A note from yer humble scribe: what follows is a truncated version of a very nice piece that I wrote about a very bad ball game that took place on Tuesday night. Somehow I chose a Mac “command” key that I didn’t know existed and sent over 2200 words tumbling off into cyberspace. I have tried not to recreate the piece verbatim, but to preserve its themes and reflections, and I hope that it will serve as a useful, if not complete, place-holder in the chronicle of the season. As for my careless computer work, I have been chastened. Bigly.
It would have been easy to dismiss Monday night’s dismal Jays’ performance as a one-off, an inevitable slack night after a run of really good ball. Besides, with a fill-in pitcher going for the Jays, and so on . . .
So tonight, the monkey of the streak off their backs, and the redoubtable Marco Estrada on the hill for Toronto, our boys would surely revert to their recent sterling play and winning ways.
Too bad nobody told these pesky Atlanta guys, wallowing as low in the standings as we are, but who are able to put up a two-through-five batting order of Brandon Phillips, Freddie Freeman, Matt Kemp, and Nick Markakis that’s awfully robust for a team that’s supposed to be in the depths of a complete rebuild.
So although it was disappointing, it wasn’t surprising that Atlanta jumped on Estrada for two quick runs in the top of the first, matching their start on Monday night, and introducing a game sequence that ended up being remarkably like Monday’s: Atlanta would jump ahead, the Jays would claw back, Atlanta would put a little more distance between them, the Jays would almost get it back to even, and so on.
So cue all the clichés, like too little too late, like Sisyphian task, even harken back to good old Lenin’s “One step forward, two steps back”. It was so much the pattern, that in the course of these last two games, once the first pitch was thrown, the Blue Jays never once had a lead, and only once, in the sixth inning of tonight’s game, did they tie it at 5-5, only to have Dansby Swanson hit a home run leading off the seventh to restore the Atlanta lead, which was only relegated to a tie for the duration of one commercial break.
Like his previous start when he gave up a first-inning two-run homer to Nelson Cruz of Seattle, Estrada again had trouble in the first, only to settle in and cruise through to the fifth, by which time the Jays had scratched it back to a 3-2 deficit. But in an uncharacteristic display for Estrada, he faltered again in the fifth, giving up a double to Phillips followed by a home run by Semi-Canuck-but-Totally-All-Star Freddie Freeman. Then he settled back in for the sixth, to finish in a breeze, though he’d given up five runs.
In the meantime lefty Jaime Garcia plowed through the Toronto lineup like a farmer tilling his field, at one point inducing 9 consecutive ground ball outs. Eventually, though, as is his pattern, Garcia started to get reachable, and the Jays had managed to package doubles by Kevin Pillar and Devon Travis around a walk to Justin Smoak in the fourth to get back into it.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Jays finished off Garcia and touched up his successor Jose Ramirez, utilizing another walk to Smoak, another double by Travis, an RBI single by Darwin Barney, and an RBI groundout by Zeke Carrera to bring the team briefly to the heady pinnacle of a 5-5 tie.
Mention should be made of the fact that throughout these two games the Atlanta lineup has shown a remarkable ability to deliver the two-out base hit to score runs, and interestingly some of the Jays started to emulate this lovely practice. Their first three runs had been delivered with two outs, the first two on the afore-mentioned Travis double in the fourth, and the third on a solo two-out homer by Pillar in the fifth.
For some reason Toronto Manager John Gibbons, aka Old Lackadaisical, decided to wake up and start managing the Jays in the top of the seventh. They shoulda let him sleep.
First, he reasoned that at 93 pitches over six innings it was probably wise to call it a night for the free-and-easy-throwing Estrada, who looked on this night as if he could go on forever. Perhaps Gibbie was covering his own buttsky here, figuring that if he sent him back out there and he got touched up, the criticism would be worse than if he pulled him. So, pull him he did, replacing him with the usual solid Danny Barnes, and Barnes immediately (well, almost, it was an 0-1 pitch) served up what turned out to be the game-winning home run to Dansby Swanson, future star who is currently hitting below .200.
Then, fast forward to the bottom of the eighth, when for once Gibbie correctly to mind my mind resorted to the bunt, but then stuck with it when it was past its due date. So Devon Travis, two doubles in his trophy bag already, was at the plate with nobody out, Darrell Ceciliani on second running for Kendrys Morales who had led off with a single, and Justin Smoak on first with his third walk of the night. (Yes, this is the same Justin Smoak of old, but these days not the same hitter at all.)
Despite Travis’ success earlier in the game, the law of averages has to catch up with him, and I can imagine Gibbie didn’t want to have to listen to the howls of Mike from Mississauga and his ilk after the game, so the bunt was on. But Travis’ first attempt was dreadful, against the reliever Arodys Vizcaino. At this point, I would have let him loose and taken my chances. “Nevertheless”, like Elizabeth Warren, “[Gibbie] persisted.” With two strikes on him and the bunt off, Travis went down on strikes.
The Jays weren’t quite done yet. Darwin Barney, frequently Mr. Clutch for Toronto, came up and blistered one that 99 times out of a hundred would have split the outfielders in right centre and gone all the way to the wall. But Brandon Phillips at second leapt up, snared it in his glove, and caught the dead duck Ceciliani two steps off the bag at second for a double play. It was just one of those dreadful, up-and-down, “eek-uk” moments.
So at this point job one was to keep the deficit at one to give us a chance in the bottom of the ninth. Manager Gibbons tabbed Joe Smith to do it, and after giving up two singles leading off the Atlanta ninth he seemed fair to be getting out of when he got Phillips to hit into a double play. The next move was to walk Freeman (great idea, that), leaving Smith with runners on the corners and two down.
Then Gibbie lost his nerve with Smith and brought in Roberto Osuna, who never pitches as well when he comes into an inning in progress, to face Matt Kemp. It didn’t go well. A Kemp double to left scored the two runners, and then Mr. I-spit-on-your-Toronto-face Nick Markakis singled home Kemp with the last, two-out coup de gràce, giving Atlanta a soul-destroying three-run lead.
After that, the air, and no doubt most of the fans, went out of the stadium.
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