It was a really close call. Gobbie’s reputation as a baseball savant almost sailed over the fence with the gopher ball that Marco Estrada served up to Shin-Soo Choo on the first pitch of today’s game.
Saturdays we have our grand-daughter all day. She’s almost ten, in grade four. It’s universally accepted by elementary school teachers that grade fours are the sweetest kids in the school. They sure are.
We take her to dance class in the morning, hang out around the house, do some gardening. We save the Saturday funnies for her to read. My wife’s helping her make a quilt for the baby of a friend of her mum’s. It was her idea. We play chess sometimes, and at the moment I’m reading to her, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. I’d forgotten how funny it is. She likes fantasy and legend, so it’s perfect.
Gobbie?? When she was born, her grandmother’s intent was that we would be “Grammie” and “Grampie”. But she began to verbalize before she could pronounce very well, so “Grammie” became the rather charming “Gammie”, and, well, I turned out to be “Gobbie”. I wear it. It’s my own, and our five-year-old grandson, her cousin, has adopted it, so when I’m not Coach Dave, or yer humble scribe, it’s Gobbie, thank you very much.
I still chronicle the game, though, even with her here. We watch together, until she gets bored. But she likes the Jays, because they’re “her people”. She’s half Central American, and loves that we have lots of Hispanic players. She was sad that Edwin and his parrot left. We made a sign for Edwin for a game two years ago, and they put us on the Jumbotron. Twice. It was a nice sign. I still have it.
Today was Doors Open Toronto, and after dance class we made a quick trip to Montgomery’s Inn to see an art exhibit of work by a long-forgotten woman artist, Clara Harris, who painted landscapes in the Etobicoke area a century ago. There were photographs of what the places look like now that she painted back then. My grand-daughter was especially taken with the creaky old elevator at the Inn. The paintings too.
So we hurried to get home in time to eat lunch and catch the ball game. I’m trying to teach her a little bit each game. With Marco Estrada—another Hispanic guy—pitching, I wanted to have her watch the first inning to see how he fools the hitters with his soft stuff. Like I said, she likes wizardry.
Luckily, though, we didn’t catch the first pitch. The screen came on just as Shin-Soo Choo was rounding the bases after hitting it out. Well, that would have been embarrassing. It’ll teach me not to over-sell something.
After the Chin-shot that Estrada took, the game settled into what everyone expected, a pitching duel between him and the Rangers’ Yu Darvish. These two pitchers couldn’t be more different, yet more alike. Darvish is tall, imposing, and commanding on the hill. Estrada is compact, peeks over his glove like a sneaky little kid, and delivers the ball with a motion, as I’ve mentioned before, that looks like he’s afraid the baseball might break something. In addition, Darvish can summon up 96-97 when he wants to while Estrada’s amazingly effective “heater” has about two mph on R.A. Dickey’s “fast” ball, which puts Estrada’s at around 89 at best.
On the other hand, they are both complete pitchers with a full repertoire of effective pitches, which they employ with skill and guile that hitters find worse than frustrating. To watch Darvish go away, away, away to a power hitter, and then come in just enough to get one off the end of the bat to the second baseman is completely akin to Estrada throwing change after change until the hitter has slowed down his trigger to the point that the “heater” is by him before he knows it.
I’ve written before about Estrada’s need to throw his last warmup pitch before the batter steps in, not after, but there it went again. And, inevitably, it was followed by the real Marco Estrada’s first inning: Elvis Andrus frozen by a wicked curve ball that ended up down and away on the outside corner. Nomar Mazara walked on a 3-2 pitch, just as well, better than a dinger. Robinson Chirinos fanned on a 1-2 changeup, and Roughned Odor fanned on what else, a full count changeup, to the raucous delight of the assembled multitude.
Yu Darvish had his own adventurous first batter, when he came up and in on a 1-1 pitch to Kevin Pillar, and dinged him on the arm. Purpose pitch? Probably. Darvish lives on the outside corner, and it serves his purpose to push the hitters off the plate a bit. After Devon Travis hit a looper out to left for the first out, Pillar got a measure of revenge by swiping second after Darvish threw over a number of times, but languished there when Jose Bautista flew out to centre and Kendrys Morales struck out to end the inning.
After the first inning, the mirror imaging of the two craftsmen was almost perfect, right up to the fifth. They even got in trouble in the same inning, the fourth, in the same way, with the same conclusion.
With two outs in the top of the fourth, Odor slapped a flare the opposite way to left for a single, and Ryan Rua followed with a double, but Odor, who sometimes seems not to be quite all there on the field, didn’t get a good jump on the two-out hit, and had to be held at third, where he got to watch Estrada punch out Joey Gallo to end the inning.
The Jays came out in the bottom of the inning loaded for bear, and didn’t wait around for two outs. Bautista made the first one, but it was a hard liner to centre. Morales followed with a double down the line in right, another example of the extreme infield shift to the right on the Smoaks and the Morales, while the outfield plays straight up. Lots of room down in that corner if the ball beats the first baseman. Darvish fanned Smoak, but Russell Martin, smarting from being hit by Darvish in the second—you should have seen the death stare Darvish got—singled to right. Like Odor, Morales had to be stopped at third, because, first, Choo in right was playing in and, second, well, Morales running, right? So, like Odor, Morales had a perfect vantage point to watch Darvish fan Zeke Carrera to end the inning.
By the way, the Martin hit batsman in the second was the only base runner allowed by either pitcher in the second and third innings.
After the busy fourth, Estrada retired the side in order in the fifth, to complete fifteen outs of shutout ball after the Choo homer. He also racked up his last two strikeouts of the game, taking him to eight after five.
Darvish got the first out in the bottom of the fifth, when Ryan Goins grounded out to shortstop. Oh, I didn’t mention that Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki were being held out of today’s day game after last night’s game presumably to ease their re-entry into the every day lineup. As a consequence, Luke Maile was catching Estrada, Russell Martin was at third, and Goins at short.
With one out, Darvish went 3-0 before he walked Maile, the number nine hitter, on a 3-1 fast ball that he just buried. Then on a 1-1 pitch to Kevin Pillar, he threw a slider that uncharacteristically stayed up in the zone, and Pillar drove it to the deepest part of the park. Jared Hoying went back on the ball, and out-Pillared Pillar to take it over his head before crashing into the wall. As he bounced off he alertly flipped the ball to Delino DeShields to keep Maile at first before collapsing in a heap.
Hoying was eventually able to stay in the game, and Devon Travis stepped up to hit a single to centre with Maile coming around to third. This brought Jose Bautista to the plate for the pivotal at bat of the game. Which hardly lasted a blink of an eye. Darvish again left a slider up in the zone and Bautista got all of it. It’s been remarkable how similar a number of Bautista’s recent shots have been, whether they went for homers, doubles, or outs.
The Jays weren’t ready to quit, so Darvish still had some work to do. After walking Morales, he gave up a ground-rule double the opposite way to Justin Smoak, with Morales forced to stop at third. The Rangers sort of chose to pitch to Zeke Carrera by being careful about how to pitch to Martin, bringing Carrera to the plate with the bases loaded. The rising ended there as Darvish blew Carrera away with high heat.
But the damage was done, and suddenly, unexpectedly, Estrada and the Jays were in charge, with a two-run lead, and four innings to go to protect it. And protect it they would, with Estrada going one more inning, the bullpen providing three more innings of sterling scoreless relief, and Ryan Goins providing all the defence that any team would need.
In the Rangers’ sixth, Estrada would finish up midst a couple of the strangest plays you’d ever see, both involving Goins, who in fact would be involved in all three outs. First Elvis Andrus popped out to Goins.
Then Nomar Mazara did, too. Er, no he didn’t. Er, yes he did. He popped up, Goins settled under it, caught it, and then shockingly dropped it. It was one of those cases where he might have been transferring the ball when he dropped it, or not, but second base umpire Andy Fletcher signalled safe. Goins correctly picked the ball up and tossed it to Devon Travis at second, the base ahead of Mazara. Travis looked over at first and there was Mazara, gathering all kinds of wool about four steps off the bag. He whipped the ball to Smoak, Smoak tagged Mazara, and it should have been a case of “no harm, no foul”, but Mazara had reached first safely, so Goins was tagged with an error.
Robinson Chirinos then singled to centre, complicating matters immensely, and creating a “moment” as they say, because who was coming to the plate representing the tying run? None other than Roughned Odor. After his three-run homer in the ninth last night, best not to poke the bear, or take his current season-long slump (.209, 7 homers, 23 rbi) for granted. Of course the Jays were in their usual shift, so when Odor topped the ball softly past Estrada’s right side as he fell away to his left, out to Goins near second, it looked like a sure infield hit, and more trouble for the Jays.
But the trouble was all Odor’s, because about three steps out of the box, he must have tried too hard to accelerate, and his right foot slipped as he dug in. He staggered awkwardly forward and planted on both hands before he sprang up, then realized he was dead meat as Goins got to the ball and threw to first for the out. Remember the bat flip? It was worth the price of admission to see Odor grab his helmet, spike it into the ground, and watch it bounce away. Nice high bounce it was, too.
Manager Gibbons had Aaron Loup start the seventh inning, presumably targeting the left-handed power-hitter Joey Gallo, who was hitting second in the inning. As is so often the case, Loup struck out the righty Ryan Rua leading off, but then gave up a Texas Leaguer to Gallo. Not to worry. Gibbie went back to the pen for Ryan Tepera, who got Mike Napoli, pinch hitting for Jared Hoying, to hit into a double play to end the inning, courtesy of Ryan Goins and company.
The DP, as they say, was one for the ages. Napoli slashed the ball hard past Goins on his glove side. Except that Goins somehow got his glove on the ball on the backhand. When the ball hit his glove, ball and glove were behind Goins’ right hip and he was on his knees, basically facing third base. Yet he flipped back across his body to nip Chirinos at second, and Travis unloaded in a hurry to first, where Smoak had to stretch far into right field to record the out at first. Ryan Tepera was happy.
Gibbie gave Joe Smith a chance to redeem himself in the eighth after last night’s ninth-inning homer given up to Odor. This time he struck out DeShields and Choo, and had Andrus struck out on a foul tip, but didn’t get the call from plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. Of course, Andrus doubled to right centre after the non-call, but Smith retired Mazara on a grounder to Travis to strand Andrus at second.
Roberto Osuna came on for the save in the ninth, and Goins had yet one more spectacular play up his sleeve. Once again it involved Odor. With one out, he chopped the ball into the turf past Estrada toward Travis, who was playing out in right field in the rover position. When a pull hitter hits weakly into the shift and it gets past the pitcher, there’s trouble in River City, my friend. It’s not a whole in the infield there, more like the Black Lagoon. But Goins reacted instantly, racing toward first as he ball hopped slowly toward Travis, on whom Goins was converging from Travis’ right. Goins got to the ball before Travis, picked it and flipped it, hard on a line with his glove toward Smoak. Odor was called out, and the call was upheld after review. Osuna then fanned Rua for the save. Cue the Knock-Knock Game, with Martin having gone behind the plate after Maile was hit for in the eighth inning.
As for the Jays, Texas effectively shut them down after Bautista’s blast. Darvish was done after the sixth, in which he easily retired the Jays despite Andrus’ error on a Luke Maile ground ball allowing him to reach with one out. The big, stoic Darvish deserved better than the “L”, given that the only costly mistakes he made were the gopher ball to Bautista and the walk to Maile that preceded it and came around to score.
Old friend Sam Dyson had a quick seventh before running into trouble in the eighth, and needing help from Tony Barnette to keep the Toronto lead at two. After that easy seventh Dyson fanned Russell Martin leading off the eighth, but a bunt single by Zeke Carrera threw him off the rails, and he followed by walking Ryan Goins.
Then the wheels started turning like it was 1955 all over again. John Gibbons announced the lefty Chris Coghlan hitting for Maile. Jeff Bannister brought in Alex Claudio, a lefty, to pitch to Coghlan, and Gibbie counter-countered with Darwin Barney, who hit an infield single to Odor at second to load the bases. Then Bannister brought in Tony Barnette, who closed things down in a trice (well, if eleven pitches is a trice) by fanning Pillar and Travis.
And that was it: Jose Bautista and Marco Estrada three, Yu Darvish one, multiple assists to Ryan Goins, and a save to Roberto Osuna all added up to the Jays’ fifth win in a row, which brought them to within three games of .500. Onward and upward, say I!
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