of the term is that it’s an offensive approach that doesn’t rely on home runs and big explosive innings to score runs. Think single, sacrifice bunt, single to score one. Or walk, stolen base, single. Or leadoff double, ground ball right side, or bunt, or fly ball to right to move the runner to third, sacrifice fly. Think squeeze play, or even suicide squeeze (you’ll find a piece on this exciting aspect of baseball in my article archive). Think hit and run, which if it works is beautiful, and even if it doesn’t result in a base hit moving the runner to third, in most cases it helps to avoid the double play by starting the runner from first.

When you look at the “line score”—the inning by account of team scoring that heads up the box score of the game—and see a picket fence, ones in four different innings for the Blue Jays, as in tonight’s line score, it means one of two things: either the Jays hit a bunch of solo homers against a fly-ball pitcher, or they played small ball. Tonight, save for Jose Bautista’s solo dinger in the seventh inning that made the count 4-0, it was small ball that put the runs up on the board.

There’s no question whatsoever as to the meaning of the row of nine zeroes opposite the Yankees’ name in the line score: faced by a resurgent, crafty Marco Estrada, who is making people think seriously about Toronto re-signing him for next year, the big, bad Yankees took a horse collar. When Estrada left after seven brilliant innings, Ryan Tepera and Roberto Osuna were well up to their responsibility to protect his gem.

It’s not like Estrada was pitching some kind of perfect game, but he sure was good at shutting down threats. With two outs in the first he walked Aaron Judge and then gave up a double to right by Didi Gregorius, and only sharp work by Jose Bautista retrieving the double held Judge at third, where he was stranded when Estrada fanned Gary Sanchez.

In the second inning, after he’d fanned both Todd Frazier and Jacoby Ellsbury on killer change-ups, Garrett Cooper collected his seventh hit in nine at-bats, a double to right centre, but then Ronald Torreyes hit a short fly to right for the third out.

In the third inning he gave up his third straight two-out double, a ground-rule job to left by Judge, but Gregorius flew out to centre. He actually retired the side in the fourth on eleven pitches, but had to face Cooper leading off in the fifth.

Cooper collected his eighth hit of ten at bats in the series, a hard single into the left field corner that would have been a double but for the hustle of Steve Pearce who tracked it down in the corner and hurried it back in to hold Cooper to first. Estrada walked Torreyes, but then induced a fly ball out and a popup to second that Rob Refsnyder ran a long way to track down. This brought Judge back to the plate, with two on, two out, and the Jays leading by a 3-0 count. In a key at-bat of the game, Estrada froze Judge on a 1-2 count with a low outside changeup on which the Toronto starter might have caught a break from plate umpire Jerry Meals.

In the sixth with one out Estrada walked Sanchez, and then watched helplessly as Todd Frazier’s jam shot somehow found its way safely into right field. The base-runners seemed to bring focus to Estrada’s work: he got Ellsbury to foul out to Russell Martin behind the plate, and then, finally, retired Cooper on a fly ball to left.

Estrada went out with a flourish in the seventh, retiring the side on ten pitches, bumping his pitch total to 110. He ended up keeping the Yankees off the board on five hits with three walks while striking out six. It had to be frustrating for the Yankees that three of their five hits were doubles, and they weren’t able to cash any of them.

Ryan Tepera gave up a two-out single to Sanchez in the eighth, and then applauded Refsnyder’s effort in going to his knees on the backhand behind second to corral Frazier’s ground ball base-hit bid, and throw the hitter out for the third out.

In a non-save situation, Roberto Osuna threw 22 pitches, almost all breaking balls, in the ninth, and not one of them was hit into fair territory. He walked Ellsbury leading off, fanned Cooper (yay!) who ended up 8 for 12 in the series, fanned Chase Headley hitting for Torreyes, walked Brett Gardner, and fanned Aaron Hicks for the third out. It was an interesting ride for Osuna, but it never became a save situation.

Sonny Gray, the centre piece of New York’s trade deadline wheeling and dealing, took the mound for the Yankees. Gray had pitched well enough in his previous start for Oakland against Toronto, giving up no earned runs in six innings, but being saddled with the loss as the result of a four-run outburst by Toronto that stemmed from his own fielding error, when he threw the ball away in an ill-advised attempt to turn a doubtful double play.

Tonight he retired the side in the first, stranding a one-out walk, but then suffered a form of Chinese water torture, giving up one run apiece in the second, third, and fourth innings. The only real difference between Estrada’s performance against the Yankees and Gray’s against Toronto, is that for those three innings in a row Toronto hitters managed to put the ball in play efficaciously with the runners in scoring position; the Yankees, as we have seen, didn’t.

With one out in the second, Steve Pearce having fanned on a 3-2 pitch leading off, after taking two strikes from 3-0, Zeke Carrera hit a double to centre. With Ryan Goins at the plate, the Toronto shortstop worked the count to 3-2, then fouled off the sixth pitch from the Yankee starter. At this point, Gray, having a brain cramp eerily reminiscent of his disastrous error against the Jays in Toronto, made an unnecessary throw to second; his throw went astray for an error, allowing Carrera to advance to third. Goins fouled off two more pitches, and then, with Carrera running on contact, he hit a little bouncer towards first that Gray cut off and tried for the play at the plate. But Carrera streaked in and evaded the tag with a great slide for the first run, while Goins was across first with an RBI fielder’s choice. Unfortunately the Jays got burned trying to continue their aggressive play, as Kevin Pillar swung through the pitch with the hit and run on, and Goins was easily out at second. Pillar bounced back to Gray for the third out, but there was that first Toronto run, unearned but real.

Jose Bautista, on base with yet another walk, manufactured the second Blue Jay run in the third by stealing second as Russell Martin struck out, on what should have been a double play, strikeout, catcher to second for the tag. But there he was on second after the video review confirmed his right to the bag, just waiting for Josh Donaldson to knock him in with a single to left. Now it was Jays 2, Sonny Gray no score.

In the fourth inning Zeke Carrera was involved again, this time by getting the sacrifice bunt down with Steve Pearce on first with a single. With Pearce on second, Gray walked Goins to set up the double play, but Kevin Pillar grounded a single through the left side to score Pearce with the third run. Rob Refsnyder hit into a double play to end the inning, but Estrada had three runs to work with after four innings.

Gray got three ground balls in the fifth to work around a two-out walk to Donaldson, and then struck out two while retiring the side in the sixth, his last inning. If you want the visual proof that only Toronto’s situational hitting separated these two teams today, all you have to do is look at the pitching lines. Estrada: seven innings pitched, no runs, 5 hits, three walks, six strikeouts on 110 pitches; Gray: six innings pitched, 2 earned runs, 4 hits, 4 walks, six strikeouts on 104 pitches.

The lefty Chasen Shreve finished up for the Yankees, going two innings through the eighth. He gave up the two-out solo homer to Bautista in the seventh which was nice to have for extra cushion, but ultimately inconsequential, and struck out three on 27 pitches over the six outs.

And so Toronto takes two of three from the visiting Yankees, not enough to close much of the gap on the teams in front of them in the wild card race, but just enough to keep them thinking. And keep us thinking too.

Following the huge disappointment of Sunday’s meltdown by Robert Osuna, which cost the Blue Jays a series win in Houston, they came home to a day of regrouping, which may have contributed to their solid 4-2 win behind a strong Jay Happ on Tuesday night.

But the holes in their starting rotation, which exacerbate the over-use of the bullpen on occasion, have made it very difficult for Toronto to string out the run of wins they need to get themselves back in the race for a playoff spot.

That’s why watching the Jays and the Yankees Wednesday night, it would be really hard to see Toronto as the same team that shut down New York the night before.

Once again I’m combining two game reports because, thanks be to god, I saw very little of the Wednesday Yankee dismantling of Buffalo’s, er Toronto’s, pitching staff, so I thought I’d tack it on to the Tuesday game report, so we can spend more time on something a little more positive.

I missed most of Wednesday’s game because our grand-daughter’s birthday was last week, and we finally had the opportunity to celebrate it by taking her out to dinner at her favourite restaurant. This involved a trip downtown for an early dinner and then a drive across town to take her home. So I didn’t get home until about 9:00, just in time to see things go south on Toronto, as they went from one run down to six behind in the late innings.

Ah, but Tuesday’s game was another story.

It was a matchup between two veteran lefties, Jay Happ and C.C. Sabathia. By the numbers, their respective ERAs matched up quite well, though their won/loss records, Happ at 4-8 and Sabathia at 9-4, simply reflected the relative success of their teams, the Yankees chasing the Red Sox for the division lead, and the Blue Jays struggling but failing to escape from the cellar in the division.

The first inning marked a distinct departure for Toronto from recent experience, in that Happ had a relatively easy time of it, stranding a two-out walk to Aaron Judge that may have been more strategic than in error.

On the contrary, it was Toronto that started with a rush for once against Sabathia, and by the time the inning was over it was 2-0 for the home team.

Jose Bautista started things off by taking an outside pitch from Sabathia down the right field line for a double. Then a strange thing, no, a very strange thing, happened: Russell Martin laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Bautista to third. That’s right, in the first inning, playing in Toronto, not at Wrigley Field, Toronto employed the sac bunt after a leadoff double. I doubt that it was called by manager John Gibbons.

Funny thing is, the sac bunt became irrelevant when Josh Donaldson powdered one to right centre off Sabathia for a two-run homer. Next up was Justin Smoak, who drew a walk, bringing Kendrys Morales to the plate. Morales fanned on a checked swing for the second out, but Steve Pearce kept the inning alive with a double to left. Unfortunately, this was not an occasion when Smoak was able to make it all the way around, despite the advantage of being able to take off with the pitch with two outs, so he only made it to third. Kevin Pillar hit the ball hard on the ground, but right to Garret Cooper for the final out. Still, the Jays had two runs, the Yankees none.

To their credit the Yankees came back in the top of the second and put the first two hitters on against Happ, as Chase Headley hit one off the end of the bat into right for a single, and Didi Gregorius followed with another base hit to right. Happ, who doesn’t usually throw too many double-play balls, threw one to Todd Frazier, who swung at the first pitch from Happ and hit it to Ryan Goins to start the twin-killing, with Headley moving up to third. All Happ had to do was get by the newly-arrived rookie first baseman, Garrett Cooper, to preserve the lead. But as the Toronto pitching staff was to learn, getting by Cooper’s not so easy. He hit a two-out single to right to score Headley before Ronald Torreyes grounded out to second to end the inning.

As C.C. Sabathia was coming out to the mound for the second inning, something was picking at my memory. I was trying to figure out whose image was called to mind by watching Sabathia on the mound. Sabathia, with his cap slightly askew, his ears a bit Dumbo-ish, his belly pushing out his shirt, even the fingers of his glove slightly splayed out, like some old raggy thing that badly needs to be restrung. Even from behind, he looks a little off-kilter, like he might just fall over.

Then it came to me: Max Patkin, the self-declared Second Clown Prince of Baseball. At this stage of his career and in his life, C.C. looks an awful lot like Max Patkin. Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61l4QMCb8E Lest you think this is an insult to C.C., be aware that I’m old enough to have seen many clips of Max Patkin in action, and I have a lot of affection for his act. But Patkin never had Sabathia’s arm, nor his stellar career.

So the veteran lefty came out for the bottom of the second after seeing his team cut the lead to one, and blew the Jays away on thirteen pitches, two ground outs and a strikeout of Bautista. Happ answered in the top of the third with a perfect inning: he struck out the side but walked Aaron Judge, which was a fine result, because Judge didn’t hit one out on him.

It looked like a game that was going to stay tight and low-scoring, and be a battle between the two crafty left-handers. It’s not like the Jays blew the Yankees out of the water in the bottom of the third, but the course of the game changed in a significant way: the Toronto lead was extended to 4-1, and the inning marked the surprising end of Sabathia’s night.

The damage was done quickly. Russell Martin singled to left past the shortstop Didi Gregorius. Josh Donaldson, who’d never taken Sabathia out before the first inning tonight, did it again, with a rope down the line that stayed fair, scoring Martin ahead of him. After Sabathia fanned Justin Smoak, Kendrys Morales doubled to the left-field corner, but Sabathia retired Steve Pearce and Kevin Pillar to strand Morales, though it took a nice over-the-shoulder catch by Ronald Torreyes on a teasing looper by Pillar to get the third out for him.

Happ did what he needed to do in the fourth as the beneficiary of two extra runs, and that was to shut the Yankees down, retiring them on nine pitches with the help of a marvellous leaping grab by Donaldson, doing it all tonight, of a screamer off the bat of Todd Frazier.

Surprisingly, though C.C. Sabathia did not come out for the bottom of the fourth. Having been touched up only by Donaldson, it didn’t add up that he’d be pulled after three complete, especially after clamping down after each of Donaldson’s homers. We later learned that his arthritic right knee—his landing knee—had been acting up, and it worsened to the point where he couldn’t continue. It’s a bit odd to think of someone three years short of forty being limited by arthritis, but if he weren’t a ball player I guess we wouldn’t think twice about it.

Brian Mitchell, a 26-year-old right-hander who’d started the season with the Yankees, but had just been recalled from Triple A where he’d been starting, came out for the fourth inning. Normally, losing your starter after three innings in the first game of a three-game series is a bit of a disaster for a team, triggering a domino effect of having to use too many pitchers out of the bullpen for too many innings with two games still to play.

But this time the Yankees caught a break in having Mitchell available. With his recent string of starts in the minors, he’d been well stretched out, and was up to the task of shutting down the Jays over a protracted outing. He ended up going four innings plus a batter, giving up no runs on four hits with only one walk, on 67 pitches. An oddity in his performance was that he compiled zero strikeouts against the whiff-happy Toronto lineup, meaning that he was generally in the zone and pitching effectively to contact.

Mitchell had to work around two base runners in each of the fourth and fifth innings, pitched a clean sixth, and worked around his own one-out error in the seventh. In fact, the only real problem Mitchell had to deal with was fielding off the TV Dome mound and its surrounding turf. In his first inning of work an easy grounder by Jose Bautista went right through his wicket for an error, and in his last inning his cleats caught in the turf and he fell awkwardly before he could release his throw to first to retire Donaldson on what was generously, though fairly, scored a base hit.

After Mitchell’s fine work, leaving with Steve Pearce on first after a leadoff infield hit in the bottom of the eighth, he gave way to the newly-acquired bullpen stud David Robertson, who got Kevin Pillar to hit into a double play erasing Pearce, gave up a base hit to Ryan Goins, and retired Darwin Barney on a looper to centre. Mitchell and Robertson had held Toronto scoreless for five innings.

But beyond Donaldson’s two round-trippers, the story of this game really wasn’t about how the Jays’ hitters succeeded, or didn’t, against the New York pitching, but whether the Yankees’ hitters could mount a counter-attack against Jay Happ and the Toronto bullpen.

After shutting down the Yankees in the fourth inning, Happ pitched around a leadoff single by Garrett Cooper, his second hit of the game, in the fifth. In the sixth, facing Aaron Judge leading off, Happ froze him with a 3-2 fast ball right down the middle.

But then he went 3-2 on both Gary Sanchez and Chase Headley, and lost them both. Manager John Gibbons went one more batter with Happ, so that he would face the left-handed Didi Gregorius, who flied out to left for the second out, but Gibbons wasn’t about to let a tired Happ face the right-handed slugger Todd Frazier. So Happ was done, with a line of 5.2 innings pitched, one run, four hits, four walks, and 5 strikeouts on 97 pitches. Dominic Leone came on to face Frazier, whose infield single loaded the bases, bringing the dangerous Cooper to the plate again. In perhaps the key at-bat of the game, Leone got Cooper to fly out to Bautista in right to end the inning.

Danny Barnes started the seventh, gave up a base hit to Ronald Torreyes, and then got a double-play ball from Brett Gardner. But when Clint Frazier followed with a base hit to right, the call went out for Ryan Tepera to come in early, before the eighth, to face Aaron Judge, who for the second at-bat in a row looked at a called third strike, this time a curve ball.

Tepera of course came back for the eighth, and struggled, but managed to hold the Yankees to one run and turn the game over to Roberto Osuna with a two run Toronto lead. Tepera hit both Gary Sanchez, who doesn’t appear to have paid attention during the “drop away from inside pitches” drills, and is lucky he didn’t leave the game with a broken bone, and Chase Headley. Didi Gregorius popped out on the infield fly rule, Todd Frazier walked to load the bases on a 3-2 pitch that looked pretty good, and Garrett Cooper strode to the plate with a chance to break the game open for the Yankees. But the best he could do against Tepera was a sacrifice fly to score Sanchez with New York’s second run. When Torreyes lined out to centre, the threat was over.

For anybody worried about how Roberto Osuna would do this time out in the save situation (which included everyone watching), it wasn’t worth troubling ourselves over.

It took Osuna only 9 pitches to dispose of the Yankees and secure the win for Toronto. A soft liner to short, a popup to second, and the coup de gràce, a foul popup to first by Aaron Judge, who ended his night with two strikeouts, two walks, and the popup. After the horror of Sunday’s ninth-inning breakdown by Osuna, it was balm to the afflicted, and a good start to the crucial Yankee series.

But one question lingered: with Cesar Valdez going on the disabled list, who was going to start for Toronto Wednesday night against Masahiro Tanaka?

And a special award goes to anyone who, 48 hours before game time on Wednesday, would have come up with the name, Nick Tepesch. Say who?

Nick Tepesch is a guy who was actually in the Texas Rangers’ rotation in 2014, but anyone who doesn’t know that is forgiven: after all, 2014 is the antediluvian period, i. e., before the flood, pre-Tulo trade, pre-bat flip, pre-everything, and who was paying attention then?

Anyway, Tepesch missed 2015 with an injury, had a cuppa with the Dodgers last year, and another cuppa with the Twins this spring, but spent most of this year for the Twins at Rochester in Triple A, until the Twins cut him loose and the Blue Jays picked him up for rotation depth in Buffalo, along with most of the Red Army Chorus. (Don’t laugh: some of those bassos have tremendous arms!) His Buffalo record is pretty short: three appearances, two starts, twelve innings, a win, an ERA of 3.00 and a rather impressive WHIP of 0.92.

By the time I got in the car from the restaurant tonight it was the bottom of the third inning, the Yanks were leading 3-1, and the Jays were coming to bat. Raffy Lopez, who was spelling Russell Martin behind the plate, not a bad thing, since he had at least caught Tepesch in Buffalo, was leading off. He reached on catcher’s interference, and Jose Bautista popped out, and then Tanaka walked Josh Donaldson and Justin Smoak. Tanaka obviously wasn’t sharp. Steve Pearce scored Lopez on a sac fly and Kevin Pillar popped out, so the Jays had shortened the Yankee lead to 3-2 without a base hit. The Yankees hadn’t driven Tepesch out of the box, and Tanaka wasn’t particularly sharp.

Ominously, though, I learned that all three Yankee runs had come on solo homers. Having heard that Tepesch is a bit of a soft-tosser, images of Marco Estrada or even R.A. Dickey having a bad day came immediately to mind.

The game progressed under Jerry and Joe’s narration as we rolled up the Parkway and headed east. Tepesch survived two two-out base hits, one by that rookie guy Garrett Cooper, when Brett Gardner lined out to Pillar in centre. Tanaka racked up another walk, Ryan Goins with two out, but fanned Nori Aoki to end the inning.

Tepesch’ not-so-bad debut ended in the fifth. But he was pulled by manager John Gibbons before actually giving up the fatal blows. That was left to Leonel Campos, who came in to a pickle and hopped into the brine himself to join the fun. Chase Headley was caught looking by Tepesch for the first out, and then the fill-in righty walked Aaron Judge. So far, so good, really. But when Didi Gregorius, who always seems to find a way to pop the Jays’ bubble, doubled to centre, with Judge stopping at third, Gibbie decided to call it a night on Tepesch, and brought in Campos, who started well by fanning Gary Sanchez, but then gave up back-to-back two-out doubles to Todd Frazier and Jacoby Ellsbury, plating both inherited runners from Tepesch, and one for Campos, just for extra.

Tepesch was out, it was 6-2 New York, and by now we were heading home to Etobicoke, thinking black thoughts about Aaron Sanchez’ blister and a mediocre record that forced us to sell off Francisco Liriano.

As we pounded along the 401, Bautista led off the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer to cut the lead to 6-3, and Tanaka walked Donaldson, causing Yankee manager Joe Girardi to call quits on Tanaka an inning short of qualifying for a victory, and bring in Chad Green, who proceeded to strike out the side.

Aaron Loup came in and pitched a clean sixth, bringing the Jays back to the plate for the bottom of the sixth, when as we got closer to home in the gathering dusk they put up another rally. Whatever magic rock Chad Green had rubbed before coming in for the Toronto fifth must have had only one dose in it, because the bottom of the Jays’ order chased him unceremoniously in the sixth. Nori Aoki singled to centre. Darwin Barney hit into a force play. Mr. Clutch of 2017 Ryan Goins doubled to centre to score Barney, making it 6-4.

Exit Chad Green and enter newly-acquired Tommy Kahnle for the Yankees. Kahnle promptly endeared himself to Joe Girardi by wild-pitching Goins to third while walking the number nine hitter, Lopez. Kahnle popped up Bautista for the second out, but Donaldson singled to centre to score Goins and surprisingly send Lopez around to third, but Justin Smoak struck out on a 2-2 pitch.

We arrived home as the top of the seventh began, and I excitedly settled in to watch my boys pick up that next run to tie it up, anticipating an exciting finish to a see-saw game. Silly me.

Looked pretty good for an inning, as Dominic Leone and David Robertson traded clean innings, each using only twelve pitches.

Ah, but then came the eighth, and the beginning of the end for the Toronto bullpen. John Gibbons sent Leone back out for the eighth, which almost never works, even though the pitcher might have been lights out in the previous inning.

In this case Leone gave up a single to Todd Frazier, and he was finished. The lefty J. P. Howell came in to match up with Jacoby Ellsbury and struck him out. Gibbie then called on Taylor Cole, a recent callup from Buffalo who after six years in the minors, was making his major league debut, parents in the stands and all. Too bad what should have been a happy occasion turned into a walk off the plank for Mr. Cole.

Garrett Cooper (remember him?) doubled to left, Frazier to third. Ronald Torreyes singled both home. 8-5 Yankees. Brett Gardner walked. Chase Headley singled to left, and the Yanks tried to send Torreyes, but Nori Aoki gunned down Torreyes at the plate for the second out. The only positive note came when Cole struck out Aaron Judge on a 3-2 count to end the inning. Besides letting in Leone’s run, Cole had given up only one of his own, despite giving up three hits and a walk.

If he had been allowed to take his seat then, after the eighth inning, it wouldn’t have been a great debut, but he could have cherished the Judge strikeout, licked his wounds over the base hits, and bought Aoki a steak (Wagyu beef?) to celebrate surviving his first major league pitching appearance.

But baseball is a cruel game, and sometimes it doesn’t go like a fairy tale, even a tainted one. Cole was brought up as a fresh arm, perhaps just for one game to give an arm a break in the Toronto bullpen. John Gibbons needed to have him at least try to get through the ninth, for the sake of the rest of the pitching staff, and so out he came to face the Yankees again.

Gibbie’s strategy didn’t pay off, and unfortunately the brunt of his decision fell on Cole. Gregorius singled. Sanchez singled. Cole hit Todd Frazier to load the bases (and send Frazier to the disabled list, we later learned). This is where I take issue with John Gibbons, who should have pulled Cole at this point, even if you can understand why he was sent out in the ninth in the first place. But he didn’t pull him. Jacoby Ellsbury dribbled one out to second base that scored Gregorius and moved the other runners up because Rob Refsnyder could only play it to first. Cooper, again, singled to centre to score both Sanchez and Frazier. 11-5 Yankees. Oh, then it was time for Danny Barnes to bail out Taylor Cole, after the latter had given up four runs on six hits in one inning in his major league debut.

Barnes got the last two outs to end the farce, and the series was tied.

Taylor Cole? Oh, the Didi Gregorius single leading off the ninth deflected off his right foot and broke a toe, and he was put on the 10-day disabled list. Maybe he’ll get a Purple Heart?

It looked awfully good going to the bottom of the ninth today for Toronto to accomplish a surprising series win over the American-League-leading Houston Astros.

Didn’t we have a three-run lead? Wasn’t Roberto Osuna ready to go, after having blown the Astros away in the ninth inning last night, two strikeouts and a fly ball, on eleven pitches? Wasn’t the post-game spread going to be so-o-o good, and the flight back to Toronto such fun, after a 4-2 road trip that could have been 5-1?

But, it wasn’t to be. Osuna wasn’t wild, oh, no. That would have been somehow understandable, given that nearly every one of the great closers has had the occasional bout of crazy wildness. (Aroldis Chapman, anyone?) No, the problem was that he was eminently hittable, and the Astros simply undressed him in public, right there on the mound, without even hitting a home run. Four runs on five hits in two thirds of an inning, and the Astros had a walkoff win in the series clincher.

Cue the watercress sandwiches, the tight seats in economy on the plane home, and the questions and doubts, which are all we are left with.

And it had all been going so well. Marcus Stroman tiptoed through the minefield of the incredibly dangerous Houston lineup for six and two thirds innings, giving up three runs, only two of them earned, on eleven hits, a couple of walks, and six strikeouts. He pitched his heart out, throwing 118 pitches, and left with a 6-3 lead, thanks to an early two-run homer by Jose Bautista in the third, a shocking two-run homer by the newest Jay Nori Aoki and a two-run double by Old Reliable Justin Smoak, all four runs in the seventh inning, that looked to have decided the game.

Meanwhile, all the Astros had been able to muster was three runs in the fifth, which they accomplished via two solid base hits, a double by Josh Reddick and a single by Jose Altuve, two infield hits, by Derek Fisher and Carlos Beltran, the latter not figuring in the scoring, and a shocking error on a ground ball that went through the legs of Ryan Goins off the bat of Yuli Gurriel that did figure in the scoring.

As we’ve come to expect from Stroman, his achievement today was hard-earned. Starting with a ground-rule double by Josh Reddick in the first, he had base-runners on in every inning but the second, and in his best inning, the sixth, when he struck out the side, it was still and all after a leadoff base hit by the Houston catcher Juan Centeno.

In the third he walked Centeno and gave out a two-out single to Jose Altuve, and needed a fine running catch in the alley in right centre by Bautista of a another gap-seeking drive by Reddick to retire the side. In the fourth he needed a double-play ball off the bat of the ubiquitous Centeno to escape a bases-loaded one-out jam created by base hits by Gurriel and Carlos Beltran and a walk to Alex Bregman. After striking out the side in the sixth (after the—remember?—Centeno hit), he gave up a hard two-out single off the wall in right in the seventh by Marwin Gonzalez, followed by another Beltran base hit that ended his night. Dominic Leone came in and stranded the two Astros by getting Alex Bregman to fly out to right.

Only in the fifth inning did he allow too many runners, and only in the fifth inning did the mighty Astros’ offence contribute anything like a coherent attack, though there was that big “E” hung on Ryan Goins in the middle of it that helped things along.

Stroman had cruised, if that’s the word for what he does, into the fifth inning on the strength of Bautista’s two-run homer in the third, his seventeenth, that chased Darwin Barney, who had reached on a throwing error by Marwin Gonzalel, playing short tonight.

Like the two previous innings, Stroman let the leadoff batter get aboard, but this time he started out in a little deeper, because it was a double down the left-field line by former Toronto draftee Jake Marisnick. Derek Fisher followed with an infield single to second that moved Marisnick up to third.

MLB should have a free-pass base hit for Jose Altuve, like the no-pitch intentional walk, for when the diminutive second baseman comes up with nobody out and runners on first and third. You just know he’s going to get a base knock and score the runner from third, so if you’re worried about the pace of play you could just wave him on to first and bring the run in. Which is a roundabout way of saying that Altuve as expected scored Marisnick with a single to centre.

With nobody out and runners at first and second Josh Reddick’s little squibber back to Stroman served the same purpose as a sacrifice bunt, and Fisher and Altuve moved up to second and third. At this point, I’m not sure how it happened, whether he was thinking too much of his possible options, but Ryan Goins let Yuli Gurriel’s sharp but easy hopper through his legs for an error that allowed Fisher to score the second run and Altuve to move up to third. Still only one out, Gonzalez’ deep fly to Steve Pearce in left was easily enought to bring in Altuve with the third run, giving Houston the lead.

Carlos Beltran kept the inning alive with an infield hit to second, but then Bregman grounded out to Goins, who did not make a mistake this time at shortstop for the third out, leaving Stroman in the hole and on the hook for the loss.

Mike Fiers had the start today for the Astros, the second start he’s had against Toronto this season. He’d had a decent outing in Toronto on July eighth, a quality start, in fact, in a 7-2 loss to Toronto that from Fiers’ perspective wasn’t nearly that bad. He’d gone out after six innings down 3-2, having given up three runs on only five hits but three walks, with six strikeouts. On that occasion he’d have to sit helplessly on the bench, his game finished, while the usually formidable Chris Devensky coughed up four more add-on runs for the Jays in the seventh.

His start today was similar in the sense that it was just short, by a fourth earned run, of another quality start over six innings. Like the first time against Toronto his hit total was notably low, only four hits, but he walked three again and, oddly, struck out six again.

Fiers had only given up one walk in the first two innings, and struck out Nori Aoki, making his first start for Toronto in left field, who led off the third. Then Marwyn Gonzalez let him down by making a bad throw to first on a routine ground ball by Darwin Barney. Jose Bautista, who had watched Fiers go to his trademark curve ball throughout the first two innings, was waiting for one, timed it up, and hit it out to left field for a two-run lead on the first hit given up by Fiers, the Barney run unearned, of course.

Fiers kept the Jays off the board for the next three innings, stranding a walk in the fourth, a walk in the fifth, and in the sixth yielding a single to Justin Smoak, only the second base hit he had given up, but the perfect positioning of his infield turned a hard shot by Ryan Goins into a fast shortstop-unassisted to first double play.

With a 3-2 lead after the Houston outburst in the fifth, and going on only 84 pitches after six innings, there was no doubt that Fiers would come out for the seventh. Too bad that he did, as he gave up his third and fourth hits to the first two batters, an opposite-field ground ball single by Kevin Pillar and a stunning line-drive home run to right by Nori Aoki, playing in front of what had been until this week his home-town crowd. Suddenly Mike Fiers was down 4-3, and when he hit the next batter, Darwin Barney, A.J. Hinch decided to come and rescue his starter, signalling in the lanky veteran right-hander, Luke Gregerson.

The Jays weren’t finished, though. Bautista fouled out to the third baseman, but manager John Gibbons started Barney from first and saw Russell Martin pull off a perfect hit-and-run, Barney scooting to third. After that baserunning success, the Jays pulled a rock by trying the contact play from third (have I said that I hate the contact play?) on what turned out to be the wrong pitch, with Josh Donaldson hitting a weak grounder back to the pitcher, who easily got the ball to the catcher Centeno for the tag play and the second out. However, the Big Smoaker hit a towering drive to centre that was misplayed off the wall by Jake Marisnick. It went for a double and chased both Martin and Donaldson home, giving the Jays a 6-3 lead with two innings to go.

The Jays had a golden opportunity to expand their lead in the eighth, after Goins and Pillar led off the inning with singles to left off the left-handed reliever Reymin Goduan, in Goins case another base hit against a lefty. Aoki hung in for eight pitches, fouling off one bunt attempt, going to a 3-2 count, then fouling off three more pitches before Goduan finally punched him out. This was Goduan’s last batter, and manager Hinch brought in his prized young bull, Francis Martes, who is certainly worth all the fuss, judging from what he brought to the game today. He fanned Barney and Bautista to end the inning and leave Goduan’s two runners in place at first and second.

Leone stayed on after finishing the seventh for Stroman, and pitched a quick and powerful eighth, adding another jewel to the crown of his 2017 record with the Jays; Centeno grounded out to Smoak unassisted at first, Marisnick fanned, and Fisher fanned. The total for Leone was one and a third innings pitched, two strikeouts, and twenty-one pitches. Can we clone Leone?

Martes stayed on for the Jays ninth and continued his impressive performance. He might not always be on the plate, but he’s still impressive. He walked Martin leading off, saw him advance to second on a past ball, retired Donaldson on a popup and Smoak on a short fly to left, put Kendrys Morales on with an intentional pass, and got Goins on a hard grounder to first for the third out.

So, as I said at the beginning, it was looking pretty good for a series win in Houston as the Jays went to the bottom of the ninth up three and relying on Roberto Osuna to bring them home safely.

But whoever it was who came out of the bullpen for Toronto in the bottom of the ninth, it wasn’t the Roberto Osuna we’ve come to know and love. First the sorry details, and then some analysis. Jose Altuve knocked the second pitch from Osuna into centre for a single. It was a 92.5 mph four-seam fast ball. Hold that thought, but Altuve, it’s what he does. Josh Reddick took a called third strike that he disputed so vociferously that he was tossed by plate umpire Rob Drake. According to the pitching chart, Drake was right. Yuli Gurriel singled to left, Altuve to second. Marwin Gonzalez singled hard to right. The Astros chose not to challenge Bautista’s arm, and the bases were loaded.

Carlos Beltran grounded into a fielder’s choice, Smoak to Goins, with no chance to turn the game-ending double play. Altuve scored, Gurriel to third. Alex Bregman tripled on the first pitch from Osuna into the left-centre gap, scoring Gurriel and Beltran to tie the game. Omar Centeno finished off his very active game with a line single over Darwin Barney’s head, and Bregman trotted home with the winning run.

So, what happened? The real question is what happened to Osuna’s fast ball? Remember that Altuve’s hit came on a four-seamer under 93? So, in five pitches to Reddick, he threw one fast ball, a two-seamer at 92.3. He got a two-seamer up to 93.8 on the only pitch he threw to Gurriel, which went for a base hit. He threw a 94.3 mph fast ball to Gonzalez, the only fast ball he threw to him, and it went for a single. He threw only sliders to Beltran and Bregman. The only fast ball he threw to Centeno was a four-seamer at 94, and it was hit for the game-winner.

What happened is fairly obvious. On this night Roberto Osuna didn’t have his good fast ball, and his mediocre fast ball was tasty to the Houston hitters. As to why his fast ball was down in velocity, who knows? Temporary blip, or sign of over-use?

If a temporary blip, so be it. It cost us a series win in Houston, but who could criticize Osuna for a blown save, even if it was the third one in two weeks, after all he’s achieved in Toronto?

But he’s still only 22 years old, and has already achieved a lot, 85 career saves, and 191 game appearances. Maybe it’s time to start being concerned about his arm, which already underwent Tommy John surgery early in his minor league career, in 2013 when he was with low-A Lansing and only 18 years old.

So Toronto comes home three and three from a road trip that could have been, even should have been, five and one. The final death knell to a season of lost opportunities? It’s getting harder to deny it.

Okay, folks, so the aggregate run total for the first two games of the Toronto series in Houston with the world-leading (the Dodgers being not of this world) Astros reads Houston, 19, Toronto 11, which when you look at it that way doesn’t even seem so bad on its own.

But the key point here is that, unlike soccer playoffs, aggregate totals don’t count for poop in baseball, and the only takeaway from the Friday and Saturday night affairs in Texas is that both teams emerged with one win and one loss, leaving it all up to Sunday afternoon’s game as to which team will win this series, and, for that matter, the season’s series between the two teams, which is currently knotted at three wins apiece. (Yes, our struggling Jays are tied in the season series with the home-and-chilled-out Astros, who have probably already ordered the plastic sheeting for this fall’s clubhouse celebrations.)

I’m doing a two games for one deal here, for a couple of reasons. The first is that I couldn’t bear to spend even 1200 words, let alone 1500 to 2000, on Friday night’s drubbing of a significant portion of the Toronto pitching staff. The second is that I had to pick up son and family from the airport, arriving at Pearson Saturday evening just at game time, and bring them back to the house for a rather late post-flight-from-Victoria dinner. And, yes, that’s the family with the five-year-old who begs to stay to watch just one more commercial break instead of just one more inning. I have to start working on that boy or his inner Don Draper is going to win out over his inner Kevin Pillar . . .

So I followed the first couple of innings of Saturday’s game with Jerry and Joe in the car, peeked at the middle innings throughout serving and eating of said dinner, and settled in to watch the stirring end of a stirring game attentively, though it was too late to start taking my own notes. So, as per tradition, I’ll only reference what I saw of Saturday’s game.

If the Cesar Valdez Cinderella story ended up in his last start with the clock finishing the midnight bells before he got safely away, this time the pumpkin-carriage blew up right at the curb, raining pumpkin seeds and mice bits all over the poor befuddled prince hurrying out of the ball to catch his girl.

Sorry, that’s a bit much.

But what happened to Valdez wasn’t a bit much. It was way much, as the Astros gave him a couple of hopeful dances in the first three innings before lighting a firecracker and tossing it down the bodice of his ball gown in the fourth.

Houston started Brad Peacock, who’d thrown six shutout innings at the Jays in Toronto on July ninth, albeit giving up five walks along with five hits on his rocky way, and he wasn’t fooling a lot of people tonight, starting with Kendrys Morales for one in the top of the fourth for, who hit a two-run dinger after a walk to Justin Smoak, with the result that he and Valdez were still in the game after three and a half innings, with Houston up by a not-insurmountable 3-2 count.

Valdez had succumbed to the two-out lightning strike in the first inning, giving the Astros a 2-0 jump start after Peacock breezed through the Jays in the top of the first on seven pitches. With Jose Altuve getting the night off Derek Fisher was in the leadoff spot, and he and Alex Bregman grounded out before Josh Reddick singled and the veteran Cuban all-star “rookie” Yuli Gurriel drilled one to left for the lead.

Peacock gave up a walk in the second and an infield hit in the third, getting up to only 36 pitches for three, while Valdez retired Houston in the second in order, and gave up another run in the third on a one-out double by Derek Fisher and a two-out RBI single by Gurriel, again.

But when Morales touched up Peacock in the fourth it cut the Houston lead to one, and it looked like we had a ball game going for us. But then the heavens opened up, or maybe hell rained down, on the visitors, as Houston chased Valdez, cuffed Matt Dermody, and roughed up Mike Bolsinger for a total of nine runs, to turn that ball game that was into a farce.

In fact, when you break down the inning, maybe manager John Gibbons would have been better off leaving Valdez in. Carlos Beltran led off with a single, followed by a walk to Brian McCann. The rookie Trevor White doubled to left, scoring Beltran and moving McCann up to third. With the score now 4-2 Houston, and two runners in scoring position, Valdez fanned Jake Marisnick on his seventieth pitch, which wasn’t really a huge number to get ten outs against the high-octane Astros.

At this point, though, Gibbons elected to yank Valdez and match up Matt Dermody with the left-handed Derek Fisher, who grounded out to second for the second out, scoring McCann with the fifth run. But the problem with matchups, especially in the early/middle innings of a game, is that you’re stuck with a one-hitter guy that you have to leave in, or you start burning your bullpen. So Dermody was left in to face the right-handed Alex Bregman, who has given Toronto fits in the last two years, and he delivered again, hitting a two-run homer, to right yet, to extend the lead to 7-2.

When Dermody gave up a base hit to the next lefty, Josh Reddick, Gibbons finally realized that Dermody had outstayed his usefulness, and brought in Bolsinger with his can of gasoline to throw on the fire and it got really crazy after that, a walk to Gurriel, a three-run homer to Marwin Gonzalez, a double to centre by Beltran, abetted by an ill-conceived dive for his liner by Zeke Carrera, another walk to McCann, a run-scoring single by White, a run-scoring single by Marisnick, and a walk to Fisher before Bregman scared the pants off everybody with a drive to the wall in left that was hauled in by Steve Pearce just short of another three-run dinger.

By the time it was over it was 12-2 Astros, and legions of Jays’ fans everywhere were heading for the medicine chest for industrial-strength Tylenol, or to the liquor cabinet for something quicker.

Yet I would argue that Gibbie would have been better off, certainly no worse, to leave Valdez in to work things out. If Valdez gets the same groundout—I know, there’s no certainty of that—it’s 5-2, Trevor White is on third, and there’s a righty facing Bregman, who had grounded out twice against Valdez already. In the fourth inning, with a depleted bullpen, the manager can’t go to any of his high-leverage guys, and who’s to say that his low-leverage bullpen guys, like Dermody and Bolsinger, are any better than Valdez, who’s done sort of okay so far in the game? Just sayin’.

Anyway, after that mess there’s not too much to say about this one, except to cherry-pick a couple of notable moments from the rest of an un-notable game.

It wasn’t particularly notable that Houston wasn’t finished after the fourth inning massacre. After Aaron Loup skated out of trouble in the fifth, they got to him for two in the sixth. Danny Barnes gave up one in the seventh, and it was almost a moral victory that the forgotten J. P. Howell only gave up a leadoff homer to the bashing rookie Trevor White in the eighth inning, and then retired Houston on three ground balls and eleven pitches.

Brighter news for Toronto came from the fact that they solved Brad Peacock this time. Despite the fact that he extended his record to 10-1, he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory, going six innings but giving up seven runs on nine hits. Besides Morales, Russell Martin lit him up for a solo homer in the fifth, his twelfth, and Ryan Goins took him deep in the sixth with two on, his fifth homer of this strangely productive season, taking his RBI total to 39.

Joe Musgrove, Reymin Goduan, and James Hoyt shut out Toronto over the last three innings, keeping the Jays from mounting a comeback (he wrote, without the slightest trace of irony.)

As I noted at the beginning of this story, there’s no carryover in baseball, and all Toronto needed Saturday evening to shake off the ugly effects of Friday night was a strong seven innings from Marco Estrada, an even stronger two-inning hold by Ryan Tepera, some extra-inning heroics by unsung heroes Ryan Goins and Rob Refsnyder, and an effective close by Roberto Osuna.

Easy, no?

I only picked up the full thread of the game in the bottom of the seventh inning, after the Jays had just scored in the top of the inning on a strange play, as a I saw later from the replays, involving the rookie first baseman White and the catcher McCann. With Pillar on third and nobody out, Jose Bautista hit one to White, who immediately fired it in to McCann, who caught it in front of the plate and threw it back to first to try to retire Bautista, without ever looking behind him to see if he had a chance of tagging out Pillar (he did).

I was aware that Estrada had pitched a decent game thus far, keeping the Jays close and giving them some much needed length after last night’s mess, but as I sat down to watch the situation quickly grew dire. Carlos Beltran singled to right leading off. The tough little Bregman grounded a double into the left-field corner, pushing Beltran up to third. Typically, in the seventh inning this would have been it for manager Gibbons’ starter, but for whatever reason he left Estrada in, and Estrada rewarded his faith with a great finish, getting Brian McCann to foul out to Martin behind the plate, and fanning the rookies J.D. Davis and Trevor White, who had touched up Estrada with a solo homer back in the third.

Solid relief pitching on both sides sent the game into the tenth inning. Chris Devenski took over from starter Charlie Morton in the eighth, and kept the Jays off the board despite walking two. We should mention here a statistical oddity: except for giving up seven Toronto hits, to Estrada’s five, the lines of the two starters were identical, seven innings, three runs, two walks, seven strikeouts.

After Devenski, Ken Giles gave up a base hit in the eighth, but struck out two.

Meanwhile, Ryan Tepera was at his best for Toronto, providing two innings of bridge work, giving up a walk and striking out two on only 23 pitches.

Houston manager A.J. Hinch opted to bring out Francisco Liriano to face his old mates in the top of the tenth, and it didn’t go well for the ex-Jay. Liriano didn’t do that much wrong, mind; he fanned Justin Smoak on a 3-2 pitch for the first out. Manager Gibbons sent Rob Refsnyder up to hit for Zeke Carrera, and Liriano made his big mistake, walking the light-hitting utility man on four pitches.

From what we’ve seen of Refsnyder, he may be light-hitting, but he runs well, and as he was to demonstrate slides even better. With Steve Pearce at the plate, he stole second. Then, after Pearce fanned, with Gibbie out of options to hit for Ryan Goins (except for Marcus Stroman, come to think of it, who could also have come in at second for the bottom of the inning, with Barney moving to shortstop), more specifically out of infield options, since Refsnyder had hit in the DH spot, Goins came to the plate for lefty-on-lefty, against his former team-mate. He went to 1-2 on Liriano, which put him in his magic spot, two outs, two strikes, and a runner in scoring position, and what did he do but single to left, leaving the eun in the magic hand of Rob Refsnyder.

The Goins hit was well-struck. Derek Fisher charged and fired for the plate. It was in time and McCann turned to tag Refsnyder. But only Refsnyder’s hand was there; the rest of his body was sweeping by McCann well into foul territory. But that hand snuck in between McCann’s glove, holding the ball, and his padded knee, and touched the plate without being tagged. The Astros called for a review, but the evidence was clear: Refsnyder had scored, and not been tagged out.

Thanks to Ryan Goins’ magic bat and Rob Refsnyder’s magic hand, the Jays turned a 4-3 lead over to Roberto Osuna and this time he was perfect. He replicated Estrada’s feat of striking out J.D. Davis and Tyler White, and closed out the exciting win with a ground ball to third by Derek Fisher.

So, as I was saying, forget the run totals, and just mark this: going into Sunday’s series finale, this series, and the Toronto-Houston season series, are both dead even, and tomorrow’s game will tell the tale.

If there were any doubts remaining about whether Jay Happ has returned to last year’s level of excellence, this afternoon’s outstanding performance against the Chicago White Sox should have put them to rest once and for all.

For a moment it was questionable whether Happ would survive the first inning, let alone go on to pitch as well as he did. It seems like no matter who’s on the mound, Toronto just can’t seem to avoid first-inning trouble these days.

Tim Anderson led off with a fluke infield hit, bouncing a ball between first and second that both second baseman Rob Refsnyder and Justin Smoak broke for. Smoak saw that it was too far for him and headed back to first, but lost track of the bag while reaching for Refsnyder’s throw, and Anderson was across the bag safely. Tyler Saladino lined out to third for the first out, but Happ lost Jose Abreu on four pitches. Kevan Smith lined a shot to left for a base hit but Pearce got to it too quickly for Anderson to score, and Happ found himself surrounded by Sox with only one out.

If there was a key at-bat for Happ in this game it came right then, as he faced the rookie left-handed hitter Nicky Delmonico. It was tough sledding for the rook as Happ quickly got two called strikes on low pitches, the second one probably too low. Delmonico fouled one off that was thigh-high and out over the plate, took a slider low and outside for ball one, then fanned on the same pitch he had fouled off, a fastball out over the plate. With two outs, Happ fielded the easy come-backer from Leury Garcia and took the even easier out at the plate, tossing underhanded to Miguel Montero to force Anderson for the third out.

After having had to bear down and throw 22 pitches to retire the Sox in the bottom of the first, Happ cruised through six more innings on 104 pitches, and gave up only one run on four more hits after the first inning, no walks after the first inning, and a total of ten strikeouts, starting with that crucial punchout of Delmonico in the first.

He retired the side in the second on eleven pitches, gave up a leadoff triple to Tim Anderson on the first pitch he threw in the third, and then took only seven more pitches to retire the side and strand Anderson at third, inducing three ground balls, none of which enabled Anderson to score. In the fourth he took twelve pitches to blank the Sox, and picked up only his third strikeout. Likewise the fifth, on thirteen pitches, and two more strikeouts, bumping his total to five.

The Sox finally got to him for a run in the sixth, but it was hardly an overwhelming display of force. Tyler Saladino led off with a base hit to left, the first hit since Anderson’s triple in the third, Happ having retired nine in a row since then. Jose Abreu fanned, bringing up Kevan Smith, who beat out a little chink shot in front of the plate that Miguel Montero hustled after, but not in time to make a play, with Saladino on to second. Montero came up lame on the play and would have to give way the next inning to Russell Martin. Delmonico hit one back to the pitcher, and Happ’s best play was the force at second for the second out, moving Saladino to third, whence he scored on a base knock by Garcia. Yolmer Sanchez fanned to end the inning, bringing Happ’s count to seven in six innings.

Happ saved his best for last, and finished with a flourish by striking out the side in the seventh inning, giving him his first double-digit strikeout game of the season at ten. Remarkably, after they had seen him twice (Hanson and Engel), and three times (Anderson), two of his last three strikeouts were on called third strikes. So much for the hitters having the advantage on the starter the last time around.

There has been much discussion around which is the “real” Justin Smoak, the guy with the part-timer, so-so career record up to this year, or the offensive monster of 2017. There has been almost as much talk about the “real” Jay Happ, given that the period of his second half of 2015 with Pittsburgh, and 2016 with Toronto was such an outlier related to the rest of his career numbers, especially since he was struggled at the beginning of this season. But a quick look over his game results since he returned from the disabled list at the end of May shows that he quickly rounded into 2016 form, with the exception of a couple of outings, and has now established himself as, if not the number one on the staff, the co-number one, sharing the spot with Marcus Stroman.

By the time Dominic Leone took over for Happ in the bottom of the eighth, the Jays had built a 4-1 lead, plating the first two off veteran left-handed starter Derek Holland, who turned in a very serviceable six-innings of five-hit, two-run ball himself.

One effect of starting a left-hander against Toronto is to turn Justin Smoak and Kendrys Morales around to hit from the right side, and Smoak in particular enjoys the change of scenery. In the third inning he came up with one out and Josh Donaldson on first after drawing a walk from Holland. Smoak had already hit a solid line single off the Chicago starter in the first, and this time he picked out another one he liked and drove it to the wall in left centre for a double while Donaldson came around to score the first run of the game.

It stayed 1-0 until Steve Pearce teed off on Holland leading off the sixth and drove it over the fence in left for a 2-0 lead. As we’ve seen, the White Sox cut the lead in half in the bottom of the sixth, and keeping in mind the two recent blown leads, you had to be worried about taking a one-run lead into the late innings on somebody else’s home grounds.

Mouths got a little drier as Chicago manager Rick Renteria brought in the lanky right-hander, Jake Petricka, who’s had good success against the Jays, to pitch the seventh. He worked around a one-out walk to Donaldson in tiptoeing around the heart of the Toronto order.

After Happ finished off the Sox in the seventh with a flourish, Petricka, who had thrown 18 pitches in the seventh, came back out for the eighth. Maybe Renteria should have played it one inning at a time, because the Jays had Petricka’s number in the eighth. Or maybe he had his own number, considering how much he contributed to the Toronto uprising.

He started by walking Steve Pearce, who alertly came around to third when Kevin Pillar followed with a single to right. Russ Martin followed with a single to left to score Pearce and bring Pillar around to third, where he was perfectly poised to score the inning’s second run on a Petricka wild pitch. That was all the scoring for the Jays, but Martin stole second and advanced to third on a second wild pitch by Petricka. He had to hold there when Darwin Barney grounded out to third, and then Renteria brought in Juan Minaya, who got Jose Bautista to fly out to end the inning.

Even at 4-1, the past was hanging darkly over the park in the bottom of the eighth when it took three Toronto pitchers to retire the White Sox, working around two walks in the meantime. Dominic Leone came in and fanned Tyler Saladino and Jose Abreu, raising hopes of a quick and clean ending, but then he walked Kevan Smith, bringing up the left-handed Nicky Delmonico. This brought Aaron Loup into the game to face Delmonico, but once again he failed to put away the one batter he needed to: Delmonico drew a walk. This brought Joe Biagini into the game, and he put the rising down, such as it was, by fanning Leury Garcia to end the inning.

After Donaldson gave the Jays a little more breathing room with a leadoff homer in the ninth off Chris Beck, who then retired the Toronto hitters in order, Biagini was sent back out to try to save wear and tear on the arm of Roberto Osuna, since on the face of it it wasn’t a save opportunity. Yet.

But it was, once Biagini gave up two base hits leading off the inning. The call went out to Osuna after all, and this time there was no touching him. A foul pop to first, a strikeout, and a fly ball to centre on eleven pitches, and the game was in the bag.

The Blue Jays now pack their bags and head to Houston for a three-game series with the Astros, who are only thirty games over .500. Too bad they don’t go down there with a series sweep already in the bag.

After seeing the bullpen blow two of their last three games, it’s now clear that all of the typical markers of a Toronto win—a solid performance by their top pitcher and home runs by both of their most consistent sluggers—don’t necessarily guarantee chalking it up in the “W” column.

But tonight, for once, it did.

It was a typical performance for Marcus Stroman, bendy but not breaky, shutting down the Chisox at crucial points, getting in a jawing match, this time with Chicago shortstop Tim Anderson instead of an umpire, and holding on long enough, seven innings, to give some of the bullpen arms a break.

Likewise it was typical for Josh Donaldson, who homered in the first off Mike Pelfrey to give Toronto a quick 1-0 lead, lofted a sac fly to centre in the third to plate Darwin Barney, and capped off a three-run rising in the sixth with a double to centre to score Jose Bautista.

And it was a quintessential Justin Smoak moment, that, immediately after Stroman had coughed up a two-run double to Chicago catcher Omar Narvaez in the bottom of the fourth to tie the score, with two out in the top of the fifth and Donaldson on first with a walk, he powdered a 1-1 sinker by Pelfrey that stayed up in the zone, giving the Jays a lead they would not relinquish.

It would be interesting to go back, game by game, homer by homer, to look at the circumstances of every homer Smoak has hit this season. It seems to me that the preponderance of his dingers has either tied the game or given his team the lead.

Marcus Stroman has had an odd season, very much a contrast to the dominance that he showed in his first few major league starts after he was called up at the end of 2014, and the utter brilliance he displayed when he returned to the rotation in time to join up with David Price to lead Toronto to the division championship and a spot in the ALCS in 2015.

Now, despite his strong record of 9-5 and an ERA of 3.08 going into tonight’s game, it has become the norm that he will throw more pitches per inning, struggle with his control from time to time, and have to work his way out of far more pickles than you would expect from your team’s number one starter. In short, though he may get us there in the end, no one would confuse a Marcus Stroman outing with a strong start by a Max Scherzer or a Yu Darvish.

Tonight he retired the side in order in only one inning, the fifth, fortuitously the shut-down inning his team needed after Smoak’s homer in the top of the inning had restored the team’s lead. He kept his pitch down, and only walked one, but he still danced in and out of trouble.

For the rest, apart from the fifth, it went like this: first inning, a double by Jose Abreu, and three sparkling plays, two by Darwin Barney at second and one by Ryan Goins at shortstop, to turn tough ground balls into outs. Second inning, a walk to Tyler Saladino and a double-play ball to Narvaez. Third inning, a bloop double to left by Alex Hanson, subbing for the injured Willy Garcia, who’s been placed on the concussion disabled list after last night’s collision, and three ground ball outs.

In the fourth inning Stroman was more breaky than bendy as the White Sox scored two to tie the game. After getting by Abreu, Chicago’s most dangerous hitter, who hit the ball on the nose but right at Steve Pearce in left, he hit Matt Davidson on the wrist with a pitch, got the rookie Nicky Delmonico to hit into a force play, and then gave up two two-out base hits, a single by Saladino and a double by Narvaez that chased both runners home and knotted the game.

After his shutdown fifth, Stroman watched as his mates added on three more runs in the top of the sixth, and then came out and coughed up two runs to the first two batters he faced, a single to Abreu and a home run to Kevan Smith, who hit for Davidson, who was taken out as a precaution after being hit by Stroman in the fourth. With Toronto still holding a 7-4 lead and Stroman working on a pitch count that was still fairly low, manager John Gibbons opted to leave him in, and he proceeded to retire the side in order after the Smith homer.

The Jays added a run in the seventh (I’ll review the Toronto scoring in a moment; I just want to follow through on the StroStory first), and Stroman had come out of the two-run sixth still at a low of 79 pitches, so Gibbie trotted him out again for the seventh, and was rewarded with another full inning from his starter, while we were rewarded with another moment of wierdness from our favourite fiery pitcher. We’re not actually sure what happened, but somehow Stroman’s strikeout of leadoff hitter Tim Anderson led to nasty words between them, and a hasty invasion of the field by both benches.

Even in retrospect this seemed like a sandbox dispute between a couple of brats over which one gave the other the cut-eye first. As Anderson departed the field he was jawing at Stroman, who took no notice until the jawing continued even after Stroman had taken the ball back from Donaldson after the post-strikeout throwaround. Stroman did not like that. One bit. He came off the mound a couple steps toward Anderson, and shouted something to the effect of “WTF?” Anderson stopped in his tracks, shouted back, and here came the dugouts. Order was restored, no one was ejected, and no plausible explanation ever emerged as to what had transpired. The only thing we’re left with is kids in the sandbox.

After the fuss, Stroman popped up Hanson, gave up a base hit to Leury Garcia, and retired Yolmer Sanchez on a ground ball to second to end his night, having pitched seven innings, giving up four runs on seven hits with one walk, five strikeouts, and one temper flareup (a new category in the pitching line, just for MS), on 99 pitches. Typical night for the 2017 version of Marcus Stroman.

And fortunately for Marcus Stroman the Jays were opportunistic at the plate tonight and managed to provide enough support for him to claim the win. The Donaldson homer in the first gave him a stake, and in the third, for once, Toronto did not waste a leadoff double, this time by Darwin Barney. Jose Bautista lofted a deep fly to centre on which Barney tagged and moved up to third. From third with one out he was able to score on a Donaldson fly ball, also to centre. How many times have we railed over the failure of the Jays to capitalize on a leadoff double? This was one time that they came through for us.

After Stroman gave up the game-tying double in the fourth and Smoak’s homer re-established the lead in the fifth, the Blue Jays never trailed, picking up three more runs in the sixth to extend the lead to 7-2 before Smith’s homer cut it to 7-4 in the bottom of the sixth.

Pelfrey got the first two outs in the top of the sixth, then ran into trouble by giving up a walk to Kevin Pillar and a single to Barney. That was enough for Chicago manager Rick Renteria, who pulled the plug on Pelfrey and brought in the right-hander Gregory Infante, who appeared in five games for the White Sox way back in 2010, and then spent the last seven years wandering in the wilderness until being called up in mid-May, and since then has worked regularly out of the Chicago bullpen. Unfortunately, he didn’t bring much to the banquet tonight for the White Sox.

Infante walked Bautista to load the bases, gave up a two-run single to Russell Martin, letting both his inherited runners score, and then an RBI double to Donaldson, driving home Bautista, before finally fanning Smoak to end the inning.

Renteria sent Infante out for the eighth inning and he didn’t do any better than in the seventh; he faced three batters, gave up a run, and didn’t get anyone out. He walked Kendrys Morales and then gave up a booming double to the base of the wall in right centre by Steve Pearce. When centre fielder Leury Garcia crowded the wall and had the ball come back past him, it allowed the ponderous Morales to score all the way from first. Ryan Goins then lined a single to left, on which Pearce had to hold up, and only made it to third. This was the end for Infante.

Right-hander Juan Minaya, a late-May callup to Chicago’s bullpen, came in with runners on first and third and nobody out, and managed to retire the next three batters without allowing another run. He came out for the top of the eighth and fanned Donaldson before Renteria replaced him with the lefty David Holmberg, which turned Smoak and Morales around to hit right-handed (still don’t get the logic of this—they read every other statistic, don’t they see that both hit lefties better than righties?)

In any case, Holmberg survived a rocky two thirds in the eighth, giving up a single to Morales and hitting Pearce, then wild-pitching them to second and third, but popping up Smoak and Goins to get out of the inning.

Holmberg had a slightly smoother ride in the Toronto ninth, walking Pillar leading off but seeing him gunned down by Narvaez trying to steal, and giving up a two-out Texas League single to Bautista before fanning Russell Martin for the third out.

Ryan Tepera in the eighth inning and Dominic Leone in the ninth both had interesting adventures but managed to preserve the lead and the win for Stroman.

With one out in the eighth, Tepera actually gave up three consecutive hits, the latter two of the blooper variety, but the White Sox were kept off the board when Kevan Smith tried to score from second on Tyler Saladino’s Texas Leaguer to centre, but was cut down by a fantastic throw from Kevin Pillar, who charged the ball, picked it up on the fourth hop, and cut loose with a bomb that carried right into Martin’s glove just as Smith slid into it for the out. Buoyed up by the support, Tepera fanned Omar Narvaez to strand the runners at first and second.

Leone gave up a two-out triple to Leury Garcia in the ninth inning after Anderson fouled out to Zeke Carrera in left and Hanson struck out, but Sanchez left him there when he flied out to left to end the game.

So, sometimes it all works out, and sometimes, most of the time, actually, the bullpen protects a lead and delivers a win. It’s just that we’re not giving the bullpen enough leads to protect this year, and that’s a problem.

Tomorrow afternoon Jay Happ pitches for a series win against the White Sox. He should be going for a sweep.