Long Ball Stories

Backed by a three-homer outburst and the opportunistic exploitation of a terrible Chicago collision in the field, Marco Estrada appeared to have completed the job of righting himself tonight with seven brilliant innings of one-run, four-hit pitching.

After the dramatic finish of Sunday’s finale against the Angels in Toronto, an efficient shutdown of the struggling White Sox in Chicago Monday night was just what the doctor ordered for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Until a rare but nasty bug, the late-inning bullpen collapse, laid our heroes low again for the second time in the last three games.

Josh Donaldson hit a two-out solo homer in the top of the first off veteran right-hander James Shields to stake Estrada to a 1-0 lead, and then made a nifty play on leadoff batter Leury Garcia’s slow roller to give Estrada a further boost in the bottom of the inning. The next two Sox flied out, and Estrada was through one on only six pitches.

The game rolled along quickly until the top of the fourth. Shields had settled in after the Donaldson shot and retired seven in a row, and Estrada had faced only one over the minimum, a Matt Davidson walk in the second inning. After three, Shields, who usually labours, had thrown only 38 pitches, and Estrada had gotten by on an amazing 31.

In the top of the fourth, though, Shields’ twin weaknesses, a tendency for wild streaks and a vulnerability to the long ball, cost him two additional Toronto runs, on solo homers by Russell Martin and Justin Smoak, and a long inning in which he also gave up a single to Kendrys Morales, walked two to load the bases, and nearly doubled his pitch count to 70 before escaping without further damage.

In the Chicago fourth Estrada allowed his second-base runner. He was awarded a tough error when he failed to come up cleanly with a hard comebacker by Jose Abreu, but he popped up Davidson to Smoak in foul territory, and fanned prized Chicago rookie Yoan Moncada to end the inning.

After Shields had a more settled fifth inning, Estrada finally gave up his first hit, two in fact, to Tim Anderson and Willy Garcia, but retired the side without further damage to preserve his shutout, finishing it off by fanning the free-swinging Leury Garcia.

The top of the sixth was Shields’ last inning; he struck out the side but there was no joy in the achievement. By the time he finished it off by fanning Jose Bautista, the Jays’ lead had been doubled to six and Chicago had lost both right fielder Willy Garcia and the rookie Moncada to injury in a horrific collision that happened when both tried to track down a blooper into short right centre by Darwin Barney with the bases loaded. The fact that when the ball rolled out of Garcia’s glove without being transferred it was ruled no catch, and all three runners crossed the plate, was of little significance compared to the concern over Garcia, whose head came into significant contact with Moncada’s knee, and Moncada, whose knee was obviously injured. Both had to be removed from the game. Alan Hanson and Yolmer Sanchez came in to replace them in right field and at second base respectively.

After Brad Goldberg, who replaced Shields on the mound, retired Toronto in the top of the seventh with the help of a double play that erased Donaldson’s one-out single, the two replacements for the injured Sox players teamed up to produce Chicago’s first and only run off Estrada. Sanchez led off with an infield single, moved up to second on Kevan Smith’s base hit, advanced to third on a fly ball to right by Tim Anderson, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Hanson. Estrada finished seven innings giving up one run on four hits. It was only the second time since the end of May that he had gone more than five-plus innings, and the first time since that June twenty-fourth outing that he had looked like the Marco Estrada of old.

Goldberg stayed on for the Toronto eighth and got another double play to erase a walk to Steve Pearce to close out a quick second inning of work.

With a five-run lead, it was a good time to save some wear and tear on the arm of Ryan Tepera, so manager John Gibbons brought in Joe Biagini to hold off the Sox in the bottom of the eighth. Biagini had trouble finding the plate, issuing a leadoff walk to Leury Garcia, who promptly stole second. With the arms waiting behind Biagini in the bullpen, and that big five-run lead, there was no reason to be concerned about a runner at second, especially after Tyler Saladino flew out to right for the first out, and Garcia failed to tag and advance to third.

Even when Jose Abreu doubled Garcia home with the second run it was no big deal. Ah, but when Matt Davidson teed off on Biagini to right to make it 6-4, the unease was starting to creep, er, trot, in. Overworked or not, it was time to bring in Tepera, because we were now in setup man mode.

Tepera ended the inning with two comebackers to the mound, but unfortunately the first batter he faced, the accidental second baseman Sanchez, put all of his relatively small self into a high inside 0-2 cutter from Tepera and sent it sailing over the fence in right to cut the lead to 6-5.

Chris Beck made quick work of the Jays in the top of the ninth, clearing the way for Roberto Osuna to take the hill, with the save opportunity definitely on after the Chicago eighth.

Osuna got Hanson on a hard grounder to Justin Smoak at first. One out. Adam Engel hit a short chopper to Donaldson at third and beat it out. The call stood after a rather hopeless Jays’ challenge. Next up was the free-swinging Leury Garcia, who was ruled to have been nicked by an Osuna slider. Again, the play was reviewed, and again the call was upheld. The tying run was now on second. Osuna fanned Tyler Saladino for the second out, bringing Jose Abreu, the only really fearsome Sox hitter left in the lineup after the Great Chicago Fire Sale, to the plate.

Abreu hit a not-so-fearsome blooper into right centre that scored Engel with the tying run, brought Garcia around to third, and brought Davidson, who had homered in the eighth, back to the plate. Osuna went to 2-2 on Davidson before the Chicago hitter lined one solidly into centre to bring the game to a painful end for Toronto.

After being so good for so much of the season, even making the All-Star team, it’s hard to fathom that Roberto Osuna would blow two saves, lose two games, in three days. But, painful as it might be for these struggling Blue Jays, there it is.

Tomorrow has to be a better day.

Or should we, maybe like General Manager Ross Atkins, who dispatched Francisco Liriano to Houston and Joe Smith to Cleveland today at the trade deadline, be thinking next year, since there’s really no longer a tomorrow for us in 2017?

A game that started this afternoon with a disappointing fall off the pedestal by the newest Blue Jay resurrection project, Cesar Valdez, ended with a most improbable ninth-inning seven-run comeback, capped by, whoever has heard of such a thing, Steve Pearce’s second walkoff grand slam home run for his team within a week.

As we watched this one we saw our hopes for a fifth win in the seven game home stand slide precipitously off the table and into the waste basket, only to gasp in shock when they rose from the ashes and took delirious flight when Pearce’s blast left his bat and we knew that it was a done deal for the home team.

Valdez, whose back story we chronicled in the story of his start on July twenty-fifth in Oakland, whose first major-league win came in 2010 with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and his second over Oakland on the twenty-fifth of this month, fanned Yunel Escobar leading off the game. After that, any resemblance of the Cesar Valdez we saw in Oakland to the Cesar Valdez who started today, faded quickly, when Mike Trout singled to left and Albert Pujols followed with a booming home run to left centre. The next two Angels grounded out, but once again the Jays went to work in the bottom of the first already in a hole.

They were facing old friend and former Jay Jesse Chavez, who must perform tricks with mirrors, not only to stay in the big leagues, but to continue to hold down a starting position in the Angels’ rotation. The Jays have generally found Chavez to be easy pickings, especially in the area of giving up home runs, so the 2-0 deficit probably didn’t look like much to them at the time.

They got one run back immediately, when Zeke Carrera, playing for a resting Jose Bautista in right field, hit a home run to right on the second pitch he saw from Chavez. The Angels’ starter also walked Justin Smoak before retiring the side. He ran into more trouble in the second inning, but managed to keep the 2-1 lead intact.

Though you can’t fault them for trying, Toronto ran itself out of a chance for a productive inning. With one out Ryan Goins singled to centre. Kevin Pillar hit an infield single to centre and Goins, running on the pitch, came around to third. Since that worked so well, the Jays decided to start Pillar from first with Rob Refsnyder at the plate. Refsnyder hit the ball hard, but right on a line to Kole Calhoun in right, and Pillar was easily doubled off first for the third out, stranding Goins at third with the tying run.

Valdez had kept the Angels off the scoreboard in the top of the second, despite giving up a leadoff single to Luis Valbuena. Ben Revere replaced Valbuena at first by hitting into a fielder’s choice. After Martin Maldonado struck out, Revere decided to test the arm of Miguel Montero by trying to steal second. Montero, who was not picked up by Toronto for his throwing ability, surprised by gunning down the speedy Revere, with the help of a nifty catch and tag by Rob Refsnyder.

Then came the top of the third inning, otherwise known as Cesar Valdez’ Waterloo. Going into the inning he was down 2-1, and seemed to have settled in. Six batters later he was departing, down 6-1 with Shane Robinson at third running for an injured Calhoun and Andrelton Simmons at second his responsibility, three of the four runs scored so far in the inning earned, and he had not recorded an out.

The details and the sequence aren’t particularly edifying: let’s just say that Valdez didn’t fool anybody. Leadoff triple, double, intentional walk to Trout, Pujols RBI single. An errant throw by Refsnyder pulled Goins off the bag at second on what should have been a fielder’s choice by Calhoun, and a double by Andrelton Simmons, the last batter faced by Valdez.

Aaron Loup came in and finished off the starter’s record at seven runs, six earned, by giving up an RBI single to Revere, and needed 18 pitches to work out of the inning, eventually getting the last two outs with runners on second and third, only Revere at second his responsibility, so it could have been worse than 7-2 against for Toronto.

As the bottom of the third unfolded for Chavez, gifted with such a lead, you had an inkling that this game wasn’t quite settled yet, as Toronto came back to score three, with nary a homer in sight, and some good hustle on the bases by Zeke Carrera and Russell Martin to boot.

Carrera led off with a single to centre. Down 7-2 and with not much to lose, John Gibbons started Carrera on a single to left by Martin, and Carrera easily made third.

Justin Smoak hit an opposite-field Texas Leaguer to left to score Carrera, and Martin, reading the hit perfectly, hustled around to third, so that he could score on Kendrys Morales short fly to left, with Martin and coach Luis Rivera rolling the dice on Revere’s weak arm and coming up winners. Steve Pearce doubled Smoak to third, and he scored on Montero’s grounder to second, again getting a good read on the ball. As Tuck and Babby were saying, just because Smoak’s slow on the bases doesn’t mean he’s a bad base runner. Ryan Goins grounded out to end the inning, and things looked considerably brighter for the home side at 7-4 for the Angels.

The score remained the same through the fourth. The Jays survived two base hits by the Angels as Loup gave way to Mike Bolsinger with Trout at third and Shane Robinson at second and two outs. It took Bolsinger just one pitch to end the inning, Carrera coming in for a nice running catch on a short fly by Simmons. Chavez retired the side in order.

Unfortunately for the Jays it was the Angels who added runs in the middle innings. Bolsinger gave up an unearned run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Maldonado that scored Revere, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, stolen second, and advanced to third on a bad throw to second by Montero. The run he gave up in the sixth was decidedly earned, Pujols’ second homer of the game.

Chavez benefitted from a double play after walking Martin to retire the Blue Jays in the fifth in order, and then sat down to watch his lead extended to 9-4 before Blake Parker came in to replace him for the sixth, leaving the starter sitting quite pretty for his sixth win of the year.

It continued to look like a settled issue through seven and eight. Cam Bedrosian survived a somewhat rocky seventh, and David Hernandez threw a clean eighth for the Angels. Meanwhile, lefty Matt Dermody was working on his longest and most effective outing so far for Toronto, getting double plays in both innings to pitch around a hit batter in the seventh and a walk in the eighth.

Which brings us to the ninth inning, the shocking, the fatal, ninth. Dermody finally wavered slightly in the top of the inning, giving up a leadoff infield hit to third to Robinson, and then helplessly watching him cruise to third on a stolen base and another throwing error by Montero. After the bright spot of throwing out Revere, Montero’s day behind the plate had gone decidely south. Valbuena knocked in the unearned run with a sacrifice fly to Jose Bautista, and the Angels headed to the bottom of the ninth with a comfy 10-4 lead. Dermody headed to the bench with a moral victory, not expecting anything more.

But, you never know, do you?

The Angels chose Brooks Pounders, a young right-hander who’s been up and down with the Angels this year, to mop up. He didn’t bring a very long mop to the mound. He walked Ryan Goins, then gave up a gopher ball to Kevin Pillar, to cut the lead to 10-6. when Rob Refsnyder followed with a ground-rule double to left, Angels’ manager Mike Sciosia decided that mop-up time was over, and brought in his closer, Bud Norris.

What followed was a closer’s nightmare. Zeke Carrera singled to centre, with Refsnyder stopping at third. In one of three crucial at-bats, Russell Martin drove a ball into the hole at short for an infield hit that scored Refsnyder, with Carrera stopping at second. In a second significant at-bat, Justin Smoak, the best hitter on the team all year, made the most of his ground-ball out to the pitcher, on which he had to go to first, moving the runners up. Kendrys Morales worked the count to 3-2 and then drew a walk to load the bases, which set up the double play. That brought Steve Pearce to the plate with the bases loaded and the Jays down by three. Norris went to 2-0 on him, and then in an eery moment of déjá vu Pearce turned on Norris’s next pitch and you knew on contact that it was gone. This time Pearce didn’t have to lean.

So the Jays avoided the sweep at home in the most improbable manner of all, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the ninth to wipe out a 10-4 deficit and walk off a win over the Angels with Steve Pearce’s grand slam home run, his second walk-off grand slam in four days.

If I weren’t yer humble scribe, I’d have turned this one off long before the ninth, and gone out to weed the garden. Luckily for me, duty called, I stuck with it, and look at the reward! Let this be a lesson to you, o ye of little faith.

There was plenty of motivation today for the Blue Jays to put last night’s flat performance behind them and get back on the winning track for the last two games of this home stand. It’s a crucial stretch for the team, if only because these seven home games against teams playing under .500 ball represent their best opportunity to put together a real string and climb their way back into contention for a wild card slot.

There was equally strong motivation for Francisco Liriano to show that he’s put his mid-season funk behind him and could give the team a strong start: this game represented his last chance to audition for a serious playoff role with a more legitimate contender. As a free agent at the end of the season, Liriano is well positioned to become a useful “rental” for a team looking for a left-handed starter, or even reliever, to help them make the playoffs.

If he plays out the season with Toronto and the Jays choose not to give him a qualifying offer he represents a dead loss to them; but if they move him by the trade deadline, they’ll get something in return. It was in the best interests of all concerned that Liriano pitch well tonight.

The matchup also presented real opportunity for the Jays, since the Angels had pulled Yusmeiro Petit out of the bullpen for the start, as part of a self-admitted “bullpen day” because they were fresh out of starting pitchers.

The short narrative on today’s game: Liriano pitched well, a solid quality start. The Jays scratched out a lead, saw the Angels come back to tie it, took the lead again on Miguel Montero’s first home run with Toronto, and then, shockingly, watched Roberto Osuna cough up the lead, and then the game, in a disastrous ninth inning that cost them a second straight loss to the California visitors.

The game started like gangbusters for Toronto. Ryan Goins, subbing for the injured Troy Tulowitzki, made a fine backhanded pickup and leaping throw to nab Yunel Escobar at first on the first pitch of the game. Then Liriano showed great hustle to cover first and just nip Mike Trout’s try for an infield hit to Justin Smoak. Albert Pujols lined out to Kevin Pillar on Liriano’s first pitch. It only took six pitches for him to navigate the first three hitters.

Petit was equal to Liriano in the bottom of the first, though he did give up a two-out single to Justin Smoak (who else?) before retiring the side. The two starters went pitch for pitch for the next two innings, the only things separating them, Smoak’s single and the fact that Petit threw 32 pitches to 31 for Liriano.

Things started to shake down a little for both teams in the fourth inning when both benefitted from errors, but the Angels’ error handed the Jays the first run while Liriano was able to pitch over Josh Donaldson’s errant throw.

With one out, Trout was credited with an infield hit and reached second on a throwing error by the Toronto third baseman. Trout advanced to third on the second out, a grounder by Pujols that Goins handled behind second, but C. J. Cron lined out to Smoak at first for the third out.

Donaldson led off the bottom of the fourth with a base hit to centre, and Smoak followed with his second hit of the game, a single to right, Donaldson stopping at second. Petit fanned Kendrys Morales for the first out, bringing Steve Pearce to the plate. Pearce hit a solid drive to deep right, catchable for Kole Calhoun. Donaldson tagged up to advance to third, but the usually reliable Andrelton Simmons took Calhoun’s throw and fired it into the stands behind third, allowing Donaldson to score and giving Smoak third, where he was stranded when Zeke Carrera flied out to centre.

After Liriano breezed the top of the fifth, Petit turned the pitching chores over to Keynan Middleton, a rookie right-hander who’s been a fixture in the Angels’ bullpen since he was called up in early May. After Petit’s fine performance, four innings, no earned runs, 3 hits, no walks, 5 strikeouts on 48 pitches, Middleton was a welcome change for the bottom of the Jays’ batting order.

Miguel Montero worked the new pitcher for a walk on a full count. On a 1-2 pitch to Darwin Barney, manager John Gibbons rolled the dice and started Montero. He was rewarded when Barney rifled the ball into the left-field corner, far from left-fielder Shane Robinson, who was playing Barney straight up. With the running start, and the distance Robinson had to travel to the ball, the none-too-speedy Montero was able to come all the way around to score, Barney cruising into second with a double.

Next up was Ryan Goins. Middleton got ahead of him one and two, and then threw one low and away. Goins, once again making contact when it counted, went down and out with the pitch and drove it past the third baseman into the left-field corner for a second consecutive double as Barney trotted home with the third run. With all that out of the way, Middleton settled down and retired the side, fanning both Donaldson and Smoak in the process. As one last tribute to Petit’s start, Middleton needed 32 pitches to escape the fifth inning, the same number the Angels’ starter threw in the first three innings.

The Angels finally broke through in the sixth inning, Liriano’s last, and tied the score, but the Montero blast in the bottom of the inning put Toronto’s starter back on record for the win, as John Gibbons left Liriano in to finish the inning for a neat six innings pitched.

Shane Robinson led off the sixth with a single, and after former Jay Cliff Pennington flied out, Escobar singled Robinson to third and Trout plated him with a single to centre. With the one out, Liriano perhaps wisely walked Pujols to load the bases, and then got to within one out of escaping with a 3-1 lead by fanning Cron, but Simmons delivered the tying runs with a clutch single to left. Calhoun flew out to end the inning, but the game was knotted at three.

Next out of the pen for the Angels was Troy Scribner, a twenty-six-year-old right-hander making his major league debut. He had a pretty nice start to his career, fanning Kendrys Morales on a checked swing, but then Steve Pearce brought him down to earth with a single to right, and Zeke Carrera jolted him with a hard liner right at Robinson in left. Then Miguel Montero finally delivered on the promised long ball he was supposed to be bringing from the Cubs, and hit out one to right centre, scoring Pearce ahead of him and putting the Jays back on top by two.

And there it stayed until the bottom of the ninth. Scribner gave up a single to Barney after Montero’s homer, and then retired seven in a row to hold the Jays at five through the bottom of the eighth. Meanwhile, a couple of Joes, Biagini and Smith, picked up Liriano through the seventh and eighth, Biagini with a clean inning, and Smith giving up a sketchy leadoff walk in the eighth before retiring the side, in what might have been, like Liriano’s, his last appearance with Toronto before the trade deadline.

So it was all good for Roberto Osuna to come in and close the door on this nice, crisp-ish 5-3 win for Toronto. Would that it could have been.

The Angels’ ninth-inning rising started with Osuna creating his own problems and ended with a weird combination of ex-Blue Jays doing them in. After fanning Andrelton Simmons leading off. Osuna gave up a single to Kole Calhoun. Possibly rattled by the base hit, he plunked Martin Maldonado, moving Calhoun up to second. Kaleb Cowart came in to run for Maldonado, with ex-Jay Ben Revere (remember him?) at the plate. Revere smacked a 2-2 pitch on the ground past Justin Smoak on his glove side, and by the time Jose Bautista got it back in, Revere was safely in to second, Calhoun had scored, and Cowart was standing on third representing the tying run. But not for long, as Osuna pulled one that went past Russell Martin for a wild pitch, and Cowart trotted home, while Revere advanced to third.

Enter Cliff Pennington, another Toronto alumnus, and as unpredictable at the plate as Revere. Not that he hit a three-run homer, or even a clutch base hit. But with only one out he didn’t need to do either. All he needed to do was get the ball to the outfield, and he did, a short fly to Kevin Pillar in centre. Pillar was playing in, just for this situation, and the ball was right to him. He caught it and let fly for the plate, an accurate throw, all the way on the fly, but it was Ben Revere on third, and he beat the throw for the lead run.

After walking Yunel Escobar, Osuna’s misery finally came to an end when Mike Trout popped up to Ryan Goins at short.

Toronto stretched out the bottom of the ninth without getting a hit, as Angels’ closer Bud Norris did everything he could to give them a chance to tie it up. He committed the closer’s cardinal sin of walking Montero, the leadoff batter. Rob Refsnyder, who’d just arrived from Buffalo to replace Troy Tulowitzki on the active roster, was sent in to run for Montero, his first appearance for Toronto. Norris braced up and fanned Russell Martin, who was hitting for Barney. But then he threw over to first to hold the speedy Refsnyder close, and threw the ball away, moving the tying run up to second. Ryan Goins fouled one off on three and two before drawing a walk, bringing Jose Bautista to the plate with one out and the tying and winning runs on base.

It was going to be either feast or famine, but as so many times this year, it was famine: Bautista grounded into a 4-6-3* double play to end the game.

As frustrated as we are watching our heroes put together a nice streak and then come a-cropper due to their own failures and miscues, how much more frustrating must it be for them?

On the bright side, if we can hammer out a win on Sunday, the home stand ends up at five and two; in most normal years, that would be a good thing. But in late July of 2017, it might not be enough.

*I’ve never explained the numbering system used by scorekeepers to annotate plays in baseball. Without going into all the nuances, the fielding positions are numbered one through nine, and to note down any play, the scorer indicates the numbers of the positions of all players involved in the play. The numbers start with the pitcher as one, catcher as two, first baseman as three, second baseman as four, third baseman as five, shortstop as six, and the three outfielders from left to right, seven to nine. A groundout from short to first is marked down as 4-3. With no other annotations, it’s assumed that this was a ground ball to the second baseman. A fly ball out is shown by the number of the fielder, as in “8” for the centre fielder. I usually add to the annotation so that I can tell later on, for example, the difference between a short fly ball and a liner into the gap that was caught. Working on a laptop, I have the luxury of being more thorough than a traditional paper score keeper, who is severely limited by the design of the score card.

So the 4-6-3 double play that ended the game was a grounder to second, played on to the shortstop for the force, and then to first for the double play.

I’m sure that understanding the scoring scheme takes away some of the sting of today’s loss for you. Yeah, right!

How does a team play as well as Toronto did sweeping the Oakland A’s this week, and then turn in such a dispirited performance that they were shut down by another no-name pitcher hurling for a team with a record almost as mediocre as their own?

Well, Friday night they did it when Jay Happ had control problems in the second inning after a brisk first, and allowed the Angels to dribble out runs until he went out after six down 3-0, and then the bullpen let the Angels pile on some insurance in the late innings. And they did it by letting this guy Parker Bridwell, whose talent on the mound far outpaces the baseball credibility of his name, mow them down like little tin soldiers, to the tune of seven and a third innings, one run, three hits, one walk, four strikeouts, and only 95 pitches.

Old friend (as if) Yunel Escobar led off the game with a ringing opposite-field double off Happ, but then the big lefty rang up Mike Trout on an 0-2 fast ball that was up and in, and fanned Albert Pujols, who went down flailing at a pitch over his head, and C.J. Cron, to strike out the side on 13 pitches and leave Escobar hanging out at second.

Bridwell started out just as well for the Angels, without the leadoff double, as Jose Bautista, Russell Martin, and Josh Donaldson went down with a big pffft! in the bottom of the first.

Then Happ came out and quickly got the first two outs in typical Happ style, fly balls, though Kevin Pillar had to run a long way to track down the second, by Kole Calhoun, but that was mainly because he was playing Calhoun the other way. Then catcher Martin Maldonado singled, and things took a nasty turn. Happ walked Shane Robinson, and gave up an RBI single to Kaleb Cowart. (What’s with these guys whose first names start with “K” rather than “C”? Kole? Kaleb? Sheesh!) Then it got even worse, as Happ lost not only the plate but the help of plate umpire Angel Hernandez; he walked Escobar and then Trout to force in the second run before fanning Pujols to end the inning.

It was a new umpiring crew after Will Little’s triple ejection the day before, but the same old story. During the second inning it was clear that Happ was frustrated with Hernandez’ strike zone, though Happ, being Happ, wasn’t obvious or aggressive about it. Even so, it was Hernandez who was confrontational, at one point stepping out from behind the plate, taking off his mask, and clearly shouting “What do you want? What do you want?” at Happ. They talked calmly at the end of the inning—again, Happ being Happ—and that seemed to resolve things, but I wonder when this business of umpires starting fights is going to stop?

In any case, after Bridwell set the Jays down in order again in the bottom of the second, the tone for the game was pretty well set: Happ had some control issues and would be hard put to go six innings if he did settle down, because he had already thrown 55 pitches after two, and Bridwell pretty much had Toronto’s batters eating out of his hand. (I’ve mixed my metaphors here; I should decide whether the Jays’ hitters are tin soldiers or squirrels . . .)

The third inning was uneventful, save for Toronto’s possibly losing Troy Tulowitzki for the rest of the year. Happ had a good comeback inning, retiring the Angels in order on only seven pitches. The Jays went down in order again—nine in a row—on only ten pitches, but the only moment that mattered was the sickening turn that Tulowitzki’s ankle took when it landed on both Cron’s foot and the bag at first at the same time. Tulo was out on a close play after a grounder to second, but all attention was on the injury-plagued shortstop as he was helped from the field, obviously through for the day, and who knew how much longer.

The fourth inning saw the Angels extend their lead with the help of a fluke play, and the Jays finally get—and strand—some base runners. In the top of the inning, Happ’s struggle with control reappeared and he walked Maldonado, but came back to fan Shane Robinson, bringing Cowart to the plate. With Goins in at short for Tulowitzki, Cowart hit a probable double-play ball to Goins, except that Happ reached for it, and deflected it just enough so that Goins didn’t have an out anywhere. With runners on first and second, Escobar flew out to right, but of course Trout knocked in Maldonado with a two-out base hit to make it 3-0.

With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, making eleven in a row for Bridwell, the Jays finally got a base runner, as Donaldson walked. Justin Smoak then hit a rocket to right centre that hit and came off the wall so hard that Donaldson had to hold at third, despite running on contact with two outs, and Smoak only got a single out of it. Morales flew out to right, and the threat was over.

After the Trout RBI, Happ retired the last seven batters he faced, and did manage to log six innings for the quality start, having allowed only the three runs on five hits.

Dominic Leone pitched a clean seventh inning, but in the eighth gave up a one-out opposite-field bloop double just inside the left-field line to Simmons, who stole third off Matt Dermody, and scored on a single by Calhoun through the pulled-in infield to make it 4-0. Chris Smith came in to finish up the inning, and managed to avoid further damage.

Smith finished off the game, but was victimized for three more runs, crowned by a two-run homer by C.J. Cron, as the Angels pulled away.

The Jays finally broke through in the eighth; Darwin Barney led off with a double, and manager Mike Sciosia pulled Bridwell with one out and Barney on second. He would eventually score when Bautista hit a ground rule double off reliever David Hernandez. With two outs and Bautista on second, Toronto was once again unable to score a possible run on a base hit by Russell Martin with a runner in scoring position, as Bautista was stopped at third, and Donaldson hit into a fielder’s choice to end the inning with only the one run chalked up against Bridwell to mar his fine outing of seven and a third innings of near-shutout ball.

At this point it’s interesting to speculate on what might have been, if Donaldson had scored on Smoak’s hit, and Bautista on Martin’s, which would have left it 4-3 going to the ninth. John Gibbons probably doesn’t bring Smith back out for the ninth, and if the Angels had been retired in order, Justin Smoak’s 29^th homer in the bottom of the ninth would have tied the game.

But . . .

Toronto was behind from the top of the second and helpless against the slants of Parker Birdwell. That’s how a streak ends, not with a bang, but, well, you know.

In a fitting end to what may have been the strangest game of the year, Steve Pearce hit a walkoff grand slam home run today in the bottom of the tenth inning to beat the Oakland Athletics 8 to 4, to sweep the four-game series against Oakland and start their seven-game home stand off on the very right foot indeed.

On the face of it this should have been a pitching duel between Marcus Stroman, who needs no introduction, and Sean Manaea, a young left-hander who has quietly established himself in the Oakland rotation. Manaea had faced the Jays in Oakland back on the sixth of June, and picked up the win for the Athletics, going a strong six innings giving up only two runs on four hit. Overall, he came into the game with a record of 8-5 and an ERA of 3.86, for a team with a worse record than Toronto’s.

Stroman showed himself susceptible to the same first-inning blues as other Toronto starters have experienced this season. It’s not that any of the A’s hit him hard; he just went through one of those spells where the ground balls he induced didn’t turn into outs. Plus, he walked two batters, and that was a big foreshadowing of what was to come later in the game.

First he walked Matt Joyce leading off, on five pitches. Two of them were up and in and looked to be on the black*, but Stroman didn’t get the call on either one from plate umpire Will Little. Then he went 2-0 on Marcus Semien, one of which was marginally on the black, up and in; next he threw a two-seamer low in the zone that Semien bounced through the left side of the infield for a base hit.

*I’ve never explained “on the black”: “the black” is the theoretical outline of the outer limit of the strike zone, in all dimensions, creating a vertical rectangle that adjusts, of course, for the batter’s height. Any pitch that even touches the edge of “the black” should be called a strike. If you’ve seen how fine-tuned the professional tennis replay is, that can show a ball virtually touching the outside of the line with its fuzz, you can imagine how useful it would be to have an electronically monitored strike zone.

To get back to the game, Stroman finally got that high inside pitch on the black called a strike by Little to catch Yonder Alonso looking for the first out. This brought the Oakland slugger Khris Davis to the plate, and another walk, with no questionable calls, to load the bases. Ryon Healy hit a soft grounder to Troy Tulowitzki that scored Joyce, catcher Bruce Maxwell grounded a single up the middle to score two, and Matt Chapman grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.

Four ground balls, not hard hit, two walks, one of which was sketchy, and a strikeout, and Oakland had a three run lead.

And judging by Stroman’s demeanour as he came off the mound, Toronto had a starting pitcher who was really steamed.

The Jays clawed one back in the bottom of the first when Josh Donaldson squared one up off Manaea and hit it out to left field, but the more interesting moment was when Russell Martin was called out on strikes after Jose Bautista flied out to right leading off. Manaea got the call he wanted on the high inside pitch that Little had not given to Stroman, and the third strike was on a pitch low and outside that Martin contested. Conversely, Maneae was, shall we say, puzzled over two calls that he didn’t get on pitches that were probably on the black.

The score remained 3-1 to the top of the fifth, when things got really strange. In the meantime, Manaea had a much easier ride of it after the first inning. He retired ten in a row after the Donaldson homer, and piled up five strikeouts in the process.

Stroman, on the other hand, had base runners in every inning. He walked Joyce and Semien with two out in the second, none of the pitches questionable. He gave up a two-out base hit to Maxwell in the third, and gave up base hits to Jaycob Brugman, Joyce, and Semien to load the bases with two outs in the fourth.

Somehow, though, Stroman managed to keep Oakland from adding to its lead.

Then came the explosive fifth inning, and the end of Stroman’s outing. First off, he walked Khris Davis on a 3-2 pitch with no questionable calls. Then Healy hit into a double play and Stroman was one out away from being out of the inning. This brought Bruce Maxwell to the plate and the trouble came to a head with the little plate umpire.

(I know I shouldn’t be riffing on somebody’s name, especially somebody I have a beef with, but what I do question is that Will Little is 33 years old. I don’t see that that’s nearly old enough to be a major league umpire, and it would seem to me that an umpire that young would likely feel rather defensive about his age, and just might be inclined to have a thin skin.)

Here’s the play-by-play, or rather pitch-by-pitch (pitcher’s pitches and umpire’s pitches): ball one was well outside. Ball two was outside on the black. Little shook his head at what he was hearing from the Toronto bench. The camera showed manager John Gibbons continuing to jaw at Little. Little called time and ejected Gibbie, who came out to share his thoughts before leaving. The third pitch was low and inside on the black. Little called it a ball. Maxwell took a called strike on 3-0. The fifth pitch was outside, and Maxwell had his walk.

Stroman stepped off the mound, rubbing up the ball, his jaw going, but not obviously shouting at the umpire. Little stepped out from behind the plate and pitched Stroman. Russell Martin turned to Little, and barely had three words out of his mouth (probably “WTF?”) and he was pitched. So, within three pitches, Little had three pitches too, ejecting Gibbie (what else is new?) and the Toronto starting battery, both pitcher and catcher. I’m not sure if MLB keeps records on such things, but I suspect that’s a pretty rare occurrence.

I also question how MLB can allow an umpire to intrude himself into the emotions of a game to take such a drastic course of action, one that could easily affect the outcome. Will Little face any sort of inquiry over today’s events? Alas, we’ll never know.

Luckily for Toronto, I guess, Stroman had reached 90 pitches with the walk to Maxwell, and while there was no question that he would have at least finished the inning, with two outs and a slow runner on first, it would have been pitch-to-pitch, batter-to-batter if he had come out for the sixth. Callup Chris Smith (Toronto version) came on to fan Mark Chapman to end the fifth and close the books on Marcus Stroman.

A measure of the emotional tinge that the game took on could be felt in the bottom of the fifth, when Manaea’s first pitch to Kendrys Morales, a four-seamer right down the middle, was belted out of the park to straightaway centre field to cut the Oakland lead to 3-2, inducing a level of hysteria among the assembled faithtul. Manaea managed to recover and retire the side, stranding a two-out ground double down the line to the left-field corner by Kevin Pillar.

Chris Smith held the line for Toronto in the top of the sixth, with a big assist from Justin Smoak, who contributes nearly as much with his glove as with his bat. With one out, Adam Rosales singled to left. Matt Joyce followed with a hard smash between first and second. Smoak dove hard to his right and came up with the ball on a sharp grab, got up, and made it to the bag to retire Joyce for the second out, with Rosales moving into scoring position. Smith took over from there and induced a ground-ball from Marcus Semien to end the inning.

The Jays tied it in the bottom of the sixth, again thanks to the heroics of Justin Smoak.

Jose Bautista led off the inning with a hard shot to right centre that went for a double. Once more the following two batters, Miguel Montero and Josh Donaldson, failed to advance Bautista to third, both lofting easy fly balls for outs. Smoak strode to the plate. Everyone’s thoughts went to the big blast that might come, but Justin Smoak is a more complete hitter than that this year. Manaea threw a strike on the outside corner, and then a fast ball up and in. Smoak fought it off and got just enough on it to loft it into no man’s land in short right centre, just enough of a base hit to score Bautista with the tying run, running from second with two outs.

Joe Smith took over for Chris Smith for the Athletics’ seventh and got three catchable outfield balls after walking Yonder Alonso. Manaea came back out for his last inning and managed to keep the game tied, with the help of a questionable managerial decision by DeMarlo Hale, sitting in for the ejected John Gibbons. With one out, Troy Tulowitzki hit a ground-rule double to left. With Pillar and Barney due up, I fully expected to see a pinch-runner for Tulowitzki, who has been labouring on the bases for some time. I thought it would be Ryan Goins: if the Jays delivered Goins for the lead run, he would go in at short for Tulowitzki and it would tighten the defense for holding the lead.

But Goins did not issue from the dugout. Pillar lined out to the left fielder for the second out, bringing Barney to the plate. As he often does, Barney made meaningful contact on a 2-2 pitch, shooting the ball through the right side of the infield for a base hit. Matt Joyce charged the ball and came up throwing. It was actually painful to watch Tulowitzki labouring around third, having nothing left as he passed the frantically waving third base coach Luis Rivera and sliding into an easy out at the plate. Rivera might take some of the blame for not stopping Tulowitzki at third, but he never should have been out there to be stopped.

Inevitably, in the top of the eighth the A’s scratched out a lead run off Ryan Tepera, whose wildness played a major part in the run. With one out, Jaycob Brugman singled to centre. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, stayed there while Tepera walked Jed Lowrie, hitting for Rosales. After fanning Joyce, Tepera gave up a single to Marcus Semien which plated Brugman with the lead run. After throwing another wild pitch that put possible insurance runs at second and third, he fanned Alonso to end the inning, but the Athletics had the lead.

Ryan Dull came on for Manaea in the bottom of the eighth and got the first two outs, but gave up a single to Donaldson. Oakland manager Bud Melvin brought in Blake Treinen to face Justin Smoak, which created what might have been a seminal play in the game, if Oakland had held the lead. On the first pitch from Treinen, a low outside heater, Smoak lofted what should have been a harmless foul popup behind third. With the Oakland infield in its Smoak shift, third baseman Mark Chapman, playing at shortstop, surely had no chance for the catch, and no one else was even in sight. But he ran, and ran, and kept running until he ran it down for a sparkling catch to end the inning.

Aaron Loup quickly dispatched the A’s in order in the top of the ninth on fourteen pitches, bringing Treinen back to the mound to face the first Toronto hitter in the bottom of the ninth, Kendrys Morales, who had homered in the fifth to shorten the A’s lead after all the ejections in the top of the fifth. There must be something about leading off the inning with Morales, because he crushed a 2-1 pitch to dead centre to tie the game.

After Steve Pearce struck out, Treinen walked Tulowitzki. This time acting manager Hale pulled him for the pinch runner Zeke Carrera. But Zeke never advanced from first. Pillar struck out, and then Barney was initially called safe on a squibber back to Treinen, but then called out after review for the third out.

Roberto Osuna took the mound for the top of the tenth, another example of the home team using the closer in a tie game at home. Osuna breezed through the inning, finishing it off with Jed Lowrie being called out on a checked swing by plate umpire Little. After the fuss of the fifth inning, it was kind of funny to be able to hear Lowrie hollering “No, no! I didn’t swing!”

Former Toronto reliever Liam Hendriks, the Aussie flame-thrower, came out to pitch the tenth for Oakland. In the way of things in baseball, this could only go really well for Hendriks, or really badly. Sadly for the former Jay, but happily for his former mates, it went really badly.

Hendriks came close to holding off the Jays, but close only counts . . . He got to within one out of extending the game, inducing a fly ball to right from leadoff hitter Bautista, walking Montero, and fanning Donaldson. Then he got a little too gunshy with Smoak, and never came close on a four-pitch walk, probably preferring to take his chances with Morales. After going 2-0 on Morales, Hendriks started to pound the zone up high. He got one swinging strike and Morales fought off two. Ball three was almost wild, high and outside. Morales fought off the next one, low and on the outside corner, before Hendriks lost him with another wild high one.

Up to the plate came Steve Pearce, with Jays at every base, through no effort of their own. The scene was set: Hendriks would either escape this trap of his own making, or the game would be over. Pearce fouled off a couple of good ones and laid off the wild ones, and Hendriks was again at a 3-2 count. There’s nothing more dizzying than a bases-loaded 3-2 pitch with two out: the runners circle with the pitch*, the pitcher and batter both have to ignore the runners. At least Hendriks didn’t walk in the winning run; his sixth pitch was in the zone, but it was sweet, up and in, and Pearce jumped on it. There was no doubt about the distance, only whether it would stay fair. With the help of an anxious lean by Pearce to steer it straight, it stayed fair and soared over the fence in left for the exceedingly rare, and exhilirating, walkoff grand slam.

I told you it was perhaps the strangest game of the year, and it had an ending befitting that description. Pearce’s blast gave Toronto a sweep of the four-game series with Oakland, and strengthened the very tenuous lifeline to which the Torononians cling in their slender hopes of climbing back into playoff contention.

*The reason baserunners take off on a 3-2 pitch with two outs is because they can’t be thrown out at the next base, and they can’t be doubled off: if the pitch is a ball, they have a right to the next base; if it’s a strike, the inning’s over; and you can’t be doubled up when there’s already two outs. As an experienced coach, I can attest to the fact that the two-out, 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded is by far the dizziest moment in baseball.

Maybe the Toronto Blue Jays should just start their games with the second inning, since their first inning pattern seems carved in stone.

For the opponents: multiple base runners, a pitcher who can’t find the plate, one or several runs, rarely none, but always way too many pitches, guaranteeing a short start and more work for the bullpen. For the good guys: at least one solid hit, at least one base runner left stranded in scoring position, the air let out of the balloon once more.

Tonight’s third game of the four-game home series with the Oakland Athletics featured a first inning that checked all the boxes, except the visitors didn’t actually score for once. It also featured what turned out to be two strong pitching performances, for Toronto by Marco Estrada and a flock of relievers, and for Oakland by Paul Blackburn.

And it featured a last-minute eruption by Justin Smoak and Kendrys Morales that won the game for Toronto, a game in which all the runs were counted on homers, and the Athletics had the misfortune of hitting just one, by Marcus Semien in the fifth inning for two runs off Estrada, to the Jays’ two, by Smoak and Morales, that counted three runs in the ninth and gave the struggling Jays a walkoff win against Oakland closer Santiago Casilla.

Marco Estrada has been trying to find his mojo all year. His struggles are frustrating to the team, given how much he had become the most effective big-game pitcher among the Jays’ starters in both the playoff runs of 2015 and 2016. And there must be a personal side to his struggles, since his contract is finished with the Blue Jays this year and he is looking at free agency again in 2018. Potential buyers would be pretty concerned with the turn his career has taken this year, and his window for proving his worth on the market is gradually closing.

On another front, his struggles this season have run at odds with the rumours that have floated about his availability to a contender at the trade deadline. With his trade value declining, it’s become less likely that a team could put together a package for Estrada as a “rental” that would interest the Toronto management.

If you were a scout in the stands tonight shopping for an add-on starter, you might have packed it up and gone out for dinner after the first inning. After all, though he retired the Athletics without a run on three popups, in classic Estrada style, he also walked two, gave up an infield hit, and had to get the third popup off slugger Ryon Healy with the bases loaded on his twenty-seventh pitch of the inning.

But if you thought that Estrada hadn’t fixed what was wrong yet, and you headed out after the first inning to find something more productive to do, you woud have been very wrong.

Suddenly something clicked in and the Marco Estrada of old was back in charge. In the second inning there were two come-backers to the mound and a soft fly to right. In the third, he had his third come-backer in the last four batters, though he did have to jump for a high bounce, then another fly to right and a line out to second. In the fourth, after Khris Davis fouled out to Justin Smoak at first, Yonder Alonso hit a ground-rule double to right, the first hit and base-runner since the first inning. With Alonso on second he fanned Healy and Mark Chapman. After 27 pitches in the first inning, he took only 45 to get through the next three.

In the fifth he retired Bruce Maxwell on a groundout to second, and struck out Rajai Davis, for twelve outs out of the last thirteen batters, but then he walked Matt Joyce, bringing Marcus Semien to the plate. He’d gone 3-1 on Joyce and lost him, and when he went to 3-1 on Semien he made sure he threw a strike, but it was too good, and Semien deposited it over the fence in left centre for the first runs of the game.

Estrada then issued another walk to Jed Lowrie, and fanned Khris Davis to end the inning. But the two walks and the high count to Semien cost him another 28 pitches, and he was finished for the night.

But anyone who’s been thinking that the Marco Estrada moment is over had better have a re-think, because he showed tonight that he’s still capable of running up an impressive string of quick outs.

Meanwhile, Oakland started the twenty-three-year-old right-hander Paul Blackburn, who was promoted from Triple A by Oakland, made his first start on July first, and has been in their rotation since. He came into this game with a record of 1-1 and an ERA of 2.88, relying on location and effective breaking balls, just what Toronto wants to see on the mound against them. Not.

Blackburn pitched seven terrific innings against the Blue Jays. He gave up two hits, doubles to Jose Bautista in the first and Josh Donaldson in the sixth. Only in the first did he have two base runners, and only in the first, when Bautista advanced to third on Donaldson deep fly to right for the first out, did a runner reach third. After Bautista took third, Blackburn walked Smoak but then got Morales to hit into a double play. He was never in trouble again, and pitched seven shutout innings, giving up two hits and three walks while striking out three on 98 pitches.

When Blackburn didn’t come out for the eighth inning, and reliever Blake Treinen pitched around a leadoff single by Miguel Montero in the eighth to preserve the shutout it was hard to imagine that the Blue Jays would have any chance to break out in the ninth inning.

In the meantime, Matt Dermody for one batter in the sixth, Dominic Leone for two innings, Aaron Loup for an inning, and Joe Biagini for the last two outs in the top of the ninth, allowed only one base runner, Biagini walking Mark Chapman with two down in the ninth before fanning Bruce Maxwell. Once again we saw near perfection from the hard-working Toronto relievers.

The bottom of the ninth provided another proof that in baseball you never know. Through eight innings Toronto had only three base hits and only once advanced a runner to third. It seemed fated that this game was going to end up 2-0 for Oakland, and Paul Blackburn would be rewarded for his fine performance with a big “W”, the second of his career.

But fate is a funny thing sometimes. Oakland manager Bob Melvin naturally turned to his closer, Santiago Casillas, who had compiled 16 saves in 21opportunities. Santiago never got an out, and not only blew the save but earned the loss, thereby wiping out Blackburn’s reward, but not his performance.

Casillas jumped ahead of Josh Donaldson with a 1-2 count, but then, bizarrely, threw three balls somewhere up around the bill of Donaldson’s cap, and he took his base with a walk. Casillas only threw four more pitches. He threw another high one and one low and inside to Justin Smoak, and then finally hit the zone, low and inside, but Smoak went down and got it and belted it into the right field seats to tie the game. Casillas obviously didn’t want to fall behind Kendrys Morales, so he threw him a get-me-over fast ball, right down the middle and waist high, and Morales duplicated Smoak’s blast to end the game.

Of course much hilarity ensued, as the now obligatory home plate celebration took place. The only way it would have been sweeter would have been if it brought Toronto’s record to a modest 54-47, rather than a dismal 47-54. Yet sometimes you have to take joy where you can. And watching Morales’ drive clear the fence was joy enough for this day.

Marcus Stroman gets the ball tomorrow night in the series finale, with the Jays looking for a sweep. Could it finally happen?

As I was saying yesterday about Chris Smith (Oakland version), the career minor-league pitcher is part of the bedrock of major league baseball. Without the system of minor leagues, there would be no way for teams to develop the raw talent that they sign and bring it along to the point where it can be effective in the major leagues.

As an aside, it’s an interesting reflection on MLB that it’s really the only professional sport where most players who have excelled in high school or college still need to put in a long apprenticeship after their school days before being ready to play in the majors. Baseball is absolutely not a sport where players can take the “one and done” route that they can, for example, in professional basketball.

Since nearly forty per cent of the roster of any minor league baseball team is comprised of pitchers, and since it’s obvious by the sheer numbers involved that most of those pitchers will never see the majors, it takes a lot of guys who dream of the majors, or just love the game, to keep the system going. Without them how would the Vladi Guerrero Juniors and the Bo Bichettes hone their talents?

That’s why you just have to shake your head in wonder when you look at the career records of a guy like Chris Smith (Oakland version) or Cesar Valdez, tonight’s starter for the Blue Jays against Oakland.

There’s a certain symmetry in the fact that Valdez was making his first start for Toronto against the Athletics, who exposed him to waivers in early May only to have Toronto claim him and send him to Buffalo. But what a twisted path he took to get to the mound in the TV Dome at 7:07 tonight.

Originally signed as an amateur free agent by the Diamondbacks in 2005, he worked his way up through the Arizona organization until he got a look with them in 2010, appearing in nine games, getting two starts, and amassing a 1-2 record with an unenviable ERA of 7.65. The D-Backs sent him to Pittsburgh as the proverbial “player to be named later” at the end of the year, and thus his odyssey started. In July of 2011 the Marlins purchased him from the Pirates, and later that same month he spent two days as a possession of the Blue Jays, who released him almost immediately after acquiring him.

Then the trail leaves American professional baseball. In 2012 and 2013 he pitched in the Mexican League. In 2014 he was “out of baseball” and in 2015 he returned to the Mexican League. In January of 2016 the Astros signed him and assigned him to Triple A Fresno, where he pitched the entire year and led the Pacific Coast League in winning percentage, and was third in ERA. Nevertheless the Astros released him in November of last year. The A’s signed him to a Triple A contract , but then let him go on waivers to Toronto in May. By this time, of course, the Jays were already suffering from rotation injuries and in need of shoring up the starting pitching at Buffalo to provide backup for the major league rotation.

When you spend that long in the minors, like Chris Smith (Oakland version) you build a record that would earn significant respect as a major league pitcher, but of course it goes under the radar. Valdez has appeared in 252 games in the minors, 193 of them starts. He’s won 82, lost 62, and has a career minor league ERA of 3.86. There is no measure by which, at the age of 32, he has not earned a shot at pitching regularly in the big leagues.

Valdez has had four relief appearances with Toronto this season, moving up and down from Buffalo, where he has been starting. With the major league team he has been called on to fill the role that was served by Mike Bolsinger before he went on the DL: to start when needed, and otherwise be ready to do long relief. His best outing to date was on July nineteenth at Boston, when he picked up Aaron Sanchez after a short outing and went four innings and gave up one hit while striking out five. After that appearance, it seemed obvious that Valdez would be next up to fill a hole in Toronto’s rotation.

His mound opponent for the night was Sonny Gray, who once again, like last year at the trade deadline, has found himself auditioning for a prime time position with a playoff contender, as trade rumours swirl around his head. With a record of 6-4 and an ERA of 3.66, in 92 innings pitched going into tonight’s game, it’s easy to understand why he would represent significant capital to the Oakland franchise. They never completed a deal for him last year, but this year could easily be a different story.

Valdez had an unusual first inning, to say the least. Matt Joyce singled to left on the first pitch of the game. Marcus Semien ostensibly hit into a double play started by shortstop Troy Tulowitzki on the third pitch of the game, but the Athletics appealed the play at first and the out call was overturned. Yonder Alonso hit into a real double play on the fourth pitch of the game, grounding the ball to Justin Smoak, who took the out at first and then threw down to second for the tag on Semien. An over-turned double play, a real double play, and four pitches.

Gray took the more conventional route in the bottom of the first, fanning Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson, around a Russell Martin groundout, on thirteen pitches.

Valdez came out in the second and fanned cleanup hitter Khris Davis, and retired the next two batters on ground balls. After two his pitch count had ballooned to a grand total of fifteen.

What looked like it was going to be a tight pitchers’ duel cracked open in the bottom of the second, and it was Gray himself who supplied the hammer blow, making a crucial and unnecessary error that opened the way for Toronto to score the only four runs they would need to salt this game away in the win column for Cesar Valdez.

It started innecently enough, with the first Toronto hit of the game, a sharp line single to right by Smoak. Kendrys Morales followed by dubbing an slow bouncer between the pitcher and first baseman Yonder Alonso. Gray fielded it, and had an easy play to first for the out on the leadfooted Morales. Though it was definitely not a double-play ball, Gray was over-anxious, and rushed a throw to second to try for the force. The throw sailed on him, and ended up in short left field. Morales was safe at first, and Smoak was able to get up and advance to third.

Instead of one out and a man on second, Gray now had no outs and runners on first and third. Tulowitzki then hit a soft bouncer to third that Escobar had to charge and throw to first while Smoak scored and Morales moved up to second. This would have been the second out, if not for the bad throw by Gray. Zeke Carrera hit an infield single, moving Morales to third. Gray then wild-pitched Carrera to second while Morales held third. Kevin Pillar struck out, which should have ended the inning, but didn’t.

Ryan Goins, doing his two-out, runners in scoring position magic thing again, then stroked a two-run double the opposite way to left to score both runners. When Jose Bautista hit a drive to the right-field corner that bounced out, Goins trotted in and the Jays had four big ones on the board.

The question was how would Cesar Valdez deal with such largesse? The answer was very well. He walked Mark Chapman in the top of the third, but got a double-play ball from catcher Bruce Maxwell, his second (or third, depending how you’re counting) and fanned Rajai Davis, pushing his pitch count to an extravagant 29 for three innings.

Gray avoided another bullet of his own making in the top of the third. After Donaldson worked him for a walk, the A’s blew a double play in a wierd way. Smoak grounded one to second, second baseman Jed Lowrie tossed it to third baseman Chapman, who had the coverage at second in the shift, and Chapman tossed it on to first in plenty of time to retire Smoak. Except for one thing. The video replay showed that Chapman had come off the bag while making the pivot, and Donaldson was ruled safe. Then Gray wild-pitched him to third, where he stayed, courtesy of a walk, botched forceout, and wild pitch, while Gray fanned Morales and retire Tulowitzki on a grounder to short to keep the Jays at bay.

Valdez gave up his only run in the Athleitcs’ fourth. Joyce led off with a double, his second hit, and Oakland’s second hit of the game. Semien hit a vicious liner back to Valdez which deflected off him. He calmly pounced on the ball and threw Semien out at first while Joyce held his ground. He remained at second when Yonder Alonso lined out to centre for the second out, but scored on Khris Davis’ double to left. Valdez stranded Davis when he got Lowrie to ground out to second.

That made it 4-1 Toronto, and that’s how it stayed. Valdez retired the side in the fifth, gave up a two-out single to Semien in the sixth and then balked him to third before fanning Alonso, and gave up a leadoff double to left by Davis in the seventh that brought his first Toronto start to an end, with a line of six innings pitched plus one batter, one earned run on five hits with one walk, and four strikeouts on only 77 pitches. Joe Smith needed some help from Bautista to keep Valdez’ runner Davis from scoring, as the first batter he faced, Jed Lowrie, laced one into the alley in right centre, but Bautista caught up to it, barely, snatching the ball out of the air when it was already past him. Eventually, Smith struck out Chapman with Davis on third to end the inning.

Gray finished strong for Oakland. He allowed three baserunners over the last four innings he worked after the sketchy second. Only the Donaldson walk in the third advanced past first base; a walk to Donaldson, again, in the fifth, and a one-out single by Tulowitzki in the sixth never advanced to second.

Sonny Gray’s line was 6 innings pitched, no earned runs, five hits, two walks, nine strikeouts and 103 pitches. For the scouts of all the playoff contenders hunkering together in the stands it was a pretty good showing, as long as a team that’s interested in him is prepared to have him do a little remedial PFP (pitchers’ fielding practice; they do tons of it in spring training and it’s universally hated.)

After Gray, the A’s used former Jay Liam Hendriks for an inning, and he gave up two walks but struck out 2, and Simon Castro, who hit Morales and gave up a single to Tulowitzki leading off the Jays’ eighth, then just served up the ball while Toronto blundered its way out of the inning, Carrera bunting into a fielder’s choice at third and Tulowitzki wandering off second on Pillar’s short fly to centre and getting himself doubled off.

As for the Jays, the reliable Ryan Tepera walked one but benefitted from a good fielding play of his own, and one by Smoak at first to get out of the eighth, and Roberto Osuna picked up his twenty-sixth save. After Yonder Alonso hit a single opposite the shift, he shut down the A’s with one strikeout, and watched Donaldson make a fine grab toward the line off Healy to save a double and end the game.

Let’s circle back to our initial topic and consider Cesar Valdez once again, this time from the perspective of tonight’s performance. He was in charge the whole way, pitched economically, and fulfilled the primary mission of a spot starter, to pitch multiple innings effectively, to keep his team in the game and to give the weary arms in his bullpen a break.

When John Gibbons removed Cesar Valdez from the game tonight after he gave up the leadoff double to Khris Davis in the top of the seventh, he received a huge ovation from the crowd of nearly 41,000 Toronto fans filling the TV Dome. It’s impossible for us to imagine how he must have felt as he walked off the mound to the dugout bathed in that adulation.

Were all those years of apprenticeship worth this one moment in the spotlight? Only Cesar Valdez can say, but I have no doubt that he’d rather think about his next start for Toronto, which he has surely earned.

To conclude, think of this: Cesar Valdez’ first major league win came on May 3, 2010, when he pitched five innings for the win in Houston against the Astros. His second win came tonight in Toronto against the Oakland Athletics. On July 25, 2017.

I hate to keep reverting to Yogi-isms, but it looked like “déjà vu all over again” after the top of the first inning of tonight’s home stand opener between Toronto and the equally-struggling Oakland Athletics.

Francisco Liriano, whose last two starts for Toronto had totalled three and two thirds innings, walked a couple, gave up a stolen base, threw a wild pitch, and chewed through thirty pitches to get out of the inning. He only gave up one run, but he needed a bit of luck on his side, or rather old friend Rajai Davis’ foolhardiness, to keep the Athletics to just the one tally.

Toronto caught a break when after Liriano walked the first two hitters Rajai Davis decided to break for third and was thrown out on a close play by Russell Martin. Marus Semien subsequently stole second and scored on Ryon Healy’s base hit that would have scored Davis as well.

Not to mention that Steve Pearce let Healy’s RBI single bounce over his head in left field for an error that in the end had no effect on the scoring, as Liriano worked his way out of the jam without further damage.

My son and his wife and their two little boys were over for dinner this evening, and he watched the first part of the game with me on the big 4K screen, a treat he likes to sneak in when he visits. He doesn’t see too many games these days, but he played when he was a kid, and knows baseball. He couldn’t believe how troubled and distracted Liriano looked during that inning, and agreed with me that he was doomed to another short outing.

J, our older grandson, who’s almost five, likes to cuddle in with his dad to watch, but he’s far more interested in the commercials than the game. He likes the inventiveness and the graphics. I’ve never seen a kid beg to see one more round of commercials before going to put his PJs on . . .

So, yeah, it wasn’t looking good going to the home half of the first. The A’s had long-time minor-league journeyman Chris Smith making a spot start tonight. (How often has it been that we’ve had to explore the background of a mostly unknown veteran minor leaguer? This should be the year of the understudy, as far as starting rotations are concerned.)

About Chris Smith, the first thing to remember is that he’s Oakland’s Chris Smith, and not Toronto’s relief pitcher currently on the major league roster of the Blue Jays. The second is that if he’s not grizzled, and he is, kinda, he should be. He’s made 66 mound appearances in the majors, twelve for Boston in 2008, 38 for Milwaukee in 2009-2010, thirteen for Oakland last year, and three for Oakland so far this year. In the meantime, and think about these numbers, he’s appeared in 316 games in the minor leagues, starting in 2002, and started 164.

And Chris Smith is still trying to catch on with a major league team, at the age of 36. You have to take your hat off to him, and I do. Such players are the bedrock of professional baseball. Without them, the whole edifice crumbles.

And how many times this year have the Jays been stonewalled by a guy like Chris Smith? After Liriano’s rough start, would the Jays’ lineup go down meekly and set the stage for another frustrating game?

Well, no, they came out and hit the ball hard. Really hard. They only got one run to show for it, but they sure rattled Oakland’s cage. In fact, if it weren’t for not one, but two sparkling running grabs in left by the normally lacklustre left fielder Khris Davis, Russell Martin’s solo homer would have scored two, and Josh Donaldson would have been on second with nobody out and two runs in. But, wishes and horses, and all that stuff, Davis made the two plays, and Justin Smoak hit an easy fly to centre to let Smith off the hook.

(If you want a measure of Khris Davis’ defensive liabilities, the Athletics regularly insert Rajai Davis in left as a late-inning defensive replacement. Anybody who watched Rajai play the outfield when he was a Blue Jay will get the irony of this.)

So after one inning we had a slightly altered script from Toronto’s recent past, and a new ball game, all tied up. The question now became which pitcher would settle into the game, and which would not, or maybe it’s the other way around . . .

Strangely, Liriano started throwing strikes, and Smith stopped inducing hard contact. Liriano set the Athletics down in order in the second, third, and fourth, retiring eleven in a row after the run-scoring single in the first. Smith gave up only a two-out single to Zeke Carrera in the second, and retired the side in order in the third. After three innings, the pitch counts had evened out pretty well, Liriano at 53 and Smith at 46.

In the top of the fourth inning the Jays’ spirits had to be picked up by Ryan Goins’ effort to flag down a popup just inside the right field foul line. Playing in the shift for the right-handed Ryon Healy, that is, behind second, Goins had to go an immense distance to make a sliding catch of a ball just inside the line that no one else had a chance on.

Unlike Liriano, Smith ran into trouble in the bottom of the fourth as the Jays rallied for the two runs that would put them in the lead for good. In fact, the A’s were lucky that the damage wasn’t worse, as the Jays came up with two hard-hit base hits with the bases loaded that only scored one run each.

Josh Donaldson led off with a double, and Smith walked Justin Smoak to set up the double play before retiring Steve Pearce on a short fly to left. Troy Tulowitzki then drew a walk to load the bases, and Zeke Carrera, and then Ryan Goins, the latter with two outs, knocked in runners from third with base hits to centre. Smoak had to stop at third on Carrera’s hit, and Tulowitzki had to stop at third on Goins’ hit. With a little more speed on the bases, Toronto could have built a bigger cushion, but you play the cards you’re dealt, right?

The A’s cut the lead to one in the fifth on Mark Chapman’s solo home run off Liriano in what turned out to be his last inning. Despite the rocky start, Liriano had settled in to the point that he went out after five innings with the lead, having given up only two runs on two hits and two walks. He’d only reached 86 pitches, but manager John Gibbons wasn’t going to press his luck.

After Joe Biagini benefitted from a double play that erased a leadoff walk and finished his inning on only ten pitches, Chris Smith returned for his sixth inning, which he survived without giving up another run thanks to a baserunning mistake by Steve Pearce. After leading off with a double, he had moved to third on a groundout to short behind second by Tulowitzki. Gibbons put on the safety squeeze with Pillar at the plate, a bit of a surprise from the Toronto manager, but not a bad idea. Except that Pearce did not break immediately for the plate when Pillar got the bunt down, and Smith cut him down at the plate with a nice play.

With both bullpens in play, once again it was the Toronto relief corps that prevailed. Biagini finished the seventh, throwing only sixteen pitches over his two innings. Ryan Tepera likewise breezed the eighth in thirteen pitches with a strikeout, and Roberto Osuna blew the visitors away in the ninth by striking out the side for his twenty-fifth save in twenty-nine opportunities.

If you’re counting carefully, the Toronto relievers pitched four innings and faced the minimum number of batters. Only Rajai Davis reached, in the sixth, when Biagini walked him, saw him erased by a double play. For a team whose fans have always complained about its bullpen, that’s a pretty impressive show, and not for the first time this years, either.

The Jays added an insurance run off Canadian John Axford in the seventh. Axford allowed the first three batters he faced to reach, on two walks and a single, and left the bases loaded for Josh Smith, who walked Smoak to force in the fourth Toronto run.

Well, that was different: a neat, well-pitched game in which Francisco Liriano resurrected himself from the dead and passed off a lead to a perfect bullpen, and a game in which not once, but twice, Jays’ hitters came up with base hits with runners in scoring position.

Could this be the start of something? Is it too late? Stay tuned: Sonny Gray goes for Oakland tomorrow night in his last audition for a playoff role, er, his last start before the trade deadline. He goes up against the Toronto version of Oakland’s Chris Smith, another grizzled veteran of the minor league wars, Cesar Valdez. Valdez impressed over four innings picking up Aaron Sanchez’ short start against Boston on the nineteenth. Let’s see what he can do covering Sanchez’ next scheduled start.

Anybody who says all you need is a good night’s sleep is a liar.

The last pitch of Saturday night’s Cleveland-Toronto game was deposited far up into the right field seats by Francisco Lindor in the tenth inning to give Cleveland a 2-1 win over Toronto.

Sunday afternoon, after a quick and dreary Toronto first inning against Corey Kluber, the first three Cleveland hitters against Jay Happ put the ball in play safely, and Cleveland was ahead 1-0 before they had even made an out.

Good night’s sleep or not, the Blue Jays had entered a Sunday afternoon nightmare, fourteen strikeouts by Kluber in an embarrassingly easy and boring 8-1 Cleveland victory that sealed the home team sweep over the staggering visitors from north of the border, and likely convinced the last three playoff believers in Toronto that the jig was up for their favourite team.

I’m not combining the two weekend games in Cleveland into one report in order to be done with the whole dismal duty more quickly, though that would be a consideration, but because I missed the majority of Saturday night’s game. In adherence to my strict policy of not reporting what I haven’t seen, I’m covering only the end of that game, and then going on to Sunday though, truth be told, I’d rather not.

It’s not that I missed the first six innings of Saturday night’s game for a non-baseball related issue, but precisely because it was related to baseball, in a way that was very dear to the saddened heart of yer humble scribe.

Starting in 1989, and for most of the next decade, I was way too busy coaching baseball to follow the Blue Jays anywhere nearly as carefully as I do now. Yes, that includes the hallowed years of 1992 and 1993.

My second coaching career (our two sons were born ten and a half years apart, so I had two coaching careers) began with a house league junior T-Ball team in the Islington Minor Baseball League in Etobicoke in1989. As is often done at that level, two coaches were assigned (coerced, usually) to each team, and in most cases they would meet for the first time at the first team practice in the early spring. That first practice was the day I met GS.

The coaching partnership that started with those little rugrats in 1989 continued unbroken for the next seven years. GS was the finest man I ever knew. He was loyal, dependable, consistent, wise, and funny, with sparkling eyes and an impish grin. We complemented each other perfectly. I was the inspirer, the teacher/demonstrator, and had the final call. Putting it in terms of working on the field, I coached third and he coached first, if you get the point.

He was the detail man; he worked out the drills and the routines that enabled us to teach the game, which we did very successfully, I must say. He was also the one-on-one guy, who always recognized the need for some individual counselling before I did, and looked after it in a way that made the player feel like he had been treated not only fairly, but as an equal. Together, we took a group of players from a relatively poor and under-financed organization, and made them into a respectable and competitive team, year after year, until the distractions of the mid-teen years broke us up, as inevitably happens.

I cherished my time working with GS, and always intended, as he did with me, to keep in touch after our coaching days were over. As often happens, however, various directions in our lives pulled us apart, and over time we lost nearly all contact. It was a relationship best characterized by the thought, “I really should get in touch with GS one of these days.” But, mostly, we didn’t.

Until the Canada Day weekend, when I received a phone call from his wife, to tell me that her husband, an experienced long-distance cyclist, had been killed in a collision with a car only a few blocks from his home. This superbly-fit, universally loved seventy-year-old had been taken away in an instant, when I wasn’t looking. I was not only in shock over the news, I was also distraught over the fact that I had allowed the relationship to fade over the years, and now it was too late to repair the gap.

Saturday night, an hour before Marcus Stroman and Danny Salazar were to face off in Cleveland, a memorial gathering was scheduled to honour the life and achievements of my good friend GS. Of course I had to attend, and of course that took precedence over my Blue Jays’ watching duties. It was a bittersweet evening, with many people there from different facets of his life, not to mention his wife and adult children. It was nice to reconnect, but none of us would have chosen an occasion like this to do it.

I spent most of my time reminiscing with two of my former players, and I was pleased and honoured to be told by both of them that the life lessons, not to mention the baseball lessons, that GS and I had instilled in them, had sustained them into their mid-thirties. The life equivalents of such baseball traditions as always running on the field, wearing the uniform properly, and executing the rundown play correctly, had helped them to become the fine, responsible young adults that they are today.

So my first information about Saturday night’s game came from Jerry and Joe on the car radio as I drove away from the gathering. I learned that Cleveland was leading 1-0 in the sixth inning, that Danny Salazar had been nearly untouchable, and the only run came on a bobble of a double-play ball by Josh Donaldson at third.

By the time I got home, Michael Brantley was on third, courtesy of a double and a Stroman wild pitch, with only one out. By the time I got into the house and turned the game on, the inning was over and it was still 1-0. There’s no video of the second out, which was the crucial one, but it was a fly ball to centre by Jose Ramirez, and I have to assume it was too shallow to risk sending Brantley. Then Stroman got Carlos Santana to ground out to second and Brantley died at third.

Regardless of whether there was any chance of the Jays breaking through, either against Salazar or the back end of the Cleveland bullpen, the fact that Stroman was pitching into the seventh inning was huge for manager John Gibbons and his beleaguered bullpen.

Both pitchers continued their mastery in the seventh. Salazar retired the top of the Toronto order easily, Jose Bautista on a soft grounder to third, Russell Martin on a booming fly to left, and Josh Donaldson striking out. Stroman gave up a one-out walk to Yan Gomes, but there was no further damage, as he struck out the first and fourth hitters he faced.

Cleveland manager Terry Francona decided to close the books on Salazar after the seventh, despite the fact that he had only thrown 86 pitches over seven innings, giving up one hit, no runs, and no walks while striking out eight.

Obviously Francona must be having second thoughts about pulling his starter. In his defense, why would he be concerned about bringing in Andrew Miller to pitch the eighth and protect a 1-0 lead? How was he to know, how was anyone to know, that Justin Smoak, turned around to the right side against the left-handed Miller, would take a four-seamer out over the plate on a long and beautiful ride over the right-field fence, where it hit a railing and bounced sassily back unto the field, to tie the game?

After the Smoak shot, Miller retired the side, notching two strikeouts while giving up a base hit to Steve Pearce that came to nothing.

It probably would have taken a strait jacket to keep Marcus Stroman from coming back out for the eighth now that the score was knotted, and he almost got through it. He retired Lindor on a hard-hit grounder to short, but then walked Michael Brantley, bringing Edwin to the plate. After Edwin destroyed us Friday night, how piquant was it to have him come up against the Jays’ young right-hander, his erstwhile pal and cheerleader? Don’t know what’ll happen next time, but Stroman came out on top this time, inducing a mighty whiff on a high 1-2 slider. What a feat it would have been for him to finish off his night by retiring the tough Jose Ramirez for the third out, but it was not to be: Ramirez singled to left on Stroman’s 117^th pitch, and that was the end of his strong night, seven and two thirds innings, one scratchy run on five hits with five walks and seven strikeouts.

Ryan Tepera came in and in another dramatic confrontation struck out Carlos Santana on a 3-2 pitch to end the inning.

There seems to be a new approach to using your closer in tie ball games. It’s become the fashion for the home team to use its closer in the top of the ninth of a tie game. The idea is to give your team the best possible chance to get to the bottom of the ninth still tied, since the advantage is with the home team in the tie game.

Accordingly, Cody Allen came in to face Darwin Barney leading off the ninth and committed the cardinal sin for a closer, walking the leadoff man, number nine in the lineup, no less. But first base coach Jim Lieper and Cleveland left fielder Michael Brantley teamed up to erase Allen’s mistake. Jose Bautista hit a fly ball fairly deep to left field that Brantley camped under. Lieper decided to challenge Brantley’s arm and have Barney move up to second on the catch, but Brantley fired it all the way in the air to Ramirez at second, in enough time for Ramirez to get the tag on Barney for the double play.

Russell Martin grounded out to the second baseman for the third out, and it was on to the bottom of the ninth, when Jays’ manager John Gibbons played the visiting team’s tied-game card, and brought in Joe Biagini, rather than his closer. Despite walking Yan Gomes with one out, Biagini sent it into extra innings, striking out Almonte and Zimmer in the process.

And so it was off to the tenth, and for anyone dreading a long extra-inning game, there was nothing to worry about here.

Not that the Jays didn’t give it a shot in the top of the tenth. Francona left Cody Allen in, which was a bit of a surprise. He got a ground ball for the first out, except that Francisco Lindor, of all people, booted it, allowing Donaldson to reach first. Then Allen walked Smoak on a 3-2 pitch, and things started to look promising. But Morales struck out, and Pearce, in the most crucial at bat, hit the ball right to Giovanny Urshela near the bag at third, and he was able to make the force on Donaldson for the second out.

At this point Francona decided that Allen had been extended far enough, at 31 pitches, and brought in Brian Shaw to face Kevin Pillar, whom he retired on an easy grounder to Santana at first.

Any hope the Jays had for another kick at the can only lasted as long as it took Danny Barnes to throw seven pitches to Lindor in the bottom of the tenth. Lindor crushed a 2-2 pitch from Barnes, and it was clearly the ball game right off the bat.

2-1 Cleveland, and a tough loss made tougher by the fact that it followed Friday night’s blowout, and wasted a fine performance by the only Jays’ starter who can be depended on to provide a quality start in this season of wasted opportunities and crippling injuries.

If we can’t win behind Stroman, when can we win?

Not on Sunday, it turns out. With the Toronto rotation in disarray, the next best chance for a start that could lead to a win would be behind Jay Happ, who happened to be Sunday’s starter. But when he was up against Corey Kluber, and he gave up four runs in the bottom of the first before he got a second out, what were you left with? A long and painful denouement, as if I had to tell you.

Kluber, despite Cleveland’s appearance in the World Series, flies a bit under the radar in terms of premier starters like Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta, Chris Sale, and the Young Turks of Washington and the Mets. But all you have to do is look at his strikeouts and innings pitched to realize that he’s the real deal. Without overpowering speed, by the end of Sunday’s game, he’d struck out 149 in 108 and a third innings, which worked out to nearly 12.4 strikeouts per nine innings. How long has it been since any Toronto pitcher struck out 12 in a game?

But he started Sunday’s game with two balls beaten into the ground for outs by Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson, and a fly ball to left, opposite field, by Justin Smoak.

This took ten pitches, and the Clevelands were coming up for their hits before most of the crowd was settled in its seats.

If the fans were really late and missed the bottom of the first, they missed most of the fun, so long as they were supporters of the home team. After four pitches by Jay Happ, Cleveland had a run in, runners on first and second, nobody out, and Edwin standing in at the plate.

Carlos Santana singled to centre on a 1-0 pitch. Francisco Lindor bunted toward a vacant third with the shift on on the first pitch. Michael Brantley singled to centre on the first pitch to score Santana. This time Edwin was not the executioner, flying out to Pillar in centre as the runners held their ground. Probably with intent, Happ walked the dangerous Jose Ramirez on four pitches to load the bases, bringing Brandon Guyer to the plate, with the Jays obviously looking for a double play.

They got the double, but not the play, as Guyer cleared the bases with a bullet to the alley in left centre. Appropriately, it one-hopped the fence in the middle of a sign advertising something called “Blaster: Work it like a pro”*. With three not-so-bad runners on the bases, all of them rode home on the hit, and Kluber had four runs to play with. Happ retired Abraham Almonte and Yan Gomes to strand Guyer at second, but the damage . . . well, you know the rest . . .

*I looked around for “Blaster” and apparently it’s a marketing tool that you can buy to game the system and increase the ranking of your YouTube videos. Strange thing to advertise on the outfield fence of a ball park, methinks. How many baseball fans spend the rest of their time dreaming of YouTube viral-ity? (Viral-ness?)

Just in case Toronto had any thoughts of striking back right away against Kluber, he came out in the bottom of the second and struck out the side, Kendrys Morales, Steve Pearce, and Miguel Montero, on thirteen pitches.

And that was the ball game. So the Blue Jays return to Toronto with their tail feathers between their legs (do birds even do that?) after going 3-7 on a road trip where they needed an 8-2 to continue to entertain any thoughts of contending . . .

Wait, what? I’ve only covered an inning and a half of the game? You actually want more about this Toronto turkey fest, this nothing burger, in the immortal words of the Fascist mouthpieces in Washington?

Well, what can I do? I’ll try to find something interesting to write a bit about, but I’m not spending too much time on this. I’ve got better things to do with my time, like changing the furnace filters.

Let’s start with Jay Happ. The description of his first inning makes it sound like it was a pretty bad outing for him, and if you just look at the scoreboard, it was. But when you think about it, he’s a fly ball pitcher, and five of the seven runs he gave up came on the sort of elevated contact that he regularly gets, and may sometimes be solid, and sometimes not. The Guyer double in the first was one, and the Brantley home run after a Santana walk in the sixth was the other.

Which brings us to an important point: Happ held on through six innings, absorbing nine hits and seven runs, and while his inability to contain the Cleveland offence contributed to the Jays’ loss today, his survival through six innings gave the Toronto bullpen a much-needed break after the drubbing Friday night and the extra-inning game Saturday.

After Happ’s day was finished the Smith Brothers came in for Toronto and dispensed, not cough drops, but baseballs, to finish off the game. Joe Smith pitched the seventh, his first appearance since returning from the DL. He gave up a run on an Almonte double and a Gomes RBI single with two outs, but he got his three outs on strikeouts of Guyer and Urshela, and a late-swing foul fly by Ramirez.

Chris Smith, recently recalled from Buffalo for his second callup to the Jays, made his second appearance of the season and kept Cleveland off the board despite giving up a two-out double to Zimmer followed by a walk to Edwin, ending the inning by inducing a fly ball to centre by Ramirez on a full count. Chris Smith’s record is still perfect: two innings pitched in two appearances, with an ERA of 0.00.

Not much you can say about Corey Kluber. His line says it all, seven and two thirds innings, one run on five hits with two walks and fourteen strikeouts. He threw 120 pitches, a season high, but this wasn’t really out of line; in his last eight starts he’s thrown over 100 pitches, and in only one of these did he fail to go at least seven innings, the exception being 101 pitches over five innings in Detroit on July ninth.

So how did Toronto manage to score even one run off Kluber? Well, in the top of the third leadoff batter Kevin Pillar went up to the plate determined to put a swing on it if Kluber threw a strike, which he did. And which Pillar hit one hell of a long way out of the park to left for the Jays’ only run. At the time that made it 4-1 for Cleveland, and the evidence that Kluber was actually human might have spurred Toronto on to chip further into the Cleveland lead, but it didn’t. Toronto had a runner in scoring position in the fourth and in the sixth but were unable to cash him in.

A last note that should be mentioned. It may seem unfair to point out that for the second day in a row Josh Donaldson mishandled what could have been a crucial play. In the third inning, down 4-1, Happ gave up a single to Edwin and then retired Ramirez on a fly ball to left. Then Guyer hit a sharp grounder to third that Donaldson fielded cleanly but then pulled his throw to second and all hands were safe. Happ fanned Almonte, and Goins made a fine play on a sharp grounder by Gomes to end the inning, so there was no damage from the error, but after his bobble allowed the first run to score against Stroman on Saturday, you have to wonder: is he still suffering from an injury, or are his batting woes bleeding over onto the field?

So, as I was saying, we needed to have a great road trip, and we had a lousy one instead, and now the future seems clearer, if not very rosy.

Sorry, folks, I’m just the messenger here.

I had to check the calendar tonight to make sure it was still July, and we hadn’t jumped ahead to October: after tonight’s embarrassing loss in Cleveland, it’s clear that the Jays’ turkey of a 2017 season is cooked and ready to eat. Bring on the cranberries and pumpkin pie!

Here are the facts: the starting rotation is in shreds: only Marcus Stroman and Jay Happ are healthy, and Happ is throwing far more pitches per start than he did last year for Toronto. Because of the problems with the starters, the relievers are gassed. With other teams bombing at will against our faltering pitching staff, the hope that our slump-riddled offence can trade bunches of runs with the opposition is zero.

Tonight, Marco Estrada looked a lot better than in his last few appearances. A whole lot better. For a while.

In fact, other than a long solo homer by Edwin Encarnacion leading off the second, and a Carlos Santana double in the fourth, he looked a lot like the Marco Estrada of yore: two strikeouts and a popup in the first inning, a popup and two grounders in the second after the Encarnacion shot to centre, three popups in the third, and a little help from his friends in the fourth, in which Michael Brantley skyed to right, Encarnacion walked, and Jose Ramirez popped up down the right-field line for Ryan Goins. This brought Carlos Santana to the plate and resulted in the second hard-hit ball of the night off Estrada.

Santana smoked a double to dead centre field, over Kevin Pillar’s head. The ball hit the wall hard and rolled back toward the infield. Pillar tracked it down and fired to the cutoff man, Troy Tulowitzki, who turned and threw a strike to Russell Martin at the plate to cut down Encarnacion, trying to score from first with two outs.

By this time, the Jays had manufactured a 3-1 lead over Cleveland, in a most un-Toronto-like way, without the aid of a home run. They picked up their first run in the first inning by, first, not wasting a leadoff double by Jose Bautista, and, second, getting a two-out RBI single from Kendrys Morales.

This came off Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer who, fortunately for the Indians, did not play with his drone on Thursday night, and so brought a healthy pitching hand to the game tonight. Unfortunately for him, at least in the short term, he also brought his propensity to labour mightily to find the strike zone. It took him 33 pitches to get out of the first, and another 19, for 52 in total, in the second, when the Jays cashed their second leadoff double, this time by Zeke Carrera, to improve their lead to 2-0.

Looking more like the Kansas City Royals than the Blue Jays, they utilized a ground ball to first by Kevin Pillar to move Carrera to third, and then got a line sacrifice fly to centre by Ryan Goins to score Carrera.

It wasn’t all magic for Toronto at the plate though. After stranding a two-out single by Justin Smoak in the third, Troy Tulowitzki led off the fourth with the team’s third straight leadoff double, and was followed by Carrera drawing a walk, but this time they came up empty. Pillar stroked a liner to centre that looked promising but surprisingly carried to centre fielder Bradley Zimmer’s glove for the first out, and then second baseman Erik Gonzalez turned Goins’ bouncer into a quick double play.

In the fifth, though, Bauer was within one out of retiring the side in order, having struck out the first two batters, but he walked Donaldson to bring Smoak to the plate, who produced Toronto’s third run, and the second one by way ofa two-out base hit, a booming double to left that scored Donaldson. At 112 pitches and down 3-1, it looked like Bauer’s long and weary night was at an end, and he would go out without any chance for a win.

But in the bottom of the fifth, Estrada’s resurgence came to an abrupt end. He would only get two outs in the inning, see his pitch count balloon from 57 after four innings to 96, and lose the lead for Toronto, for good.

Cleveland’s muscular but speedy right fielder Abraham Almonte led off with a booming drive to left centre on a 2-0 pitch—and yes, Estrada fell behind on the first batter—and Pillar tracked it to the wall, climbed the wall, but just failed to reach it. By the time Zeke Carrera tracked down the carom, Almonte was chugging into third. Roberto Perez walked. Erik Gonzalez singled to right to score Almonte to narrow the lead to 3-2. Estrada fought back by striking out Bradley Zimmer, then loaded the bases by walking Francisco Lindor. Cleveland tied the game with Michael Brantley’s ground single up the middle that scored Perez.

This brought Edwin to the plate for his third at-bat against Estrada; he went to 3-2, fouled off a pitch, then drove one into the gap in left centre that scored Gonzalez and Brantley, who had stolen second. Cleveland had a 5-3 lead, and once again Estrada failed to survive the fifth inning. Aaron Loup came in to end the inning, by striking out Carlos Santana after Jose Ramirez had singled to right, with Encarnacion and third-base coach Mike Sarbaugh choosing not to challenge Bautista’s arm and risk getting thrown out at the plate again on the Ramirez hit.

Remembering that this was Cleveland, with the twin stalwarts Andrew Miller and Cody Allen in the back of the bullpen, Toronto had a window of the sixth and seventh to bounce back from the two-run deficit. Manager Terry Francona brought in lefty Tyler Olson to face Carrera, and John Gibbons responded by subbing Steve Pearce, who was hit on the leg by Olson, putting the leadoff runner on.

Francona called for Brian Shaw, who has been nearly as effective against Toronto as the two back-end giants, and he did not fail his team this time. Two ground balls went for fielder’s choices, and then Bautista popped out to Santana in foul territory. Shaw retired the side in order in the seventh, closing the window that the Jays were hoping to take advantage of. In the meantime, Loup stayed on to breeze through the Cleveland sixth, striking out the last two batters he faced.

This brought us to the Cleveland seventh, an inning in which not only Toronto’s chances in this game, but perhaps it hopes for the season, went up in smoke as

Cleveland ground out 8 runs off Loup, Jeff Beliveau, and Cesar Valdez to salt the game away.

I’m not sure whether John Gibbons’ pitching decisions at this juncture of the game were determined by necessity or his own quirkiness, but firstly it seemed odd that he would have sent Loup out again to start the seventh. True, he’d only thrown seventeen pitches to rescue Estrada and then pitch the sixth. And true, the first batter was the left-handed Zimmer. But on the other hand, it was highly unusual to ask Loup to bridge over three innings, and his numbers against left-handed hitters aren’t all that great in any case.

Regardless of his manager’s reasoning, Loup walked Zimmer, and then was helped out when Bautista made a nice running catch of a drive off the bat of Francisco Lindor. But that drive to right drove Loup from the game, and with the left-handed Michael Brantley coming up, Gibbons elected to go to his second lefty, Jeff Beliveau.

Now, Beliveau’s done a pretty good job for the Jays so far, and has rung up some big outs. Whether he was out of gas today, or he’d left his smoke and mirrors in the bullpen, or the Indians just had his number, he had nothing to add to the proceedings except gas for the fire. He hit Brantley, then gave up an RBI Texas League single to Edwin to score Zimmer for his fourth ribbie against his old team, and close out Loup’s record. The rest was all on Beliveau, and it wasn’t pretty. Ramirez doubled into the gap in left centre to score Brantley. Santana singled to right to score Edwin and send Ramirez to third. Almonte homered to right to clear the bases and bring Beliveau’s run total to four. Then he walked Perez before getting the hook from John Gibbons, who brought in Cesar Valdez.

Valdez, who’d been nearly perfect in his last outing against Boston when he went four innings of long relief and gave up one hit while striking out five, didn’t get off any easier than Beliveau. Gonzalez’ double to left moved Perez to third, and they both scored on Zimmer’s single. Lindor’s double to centre sent Zimmer to third, but both were stranded there when Valdez escaped the inning with a strikeout and a deep fly ball to centre by Edwin that stayed in the park.

Totting it all up, Loup was charged with one of the runs, Beliveau, who didn’t retire a batter, gave up six, and Valdez gave up one. From a doable two-run deficit, Toronto’s deficit had grown to ten, and what happened after hardly mattered.

As always, the score as meaningless once it was in the books, just another loss, but what did matter is that Marco Estrada, though he threw better longer, still couldn’t get to five innings again, and the consequence of that was that more pitches had to be thrown by more relief pitchers, raising, of course, concern about the immediate future. How long will it be before the entire house of cards comes down?