Long Ball Stories

Tonight was supposed to be all about Aaron Sanchez. Instead, it was all about the Baltimore Orioles’ slugging catcher Welington Castillo.

And maybe to a certain extent about Jays’ Manager John Gibbons. But that’s just me.

Not sure what the weather was like at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, but it was pretty dodgy around Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore for tonight’s opening game of the current three-game series between the division-contending Baltimore Orioles and a Toronto Blue Jays team that is desperately fighting an injury jinx, one that bodes fair to keep them from ever recovering from their terrible April start.

The start of the game was delayed for about 30 minutes because of a passing shower. Once started, it was a brisk and entertaining affair that from the Blue Jays’ point of view went on just a little too long. The fact that the teams had to wait out a further downpour that took an hour to clear just after Toronto had failed to score in the top of the tenth inning made it even more of an anticlimax when the Orioles took little more than ten minutes to wrap up a walk-off win over a Blue Jays’ team that seems to carry a hex around with it wherever it goes these days.

Maybe they would have had better luck if the bottom of the tenth had been washed out completely, and the game resumed before Saturday evening’s scheduled affair. Maybe Welington Castillo would have gotten hold of some spoiled crab cakes for lunch on Saturday and been unable to do the good guys in when the game resumed.

And maybe if Napoleon had had a couple more horses, or maybe a few Sherman tanks and a couple of Kim Jong Un’s bargain-basement Explode-a-Phone missiles, he might have fought off that wily old two-ell Wellington, and changed the course of history. But, he didn’t.

Well, the bottom of the tenth was played Friday night, and one-ell Welington did hit his second dinger of the game off poor bewitched Jason Grilli to salt away a game that the Torontos should have won in regulation, extra innings be damned. So much for trying to avert the course of history.

Though it was Castillo’s night, as Toronto observers we really must start, after all, with Aaron Sanchez. And I think we have to start with this: no miracle is going to happen any time soon to transform this year’s Aaron Sanchez into the brilliant dominator of 2016. The team has to stop hoping/pretending that his blister and fingernail problem will soon be fixed.

As much as we all had waited longingly for him to return to the rotation, and as much as his pitches tonight showed much of their wicked nuance, he wasn’t quite right. We could see that from the very beginning, and we were deluding ourselves if we didn’t realise that his return is going to continue to be a work in progress.

He was uncomfortable on the mound. From the beginning he struggled with his control. Sure he caught the hapless-looking Chris Davis gazing at a brilliant curve ball to end the first, but he had walked Jonathan Schoop—which is actually hard to do—leading off the game.

In the second, he hit Trey Mancini, which gave the Orioles just the extra base runner they needed to combine with three base hits to score the first run of the game. Why did they need three hits and a hit batsman to score a run? Because the lead runner, the one who scored, was the labouring Mark,Truck Trumbo, who can only advance one base at a time, like a pawn in chess, if he only reaches first on his at bat. Good job for the Orioles that he hits lots of homers.

Sanchez was able to retire the side in order in the third, but gave up a single to Castillo in the fourth (maybe a small victory, in retrospect), and then walked Schoop—again—to lead off he fifth. More concerning than the walk to Schoop was that the last two outs were hit hard, Mannie Machado driving the ball into right centre for Pillar, and Chris Davis hitting a hard grounder that Justin Smoak coolly picked at first for the third out.

In the meantime, the Jays were up against Chris Tillman, the erstwhile ace of the Baltimore staff, who was making just his third start of the season after starting the season on the disabled list. Prior to today’s start, he had accumulated only nine and a third innings so far this year. We should point out that the injury woes being suffered by Toronto’s pitchers this year are not uniquely a Toronto problem. If you survey the whole array of both leagues, the number of starting pitchers facing arm trouble is astonishing. The marginal starters thrust into action by Seattle in the recent Toronto four-game sweep were just one of the more egregious examples of how teams are scuffling to deal with this problem.

Like Sanchez, Tillman had a bit of a sketchy start. He retired Zeke Carrera, who was leading off in the stead of the still-suspended Kevin Pillar, on a comebacker, but gave up a single to the resurgent Jose Bautista, whose every plate appearance tonight was greeted by vigourous booing on the part of the Baltimore fans, eager to prove their general manager’s off-season comments about Bautista to be correct. Then Kendrys Morales hit a rope to left, but right at Kim. We need to start noticing how many times Morales hits the ball really hard the opposite way when he’s batting left. At some point teams are going to have to start moderating the shift they employ against him. Then Tillman went 3-0 on Justin Smoak, none of them close, before Smoak finally bit on what was ball four away, and looped it the wrong way to Kim in left. No real damage here, but, like Sanchez’ first inning, there were intimations.

Tillman settled in a little better than Sanchez, and the Smoak fly ball to left was the start of seven outs in a row, including two strikeouts, which took him, comfortably enough, to the top of the fourth, now protecting that one-run lead tallied by Trumbo in the second.

Unlike Sanchez, though, Tillman failed to scatter his little stumbles. They were concentrated in the Toronto fourth, led to three runs, and could have resulted in a fourth, were it not for a curious decision, the first of two on the night, by Manager John Gibbons.

To the delight of the Baltimore fans, Tillman led off the fourth by plunking Bautista. Then he walked Morales, and the marvelously maturing Smoak took what he was given and knocked Bautista in by crossing up the shift and singling to left, with Morales chugging up the ninety feet to second. In all fairness, if I point out that Mark Trumbo clogs the bases if he only hits a single, the Jays are in a similar situation with Morales and Smoak on base, although we have witnessed some stirring runs to freedom by both of them this year.

Smoak’s RBI single brought Devon Travis to the plate, Travis, who delights me as much every time he slashes out another base hit—watch that batting average climb— as he scares me whenever the ball seeks him out at second in a tight situation, or whenever he’s on second and somebody hits a ground ball left side. But now Travis was at the plate, so it was all good. He chipped in another trademark double to right, which scored Morales with the second run and moved Smoak on to third.

Then the Jays resorted to some small ball to try to extend the lead. The first instance, which simply arose from the circumstances, involved a cool piece of hitting by Ryan Goins, and a very sharp baserunning read by Smoak from third. Smoak may be slow on the bases but he certainly ain’t stupid. On a 1-0 pitch, Goins hit the ball just sharply enough, and just far enough away from Tillman toward first, to bounce on toward second. Smoak, watching from third and inching farther off the bag, recognized at the very first instant that Tillman wasn’t going to field he ball, broke for the plate, and scored without a throw while Schoop, with no other option, took the out at first for the first out of the inning. Travis, of course (or perhaps we shouldn’t take this for granted) moved to third on the play.

Now came the decision by John Gibbons to attempt the most radical of all small-ball plays, the suicide squeeze. He had the right guys at hand to give it a try with Travis’ quickness at third and Barney’s veteran calm at the plate.

Now, time out for some commentary from yer humble scribe. I love the suicide squeeze. When successful, it’s one of the most beautiful plays in baseball. I even wrote a little piece about squeeze plays last year for my site that you can check out here if you’d like: http://longballstories.com/baseball-101-coach-dave-explains-the-squeeze-play/

But the suicide squeeze isn’t always appropriate. Here, we were only in the third inning. Tillman was scuffling, and you kind of knew he wasn’t going seven and two thirds on this night. If you think you need to try the suicide squeeze against, say, Brad Brach in the ninth inning of a tie game, that’s one thing. But I’m not convinced that it’s appropriate in a situation like this.

Now a lot of the “informed” commentary about tonight’s game suggested that the Jays botched this squeeze attempt. But if you’ve read my little Baseball 101 piece , you know that if the defensive team smells it out, there are some easy ways to foil the play. The Orioles smelled it out, and defensed it properly. Tillman wasted the pitch low and outside as Travis broke for the plate. Barney couldn’t have reached the pitch, even to foul it off, with a clothes pole. (I just realized many of my readers wouldn’t even know what a clothes pole is.) Travis was a dead duck.

The ultimate irony, of course, was that with two outs and nobody on, Barney got hold of one and drove Kim right back to the wall in left for the third out, which would have been a sacrifice fly had they not tried the squeeze. So, we ended up with three runs instead of four, and, going back to history for a minute, if wishes were horses . . .

We should mark the major league debut tonight of Anthony Alford, who was called up from Double A New Hampshire to replace the injured Darrell Ceciliani, and got the start in left. He went hitless, but in the top of the fifth he hit likely the hardest shot of the night off Tillman, a liner right at Kim in left that never cleared more than maybe twelve or fifteen feet off the ground.

The sixth inning represented a potential turning point in the game for Toronto, and a real one for the Orioles. In the top of the inning the Jays accumulated some base runners but let Tillman off the hook again. In the bottom of the inning, John Gibbons intruded his thought process, or rather lack thereof, into the game, to my mind directly contributing to the loss of the Toronto lead.

Normally, I tend to question Gibbie’s judgement when he comes out with the hook for his starting pitcher. I often think he’s hasty, and I generally am uneasy seeing a starter pulled in the top of the seventh, say, when he’s just given up a hit or a walk with one out.

Tonight, on the other hand, I have to fall on the other side of the issue. As we’ve said, Sanchie was clearly not quite back to optimum, and there had been concern and discussion in the dugout among the coaches during his stint. He was up to 82 pitches at the end of five innings, and was just back from supposedly resolving his finger problem. To me, it was time to shake hands and look to the Leones, the Barnes’s, and the Teperas to pick him up.

But Gibbie was all no, no, he’s fine, he’s strong, his stuff’s good, he’s got some mileage left. Of course, hindsight is always more accurate, but he trundled Sanchez back out there, and here’s what happened:

In two pitches, the game was tied. Mark Trumbo pulled a single, not with a late swing to right, into left, and Castillo jumped all over the next one and pounded it over the centre-field fence. Beyond that, after he caught Mancini looking on a 2-2 pitch, Hyung-Soon Kim drilled one right at Pillar in centre, and Jay Hardy sent Alford back to the wall to pluck his drive from above the fence with a well-timed leap. This was Alford’s first real major league test in the outfield, and he passed with flying colours. But Baltimore had tied the game off Sanchez.

Historically, and this year as well, when you’ve got a tie game after six innings between Toronto and Baltimore, there’s a pretty good bet you’re looking at extra innings. Tonight, you’d have won your bet.

Actually, but for a video review to confirm that a ball brushed Justin Smoak’s leg, the Jays would have taken the lead, admittedly on a bit of a fluke, in the seventh inning, and that run would have stood up in regulation, because Danny Barnes, Joe Smith, and Ryan Tepera were extremely effective out of the bullpen for Toronto.

Barnes gave up a two-out walk to Mannie Machado in the Baltimore seventh, but then blew away Chris Davis to end the inning. Joe Smith nearly had to be shot with a tranquilizer gun in the eighth, but came out all right in the end. With two outs, after getting Trumbo on a comebacker and freezing Castillo, Smith absolutely had Trey Mancini caught looking on a beautiful strike three that plate umpire Jerry Meals missed, plain and simple. You can look at pitch number six of the at-bat for yourself on PitchCast. Smith was beside himself. It was all Luke Maile could do to calm him down enough to get Kim to pop out to end the inning. Anyone for computerized strike zones? Tepera, who is getting more effective every time out with his combination of killer stuff and the occasional wild and wooly pitch just to keep the hitters honest, then breezed the ninth.

To go back to the seventh, old Blue Jay nemesis Darren O’Day put himself in a world of mess, and was lucky to get out of it with the help of the review team in New York. Chris Coghlan pinch-hit for Alford and singled to centre. Manager Gibbons put the bunt on for Luke Maile, and kept it on even after he’d fouled off two; he then bunted through for strike three. O’Day wasted this reprieve by trying a silly pickoff attempt on Coghlan, who wasn’t going anywhere, and threw it away, allowing Coghlan to move up anyway.

Zeke Carrera grounded out to first for the second out, with Coghlan moving to third. Then O’Day dug himself deeper by walking Bautista, then Morales, bringing Smoak to the plate. On a 2-2 pitch, crazy things happened. O’Day threw a wild pitch that bounced away from Castillo, but Smoak swung at it anyway for what would have been strike three, except that Castillo had to finish the strikeout by throwing down, and he was still chasing the ball when Smoak crossed first and Coghlan crossed the plate.

But here the rule book intervened. No doubt you already know that a strikeout is not recorded until the catcher either: (1) secures the ball in his glove before it hits the ground, i.e., catches it cleanly, (2) picks up the ball and tags the batter-runner out, or (3)throws the ball to first base to complete the out before the batter-runner reaches the base. EXCEPT: if in the process of swinging and missing for strike three, the ball hits the batter, the batter is automatically out. Why? Because if the ball deflects away from the catcher after hitting the batter, the catcher has no chance of completing the strikeout, so it’s not fair that the batter-runner reach base.

The video review in this case showed that the ball did indeed brush Smoak’s pant leg above his foot. There was nothing for it but to accept that Smoak was automatically out, and soCoghlan’s crossing the plate was irrelevant. The score remained tied.

As it did through the ninth, when Brad Brach breezed through the Jays as easily as Tepera had through the Orioles. Michal Givens retired the Jays in the top of the tenth despite walking Smoak with two outs.

Then the deluge came. It had been predicted that the rains would come again at about 11:00 in the evening and they were right on time. They lasted for about an hour before they slowed and the grounds crew were able to start uncovering the field and preparing it to resume play.

While Givens pitched the top of the tenth, Roberto Osuna had been warming up for Toronto. But after the rain delay it was Jason Grilli who came in to pitch rather than Osuna. There’s nothing surprising about this. Presumably Osuna would have been “hot” as the top of the tenth ended, and there was no way that he would have been able either to stay ready or get ready again to resume an hour later. You can’t treat bullpen arms like that.

Grilli looked well up to the challenge, until he wasn’t. Facing the fearsome heart of the Baltimore order, he completed the extraordinary feat of throwing called strike threes past both Machado and Davis. But it’s a tough crowd, this Baltimore lineup. With two outs, Trumbo swung late and hit a popup down the right field line that Bautista couldn’t get to. Trumbo was beaten on the pitch; it should have been the third out, but that’s baseball. It was also baseball that this brought the one-ell Welington to the plate, who had homered to tie the game in the sixth. Of course, he did it again, for the Baltimore win.

All you could think after the ball went out : I stayed up and waited out the rain just to see that?

Toronto has played seven games with Baltimore this season. Baltimore has won six. All but one of the games was decided by two runs or less. The record between the two teams could easily be reversed. But they’re not, and that’s why the Orioles are fighting with the Yankees for first in the division, and we’re still in last place.