Long Ball Stories

In my report on Friday night’s game, I mentioned that early on, before the Red Sox lineup hit the jet stream, it felt like it was going to be another one of those 10-8 Toronto-Boston games. Well, this afternoon’s Boston win over the Blue Jays to take the series was “another of those 10-8 Toronto-Boston games”, leaving aside the final, meaningless Sox run in the seventh inning. Only problem is, Boston, not Toronto, was on the long end of the score. Where’s the sense in that?

You had to think that in his last visit to his favourite ballpark not named Fenway David Ortiz was going to do something dramatic. But nobody expected it to take until the sixth inning of the final game of the series to do it, and we didn’t want it to be that dramatic!

Something had to give in that sixth inning. The Jays were clinging to an 8-7 lead that everybody in the ball park, hell, everybody in Canada, knew was not going to be the final score of the game. Aaron Loup had done his lefty thing by fanning Jackie Bradley leading off. Then Manager John Gibbons called on Bo Schultz to face the two right-handed hitters at the top of the Red Sox order. Dustin Pedroia singled. Xander Bogaerts singled. So much for Schultz. Gibbons brought on Joaquin Benoit to face David Ortiz. Wait a minute. Benoit is a righty. Was Gibby mad? No. Brett Cecil had already been used to get Ortiz out in the fourth. What about Matt Dermody, the left-handed rookie call-up? Are you mad? So, Benoit it was.

Benoit had not yet yielded a run since arriving in Toronto over 19 appearances. After an uncharacteristically spotty first half of the season with Seattle, he’s blossomed here as the seventh-inning part of the BenGriNa troika. And Ortiz, well, like I said, everybody was waiting for his farewell gesture, and so far in the series he hadn’t really come close to getting all of it. The first pitch from Benoit was a changeup. Papi flailed at it. Encouraged, Benoit tried another one. Oops. Boston 10, Toronto 8. It was dramatic, all right.

“Fans” calling in after the game to “Yahoos ‘r Us” were all “Fire Gibbie! What the hell was he pitching to Ortiz for, instead of putting him on?” Well, oh ye of little brain, Sox Manager John Farrell might not be the most popular guy around Toronto after dumping us to take his “dream job” in Boston, but he ain’t otherwise stupid. And that’s why he moved Mookie Betts to the cleanup spot hitting behind Ortiz. Anybody in baseball in 2016 who would rather pitch to Betts with the bases loaded and only one out, having just moved Pedroia from second to third with the walk, rather than pitch to Ortiz with runners on first and second is just dumb. Ortiz can beat you two ways, sure, but the only one you worry about is the three-run dinger. If he knocks Pedroia in with a base hit, the game’s only tied, and he’s either out of the game for a runner, or left in to gum up the works on the bases for the Sox. And if you want to get all analytic-y about it, he’s a slightly more likely candidate to be fanned than Betts. Pitching to Ortiz rather than Betts in this situation is a no-brainer.

Now, besides clarifying why the right-handed Benoit was pitching to Ortiz, if you didn’t see the game, your other obvious question is “Wait a minute. Sixth inning. Benoit’s in. Cecil’s already pitched. Loup’s already pitched. Schultz was in and out in the sixth. Wasn’t this Aaron Sanchez’ start? What the hell happened here?”

You’re right. The dramatic contretemps between Benoit and Ortiz in the sixth needs context. A lot of context. And boy, have we got context!

First, an interesting and significant lineup change for Toronto today: Devon Travis remained in the leadoff spot, but as the designated hitter. Ryan Goins was slotted in to play second and bat ninth. This is an indication not only of how significant Gibbie feels this game is, but also that the alarms about Travis’ defence are now finally audible to the manager and his coaching staff.

The rotation matchup for the whole series was definitely an advantage for the Blue Jays. First, David Price had pitched against the Padres on Wednesday and was not scheduled for the weekend. (Wonder what that says about Farrell’s thinking—he needed Price more against San Diego than against us? Or is he just a boob?) Second, the Sox had in effect wasted Porcello’s fine effort in a blowout where it wasn’t needed, while Jays’ Manager John Gibbon’s had to a certain extent sloughed off (euchre term—means playing a throw-away card to save your good ones) by having Marco Estrada take the opening game, since his recent outings had been less consistent than Jay Happ’s or Sanchez’. Then you had Happ versus Eduardo Rodriguez, which worked out, and now Sanchez versus Buchholz, which looked very promising.

I made much yesterday of the significance of Happ retiring Pedroia to lead off the game. We had to be happy today when he went down swinging on a 2-2 pitch. Even happier when Xander Bogaerts lofted an easy fly ball to right for the second out, only seven pitches so far. Then things turned. Sanchez missed twice on a 2-2 count to Ortiz, and had to face Mookie Betts with Ortiz on first. He fell behind Betts 3-1, after walking Ortiz, and little alarm bells started to go off about his control. We had to turn to more pressing concerns because Betts jumped on the 3-1 and lined a shot to centre. Kevin Pillar may have started in before going back, and that may have kept him from making the catch, but in any case the ball was over his head and took a long carom away from Pillar off the wall, allowing Ortiz to chug all the way around to score. Hanley Ramirez obligingly went down swinging on three pitches to strand Betts at second, but oh, those Red Sox, they’d done it again.

Clay Buchholz mimicked Sanchez’ first, disposing of Devon Travis and Josh Donaldson on three pitches, but then Edwin Encarnation torched one to centre to tie the game. After walking Jose Bautista, Buchholz fanned Russell Martin to end the Jays’ mirror image bottom half of the first to the Sox’ top half. Strangely, even the first inning pitch count was the same, 22 each.

As Sanchez took the mound for the second inning, the question was whether the walk/double was just a small blip on the radar or something more. With the insertion of Ryan Goins already paying a dividend, Sanchez retired Travis Shaw who led off with a sharp bouncer between first and second that was headed for right field until Goins, racing over, slid on his knees to cut it off. His momentum carried him into a spin, and, while balanced precariously on his right knee, he made an accurate throw to Edwin for the out. As he threw he collapsed onto his rear and sat there to watch the out being recorded.

The play by Goins was Sanchez’ last hurrah, though we didn’t know it at the time. He walked Brock Holt on a 3-2 pitch, wild-pitched him to second, watched him steal third while walking Sandy Leon. This brought Jackie Bradley to the plate. I said a few days back that I wasn’t sure yet if Bradley is the real deal at the plate, but he’s certainly a real-enough deal for a number nine hitter. Real enough to go the wrong way on a 2-2 pitch and hit a three-run homer to left centre. Suddenly, shockingly, this crucial game had gone south for Toronto’s best starter. Pedroia lined out to Goins at second, and Bogaerts grounded out to Troy Tulowitzki, but after an inning and a half it was 4-1 Boston.

Cue the old cliché “ya gotta shut ’em down after a big inning by your guys.” Buchholz gave up a leadoff single to Tulo, but got Michael Saunders on a fly ball to centre and fanned Kevin Pillar and Goins. Sanchez continued to look shaky in the top of the third, giving up a drive to centre by Ortiz that took Pillar back to the fence for a fine catch, and walking Betts. He managed to finish the inning on a Ramirez fielder’s choice at second and a Shaw fly ball to left, but the worrisome part was his pitch count, 62 after three.

It was time for Buchholz to go into cruise control in the Jays’ third, but he couldn’t find the button on his dashboard. It only took one pitch for him to retire Travis on a foul popup to the first baseman, but then Buchholz started throwing . . . balls. He walked Donaldson. Edwin singled off Pedroia’s glove. He walked Bautista. He walked Russell Martin, to plate Donaldson. With the lead cut to two, the bases loaded and only one out, the crowd started to stir as Tulo, who had been slashing line drives all over the park all weekend, came to the plate. A hit now and we’d start all over again. Tulo didn’t hit a liner, though. He blasted one over the bullpen into the seats in left for a grand slam and suddenly the good guys had a 6-4 lead.

If you weren’t watching closely you might have thought that the lead gave Sanchez a new lease on life, as he retired the first two batters in the top of the fourth. But look again. Brock Holt hit a smash down the first base line that Edwin made a great play on, to dive, cut it off, and get to the bag. Sandy Leon hit one right on the screws to Pillar in centre for the second out. Then they started falling in, a Bradley single to centre, a Pedroia double to left, and a Bogaerts single to centre that scored two to tie the game, with Bogaerts going to second as Pillar missed the cutoff man. Bogaerts also drove Sanchez from the game, after only three and two thirds innings. Brett Cecil came in to face Ortiz, and got him to fly out to left to end the inning and leave Bogaerts at second.

John Farrell took a lesson from John Gibbons and didn’t bother sending Buchholz back out for the fourth inning. He called on Heath Hembree to take over and Hembree seemed to have caught the two-outs-and-relax bug. He struck out Ryan Goins, albeit on 12 pitches, and Travis, but then walked Josh Donaldson, bringing Edwin to the plate. Edwin hit a line drive over the fence that got out so fast Jerry Howarth didn’t even have enough time to shout “And there she goes”, restoring a two-run lead for the Jays, and reviving the general hilarity that had greeted Tulo’s grand slam. Little did the fans know that there wouldn’t be any more hilarity for them today . . .

Gibbons brought Joe Biagini in for the top of the fifth, in the faint hope (after all, this is Boston) of protecting the two-run lead until the seventh, when it would be time for BenGriNa. Well, that didn’t turn out very well. After getting Betts to fly out to left leading off, Biagini gave up a bomb to centre by Hanley Ramirez, to cut the lead to one. After giving up his first homer of the year on September third, he’d now given up his second, but after that the inning descended into serious wierdness. He struck out Travis Shaw, then walked Brock Holt. On a casual check-in throw over to first, Biagini threw the ball away and Holt moved to third. Then he hit Sandy Leon, and Gibbie had seen enough, calling in Aaron Loup to pitch to the lefty Jackie Bradley. After throwing one strike to Bradley, while Loup was coming set for his second pitch, Holt broke for the plate in a straight steal attempt of home. Loup calmly stepped off, made a good throw to Martin, who put the tag on Holt for the third out. Loup had closed out the inning by throwing one pitch and then picking up an assist.

But the score was 8-7 for the Jays, setting the stage for the Ortiz home run in the top of the sixth that settled the game for good. Though Benoit gave up the dinger to Ortiz, it was Bo Schultz who took the loss, as he had been responsible for the two runners knocked in ahead of Ortiz.

The Sox picked up an insurance run off Danny Barnes in the seventh, but it was hardly necessary, as the Jays were able to mount little challenge over the last four innings against Robbie Ross, Brad Ziegler, Fernando Abad, Koji Uehara, and Craig Kimbrel. (Can you tell the rosters are expanded for September?)

So David Ortiz takes his leave of Toronto, and is probably not nearly as happy as the Toronto fans are to take their leave of him. He is really only a one-dimensional player, but what a dimension it is!

Baltimore won, the Yankees lost, and the upshot is that the tightest division in baseball just got tighter: we are tied with the Orioles, two games behind Boston, and the Yankees are two games farther back.

Next up is Tampa Bay coming in. Oh, boy.

In reflecting on Wednesday night’s loss to the Padres, I spent some time discussing what we talk about when we talk about losing. The underlying theme of my musings was that everything is relative, and losses have to be taken in context. So, to be sure, do wins, like the exciting 6-5 nail-biter tonight over the Orioles. When you lose, keep calm and carry on, as the sweatshirts say. When you win, keep calm and carry on.

Baltimore and Toronto came into tonight’s game from very different directions. The Jays had an off day Thursday. When you have a day off, it’s not just a waiting time, though we fans all get restless anticipating the first pitch of the next game. Things happen while you’re not playing, both at home and around the division. At home, the off day gives the whole rotation an extra day’s rest; more importantly, it gives the bullpen a little breathing space. For position players and pitchers alike, sore knees get some rest and maybe some therapy. Bumps and bruises start to heal. You catch up on sleep. Meanwhile, your place in the standings can improve without your lifting a finger. Like on Thursday night, when both Baltimore and Boston lost, leaving us one and a half games behind Baltimore and a game ahead of Boston.

Tonight it was almost unfair that the rested Blue Jays got to play on their home grounds against a Baltimore team that had finished a series at home against Colorado Wednesday evening, flown to Minneapolis for a makeup game against the Twins Thursday evening, and then on to Toronto for the weekend series. So the cards were stacked against the Orioles, who had to be more than a little road-weary, but do we really care? Not a bit. Not at all, in fact.

Marco Estrada was not only able to enjoy the off-day like his team-mates, but also went to the mound tonight the beneficiary of Manager John Gibbons’ decision to push his scheduled start against the Padres on Wednesday back to tonight against the Orioles. Besides providing another two days’ rest for Estrada’s ailing back, the decision to hold him back had the added bonus of lining up our three strongest starters for the weekend series with the Orioles.

Well, we saw that from the team’s perspective, and from that of R.A. Dickey, it’s questionable whether the change in rotation turned out well, leading as it did to the 8-4 loss to the Padres that prevented the Jays from sweeping the San Diego series. But of course we’ll never really know whether giving Dickey the start Wednesday was the fatal flaw in the plan, or whether it was just a night when the fates had already chalked up an “L” in the ledger against the Toronto team.

As for Estrada himself, the jury will have to remain out on that. Yes, he got the win. Yes, he went six innings, in fact turned in a quality start, since one of the four runs scored against him by the Orioles was unearned. And yes, he got some really big outs with some really big pitches. But he would be the first to admit that it wasn’t a vintage Estrada performance, and he struggled again, particularly with location, a good deal more than his norm for the season so far.

Estrada’s mound opponent for the Orioles today was Kevin Gausman, the young right-hander who was drafted by Baltimore in 2012, and made his MLB debut in 2013. Gausman has been up and down in the Orioles’ system since 2013, with more appearances logged at the big league level each year, but he has essentially served an apprenticeship in an Oriole uniform. In terms of effectiveness he would have to be considered the number three starter in the Baltimore rotation, though his basic numbers are an odd mix of a 2-7 won-lost combined with a decent 3.77 ERA going into today’s start. But he was also coming off a fine seven innings of 4-hit shutout ball against Cleveland the week before.

Estrada looked to have come all the way back when he made Adam Jones look foolish, and feel pretty angry into the bargain, catching him looking on a 1-2 cutter leading off the game. Then Hyun-Soo Kim, facing the extreme shift, calmly bunted toward a vacant third with about as much subterfuge as a National League pitcher laying down a sacrifice. He could have stopped to sign autographs on the way to first, and there still wouldn’t have been a throw. Understandably, Estrada threw four straight balls to Manny Machado before getting Chris Davis to ground out to first, which moved the runners up. Then Mark Trumbo, who hasn’t even remotely padded his prodigious power numbers against the Jays this year, finally did some damage by pounding a ball to centre that even Kevin Pillar knew was over his head. Suddenly, Estrada was down 2-0, and the crowd sat in stunned silence, wondering if the great anticipation for this weekend showdown was about to turn to ashes in the mouth. But Estrada made short work of catcher Matt Wieters, fanning him with a changeup on three pitches, to end the inning.

So Gausman, staked to a two-run lead without throwing a pitch, faced Jose Bautista leading off the bottom of the first. Bautista as you may have noticed, hadn’t gotten untracked at the plate at all since his return from the DL. This mini-slump has added to the angst of Blue Jays’ fans who have been stressing over every rumour, silly or not, swirling aroung Bautista and the trade deadline. But after taking a first-pitch fastball for a strike, Bautista turned on Gausman’s second pitch and jacked it over the wall in left, halving the Baltimore lead after just two pitches. The inning then became a round of Odd Man In for the Jays. Josh Donaldson hit an easy fly to centre. Number three hitter Edwin Encarnacion roped one to left to tie the game. Michael Saunders grounded out meekly to second, and then Troy Tulowitzki stayed with a slider that was dropping to the bottom of the zone, and hit the team’s third solo homer of the inning.

Obviously shaken, as who wouldn’t be, Gausman walked Russell Martin on four pitches before pulling it together for the moment to fan Justin Smoak. But just like that the Orioles’ early two-run lead was erased, and Estrada headed back to work in much better shape than he had left it after the first inning. Though he gave up a single to Pedro Alvarez with one out, he got through the second inning without allowing a run. On the third out, Darwin Barney made a terrific play to nail Adam Jones, who can still run, at first. Jones had hit a slow roller towards the hole between first and second created by the shift, but Barney raced over and in, covering an amazing amount of ground, to scoop the ball with his glove, and shovel it to first without transferring it to his throwing hand. Barney never seems to make a game appearance in which he doesn’t do something significant to help his team’s cause.

In the home half of the second he contributed again, calmly bunting Kevin Pillar, who had walked leading off, into scoring position. But Gausman then fanned both Bautista and Josh Donaldson to end the inning, despite the fact that he had wild-pitched Pillar to third during the Donaldson at-bat. Ominously, though, for a team that needs its starters to go six innings to bring its triple closer crowd of Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, and Zach Britton into play, Gausman had already thrown 45 pitches through two innings.

On the bright side, though, after stranding Pillar at third, he watched his team-mates even the score in the top of the third inning, without benefit of a base hit, but as a consequence of one of the more bizarre extreme-shift plays we have seen yet this year. With one out, Estrada walked Manny Machado, which in most cases isn’t a bad idea. Especially since Chris Davis then hit a ground ball to first for the second out. But the assist went to Donaldson, playing in a normal second-base position in the shift. Machado hit second with no intention of stopping: the third baseman was behind him, and he was as close to third as shortstop Troy Tulowitzki standing still while Machad had a full head of steam. Russell Martin alertly rushed to third, his responsibility, and the throw from Justin Smoak at first actually beat Machado to the bag, but Martin misplayed it for an error, and the ball trickled toward the plate as Machado roared in with the tying run.

The thing about the shifts being used now is that they create scenarios that have never been envisioned in the development of the hundreds of defensive drills that focus on players’ backing-up responsibilities. On this play, Estrada had to move toward the right side ground ball, which was well out of his reach, and then duck under Smoak’s throw to third. He then correctly improvised covering the plate, but when Martin mishandled the throw from Smoak a second time there was no chance of getting Machado at home. Even Martin can’t really be faulted on the play; normally when a catcher has to cover third it’s because the two left-side infielders are chasing a ball somewhere down the line that got away at third, so he’s facing the direction the ball should be coming from as he runs down the line toward third. In this case, the ball would be coming to him over his right shoulder, unless he had so much time that he could straddle the base and face first. Pretty unlikely, and not surprising that the awkward position would result in an error.

After the bombing in the first, Gausman might have grasped the new life he’d been given by the baseball gods, but he didn’t have the stuff for it today. Immediately after the Orioles tied it at three, the Jays picked him apart in their half of the inning, took the lead at 6-3, and were never headed, though the O’s would make it close. Gausman was skewered by his own leadoff walk, and a costly error by his catcher, Matt Wieters. There must have been a sale on catchers’ errors yesterday.

He opened the inning by walking Encarnacion, and Michael Saunders followed with a really short squib in front of the plate. When Wieters got to it, he hurried his throw, which would have been too late anyway, and fired it down the line into the right-field corner. Saunders was given an infield single, and he ended up on second and Encarnacion on third, with nobody out. Troy Tulowitzki plated Edwin on a grounder to second, moving Saunders to third, a baseball fundamental that our boys have finally started to execute regularly. Russell Martin delivered Saunders with a single to right for the second run, and then advanced to second on a Gausman wild pitch. Smoak moved him to third with a ground ball to second. (This is still a positive at-bat even if you make the second out doing it.) Kevin Pillar singled Martin home with the third run, and Gausman then struck out Darwin Barney to end his night down 6-3, having thrown 79 pitches in only three innings.

The Orioles got one back off Estrada in the fourth on a single, a double, and a run-scoring ground-out to make it 6-4, and there it stood, until the eighth. Vance Worley, occasional starter for Baltimore, came on in the fourth and laid down his calling card to claim a spot in the shaky Baltimore rotation by pitching an extremely effective four innings, shutting the Jays down on one hit and one walk while fanning two.

The thing about the Orioles’ starter going out with the team behind after three innings, is that if their opponents’ starter could manage six innings and turn the lead over to the bullpen at that point, the later inning guys for the other team—us—would be ready to go at the usual time. To his credit, Estrada steadied himself, and, counting the RBI groundout in the fourth, retired the last eight batters he faced, leaving with a line of six innings pitched, three earned runs, five hits, two walks, and six strikeouts on 99 pitches.

Though the Jays were shut down after the third inning, with Brad Brach pitching a clean eighth against them, it was the new 7-8-9 combo of the Blue Jays that held the game in their capable hands, which they did, Joaquin Benoit allowing two baserunners but benefitting from a double play in the seventh, Jason Grilli giving up an opposite-field lead off home run to Manny Machado, which can happen to anyone, in the eighth, and Roberto Osuna giving up a double to J.J. Hardy with two out in the ninth that set hearts aquaking in TO, before securing the save, number 22 out of 24.

Speaking of our new late-inning trio, I just noticed something kind of cool. Jason Grilli is 39 years old. Joaquin Benoit just turned 39 this past week, on the twenty-sixth. Roberto Osuna, as we all know, is only 21. If you add up their ages, you get 99. Shoudn’t we create some kind of a nickname for them that incorporates 99? If we wanted to be political, they could be the 99 Per Cent. If we wanted to be just stupid

they could be the 99 Bottles of Beer. That’s it for me; any other suggestions out there? I’m happy to provide the idea, if somebody else can Don Draper it for us.

Today the home boys rode a startling display of first-inning power, some timely and professional at bats in the third, and effective enough pitching to cling to an exciting 6-5 win over a Baltimore team that seems to be in trouble whenever the starting pitcher isn’t named Chris Tillman. Tomorrow’s starter isn’t Tillman either, but Yovani Gallardo, and he’s up against the currently very imposing Jay Happ for our side, so we shall see.

From the moment I first conceived of this project of following the Blue Jays through the season by way of a long-form story reporting on each game as it is played, I determined that my focus was to be “the game on the field”, and not all of the other peripheral issues that occupy the attention of most sports journalism today.

I would write about the drama and the tedium, the joy and the despair, the funny and the tragic, as they are manifested on the field. I would not write about contracts, twitter controversies, payrolls, or anything of that ilk. Nor would I delve too deeply into issues of player selection and playing time, beyond the extent to which these might impact the outcome of a particular game, or the general arc of the team’s success or failure through the year.

However, the news out of the Blue Jays’ front office during the current road trip that Justin Smoak had signed a two-year extension to his contract, taking him out of 2016’s free agent pool, and the spin immediately applied to this news, has forced me to address the free agent issue, particularly in relation to the solid Jays’ victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks that we enjoyed this evening.

Much of the speculation surrounding the re-signing of Justin Smoak touched on its implications for Edwin Encarnacion’a future with the Blue Jays. The reasons for this should be obvious: they are both power-hitting first-basemen/designated hitters, distinguished from each other by the fact that Smoak is the better fielding first baseman, not that Encarnacion is a liability at the position, not in the least, and on the other hand that Encarnacion is the more reliable and consistent hitter, with a proven track record of maintaining a respectable batting average that Smoak’s record just doesn’t show. On the other hand, both have a flare for the dramatic, and when either comes to the plate in a clutch situation, it’s equally likely that they will spectacularly deliver, or spectacularly fail.

The financial reason for linking the Smoak signing with Encarnacion’s status is also obvious: Smoak represents two positives to the Blue Jays: he costs significantly less than the sum that Edwin will be able to command after what has been so far a truly productive season, and as such he provides low-cost insurance that at least some of the positives that Encarnacion brings to the team will still be available.

I need to state my bias very clearly here. I have a deep and abiding respect for Jose Bautista. I admire his work ethic, his professionalism, his pride, and, yes, even his prickly abrasiveness, which brings to the tip-toe-y world of sports a flash of refreshing honesty. He has made himself into a premier major-league star, and deserves to have his hard work rewarded. If his 2016 performance serves to undermine to a certain extent his value on the open market, I feel badly for him.

But I just love Edwin Encarnacion. I love what he brings to the team and to the product on the field, and I love what he brings to life. I have a grand-daughter, almost nine years old, who is delightfully Hispanic on the other side, fluent in the language and infused with the joie de vivre she has inherited from the Mediterranean strain. I would love to have my grand-daughter meet Edwin. I would love to see them laugh and giggle together, as I just know they would, because I’m convinced that Edwin really is the big, happy child he seems.

Accordingly, my most cherished memories of Edwin don’t include any of the walk-off homers, clutch hits, or crucial at-bats he has contributed to Jays’ lore in recent years. Okay, one: last year, after he came off the DL from his shoulder issue, when he was approaching the mob scene at the plate after his first post-injury walk-off, he pointed to his shoulder and wagged his finger in warning, to remind the guys to pummel him gently. And, though I love it as a meme, it’s not the parrot walk that most holds my affection. What I most remember are two recent moments: last year, it was the smile that spread over his face in the dugout when Dioner Navarro explained to him why the fans were raining hats down on the field after his third home run of the game against the Tigers. After the game, he asked people to contact him if they had thrown a hat, as he planned to autograph them all and return them to their owners. I wonder how that all worked out. The second moment from a recent game is again Edwin sitting on the bench, this time being fanned with towels by his teammates to cool him off after he impishly stole third base against the shift.

So it was with some unease that I listened to the talk that arose this week over the assumption that the Jays would not make an effort to satisfy his contract demands . I would be sorry to see Jose Bautista go. I would be profoundly disappointed to see Edwin go. And that brings us to the first inning of tonight’s game, and another example of what Edwin Encarnacion brings to this team, a statement laid down for all to see, that he has us covered. From the stats, the pitching matchup looked a bit lop-sided. Aaron Sanchez, no need to even review where he is in his season, was facing Zach Godley, a recent call-up making only his third start, with 20 innings under his belt and an inflated ERA of 5.28.

But in one of those unexpected developments that make baseball such a bundle of surprises, Godley started like a house afire, retiring eight of the first nine batters he faced, striking out four and yielding only an opposite-field single to Russell Martin in the second. But after one time through the order, the cat was out of the bag about his most effective pitch, a sharp-breaking curve ball. With two outs and nobody on in the third, leadoff hitter Devon Travis came up for the second time, worked the count full, and lofted one up the middle that dropped in front of centre-fielder Michael Bourn. Josh Donaldson followed with a second two-out single, a sharp liner through the left side. That brought Encarnacion to the plate. In his first at bat, it was obvious that he had just missed getting all of his pitch in flying out to centre field. This time he squared up the 2-1 pitch from Godley perfectly, and deposited it in the left field stands for a 3-1 Jays’ lead that they never relinquished.

Cue the joy mixed with dread: I love you, Edwin, you did it again! But please, please, don’t leave. I appreciate that it’s a business decision, and it will be severely impacted by the loss of R. A. Dickey to free agency, assuming the Jays’ don’t meet his asking price. Either way, they’ll have to pay Dickey, or pay someone else to pick up his 200 innings and every-fifth-day regularity. But if there is any room for sentimentality in this business, and if the new-ish Jays’ management has any sense of the feelings of the fan base, then they will shake out all the sugar jars in the Rogers kitchen and find the money to pay him what he’s worth.

Arizona had taken a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first with a typical National League sequence: Sanchez allowed Jean Segura, the very fine Diamondbacks’ second baseman to reach with a leadoff single, and then the stars aligned for the D-Backs to bring him around without another hit. Segura stole second, moved to third on Michael Bourne’s ground ball to first, and scored on Paul Goldschmidt’s grounder to Devon Travis that split Travis and Encarnacion, forcing Sanchez to hustle over to cover the bag. It was a good play, skillfully executed, but it absolutely conceded the run. I hope the D-Backs did some good celebrating in the dugout when Segura came in, because that was the high point of the game for them.

Sanchez went seven innings, giving up the one run, six hits, no walks, and five strikeouts on 98 pitches. Every time he got in trouble after the first, he got out of it, with confidence and style. In the second, for example, he caught Wellington Castillo and Brandon Drury looking, gave up a double to Yasmany Tomas, and then fanned Nick Ahmed. In the third he gave up leadoff singles to the pitcher Godley and Segura, and then Michael Bourn moved them up by grounding out to Encarnacion unassisted. With the infield in, Goldschmidt hit a hard grounder to Josh Donaldson who made the play at first while Godley was held at third. Then the young slugger Jake Lamb lofted an easy fly ball to Kevin Pillar in centre to end the inning.

In the fourth a Tomas single was erased when Sanchez started a double play himself on a comebacker from Ahmed. In the fifth and sixth he retired the side in order, and in the seventh he got two quick outs after Brandon Drury nearly hit one out leading off and ended up with a double. To make things interesting, Sanchez plunked Rickie Weeks who was hitting for the pitcher before retiring the side and ending his night’s labours by getting the pesky Segura to hit a grounder to first. Sanchez took the throw from Encarnacion, trotted across the bag, and right into the dugout for a well-deserved sit-down. At the end of the night, after Jason Grilli and Roberto Osuna shut down Arizona to preserve the win, Sanchez was ten and one, and his ERA had dropped to 2.87.

My take on an innings limit for Sanchez, and the question of whether he should go to the bullpen is this: he’s making it awfully hard for anyone to go ahead and implement his move to the bullpen, especially since even his teammates, like Marco Estrada, are starting to speak up about it. Former Jays’ great Pat Hentgen, who still works in player development for the Blue Jays, has recently chimed in with another suggestion on Sanchez. He says that the Jays should absolutely respect whatever inning limit they have placed on him, but that he should start until he reaches the limit, and in no circumstance be sent to the bullpen. Frankly, if an innings limit is going to come into play, this makes more sense to me than having him use up his last innings in the bullpen, where he would face a complete change of routine and be asked to get warm any number of times on an unpredictable basis. But in the end, if Sanchez is showing no evidence of fatigue or soreness, it’s going to be awfully hard for anyone to say to him that he has to stop pitching at some arbitrary point.

Other than an unearned run that he was responsible for himself, the only mistake Godley made in his five innings was the gopher ball to Encarnacion in the third. He went five innings, gave up three earned runs on six hits, with one walk and seven strikeouts. In his last inning, he gave up a single to Devon Travis with one out, and then must have really been annoyed that Travis was on base, because he almost immediately contrived to bring him around to score. With Donaldson at the plate, the Arizona pitcher bounced a pro-forma throw-over in front of first baseman Goldschmidt and it skipped down the right-field line as Travis skipped around to third, whence Donaldson promptly singled him home.

In typical National League fashion, the D-Backs used a pitcher an inning after the starter went down, owing to the need to pinch-hit for the pitcher whenever his spot came up in the batting order. All four, Silvino Bracho, Enrique Burgos, Randall Delgado, and Dominic Leone were effective in shutting the Jays down, though Leone, like Godley, victimized himself in the ninth, which gave the Jays a second insurance run. After Leone walked Justin Smoak, Andy Burns was sent in to run for him; again an errant pickoff throw allowed him to move to second, whence Leone wild-pitched him to third, so that he could score on an infield grounder by Travis.

The trio of Sanchez, Grilli, and Osuna easily held Arizona at bay, and the Encarnacion homer stood up for the win. I wish it were always that easy.

I wish they’d stop talking about letting Edwin go. Amen, brother.