Long Ball Stories

The big news of the day, of course, is the return of Jay Happ to the hill for the Blue Jays after his stint on the disabled list.

The bigger news regarding Happ is that he really was a good deal better than he looked, as of three batters into the game. After Billy Hamilton flew out to right to lead off the game, Zack Cozart and local boy Joey Votto hit back-to-back shots out of the deepest part of the park.

After last night’s embarrassing laugher, part of me was thinking that it was too bad we couldn’t bank some of those extra runs. After the two Cincinnati homers, the part of me that wasn’t totally alarmed about Jay Happ’s immediate baseball future was thinking that turnabout’s fair play and all that, and that tonight we were in for a thumping. But Happ, despite also walking Eugenio Suarez, the third baseman, finished the inning at 22 pitches, and only down 2-0.

In the meantime, we didn’t really have to save any power from last night. We still had some left for tonight.

The Reds’ starter was former Blue Jays’ prospect Asher Wojchiechowski, who in one of those neat turns of irony was the Toronto prospect traded to the Houston Astros in 2012 in exchange for his opponent on the mound tonight, Jay Happ.

And let’s be clear on this from the start: I have no intention of typing Asher’s last name ever again, so I’m going to call him Wojie, okay? With a “-ski” on the end of my own name, I can hardly be accused of giving short shrift to people with Eastern European names, but enough is enough, eh? (‘Course, the fact that my own “-ski” name is very short is highly likely thanks to some lazy nineteenth-century U.S. immigration officer at Ellis Island who didn’t want to write down my forebear’s real last name, so who am I to say anything about anything anyway?)

Wojie’s another one of those big guys, about the size of a tight end, and also another one of those pitchers who’s spent a long time getting ready for the show. He was drafted by the Jays in 2010 out of The Citadel, the southern military academy best know as the alma mater of President Frank Underwood of House of Cards fame. Interesting that a university’s main reference point is to a fictional character. Ah, the influence of Netflix!

After the trade Wojie worked his way up in the Astro organization until he made the team and was inserted briefly into their starting rotation in 2015, but that did not go well and it ended in the dreaded Designated for Assignment in May of that year. He had short stints with Arizona and Miami before signing a minor-league contract with Cincinnati on April twentieth. Since his callup he’d had a good long relief stint in his debut against the Rockies, picking up his first MLB win, and one briefer outing. Tonight was his first start with the Reds, and his first start since 2015.

It’s easy to imagine what he must have felt like taking the mound in the bottom of the first against the team that drafted him, in their raucous home digs, the night after their prodigious offensive display against his new team-mates.

And yet, as is often the case with the Jays when they don’t know whom they’re facing, he had a good run through the order the first time, though he needed a bit of luck in the bottom of the second after an easy first, in which he threw only nine pitches and retired Kevin Pillar on a jam-shot grounder to first, Josh Donaldson on a fly ball to centre, and then got a big assist from Scott Schebler in right, who made a great sliding catch going into the wall to catch a twisting foul fly off the bat of Jose Bautista.

He needed a much bigger assist from Joey Votto at first to keep the slate clean in the second. Kendrys Morales led off with a line shot right into one of the few open spaces in the shift in right centre. Justin Smoak, hitting into the same shift, hit an even harder shot down the line. But Votto, playing deep but a bit off the line, snagged it in a dive that carried him into foul territory, but he still had plenty of time to double Morales off first. Wojie recovered enough from the cannonade to fan Russell Martin.

In the third the tall righty got another assist from right fielder Patrick Kivlehan, who made a fine running catch on Troy Tulowitzki leading off. Wojie finishing retiring the order on a flare by Devon Travis to right, and a strikeout of Zeke Carrera. 35 pitches, nine batters up, nine batters down. Not bad for a kid getting his big chance, eh?

As for Happ, he kept the ball in the infield in the second inning, picked up his second strikeout, and retired the side in an efficient eleven pitches. It was good to see Donaldson make a very agile play on a tough grounder on which he had to make a spin move to make the throw to first to retire Kivlehan. Maybe the play was an indication that now he really is ready to go full tilt in the field.

But it took the Toronto lefty 34 pitches to negotiate the third inning, and though he kept the deficit at two, I was really surprised that he actually came out for the fourth inning, because I thought he had blown his reserve in the third.

Happ retired the pesky Hamilton on a sliced liner to left leading off the inning, but then he walked Zack Cozart. From what we’ve seen of Cozart so far, walking him is always a good option, except that it brings Joey Votto to the plate. But this time Votto grounded out to Smoak at first. Cozart moved up to second, but there were two outs. Then Adam Duvall bounced one into the hole between Donaldson and Tulo and beat it out while Cozart, off with the hit with two outs, moved up to third. Then Happ walked Eugenio Suarez to load the bases and bring up Scott Schebler who happens to be leading the National League in homers. Cue a great reflex play by Tulo at short to glove Schebler’s hard one-hopper and throw him out at first. Good job that the Jays weren’t in an extreme shift for Schebler, because the ball would have gone through for two runs.

Not only did Happ come back out for the fourth, but he breezed it, including his second and third strikeouts on 14 pitches, to end up with four innings pitched, two runs on 3 hits, 2 walks, and 3 strikeouts on 81 pitches. Then he got to sit back, relax, and watch his mates rough up Wojie in the fourth and take him off the hook for the loss. Happ wouldn’t get the win, of course, but he had to be satisfied with his first time out.

Second time through against Toronto just wasn’t the same for Wojie. He let one get away from him on an 0-1 pitch to Pillar and it hit him on the forearm, luckily without apparent serious harm to the batter. After the smooth ride he had in the first three innings, it’s not hard to imagine that the Reds’ starter was pretty shaken up by hitting Pillar. On a 2-1 pitch he threw a batting practice fast ball up and in to Josh Donaldson, and just like that the score was tied, and some lucky fan on the fifth level in left ended up with one hell of a souvenir. Yes, I said fifth level, I surely did. It’s a good thing the stadium was in the way, or some poor guy in an office in the factory district up Spadina would have been sweeping shattered glass of his desk.

Next Jose Bautista stepped in, and, thanks, Yogi, it was déjà vu all over again. 2-1 pitch, up and in, goodbye, back to back, this time to centre. Happ’s deficit was erased, and the big boys had pounded Toronto into the lead. It was almost three in a row, as Kendrys Morales drove Scott Schebler back to the fence for a leaping catch for the first out. Justin Smoak dribbled the ball fair in front of the plate and the catcher Mesoraco threw him out for the second out.

But Wojie had one last mistake to make, well, two, but only one counted on the scoreboard. With two out and nobody on, and just one run down, he had the chance to get out of the inning, and even to pitch into the fifth, and hold on long enough for his team to retake the lead. Maybe he was tired, maybe he was shell-shocked, but he had one more pitch to leave up in the zone, one more cripple that Russell Martin drove over the fence in left centre to extend the Toronto lead to two.

Just like that, it had been nine up, nine down, albeit with a little help, and then three big, booming home runs, the lead was gone, and after two more batters, so was Wojie. The other mistake? He lost control of another one up and in, and hit Tulowitzki. Back in the bad old days you would have assumed that this was done as a reaction to the way he had been roughed up, but nobody thought anything other than that he was a marginal, and very shaken up, pitcher who didn’t know where he was throwing the ball. Though he did fan Devon Travis on a 1-2 pitch to end the inning.

So, strangely, after four innings both teams had to turn to a new cast of characters. Neither manager’s choice suggested that he thought the game was out of reach. John Gibbons went to the very impressive Danny Barnes for the fifth. And Barnes struck out the side, putting away both Billy Hamilton and Joey Votto with his trademark high heat. Unfortunately, between these two signature events, Barnes grooved one to Zack Cozart, and the newly-mintd 4-2 Toronto lead had become 4-3.

By the time Barnes had finished the two innings he was able to donate to the cause of picking up Jay Happ, he had totted up two more strikeouts, a walk, and a foul popup, so that five of the six outs he threw were via the strikeout. In the circumstances, I think we can forgive the dinger.

In the meantime, Reds’ manager Bryan Price called on one of his relievers usually employed later in the game, Michael Lorenzen, a long, lean 25-year-old who has thrown 22 innings for Cincinnati this year with 26 strikeouts and an ERA of 3.18.

Lorenzen kept the Jays at bay with aplomb for three full innings, long enough for the Reds to tie the game in the seventh. He struck out the side in the fifth while giving up s single to Donaldson, gave up two one-out walks in the sixth, but erased one of them by throwing an inning-ending double play, and pitched over another walk in the seventh.

Meantime, Ryan Tepera came on in the seventh and gave up his first run as a reliever since April twenty-seventh, spanning 13 appearances, and it was the aggressive baserunning of the Reds that helped them chalk up the tying run. Number nine hitter second baseman Jose Peraza led off with a single to left. Then he broke for second, and Russell Martin’s throw barely ticked off the glove of Troy Tulowitzki covering the bag. The error was charged to Martin, but I thought that the throw was catchable, and the replay suggested that if caught the throw might have nipped Peraza, but it didn’t, and he ended up at third.

Billy Hamilton kept the suspense to a minimum by singling home Peraza with the tying run. That was all the Reds got, but it was only thanks to a bad decision by Hamilton and a great catch by Zeke Carrera in left that the damage was limited to one run.

After Hamilton drove in Peraza he stole second as well. Then Tepera walked Cozart, so of course here came Joey Votto to the plate again. Here’s where Hamilton, presumably running on his own, made a really bad choice and took off for third, with the left-handed power hitter Votto at the plate. Not only did Russell Martin have a clearer shot at him with Votto hitting the other way, but to take a risk here with Votto at the plate and Adam Duvall and Scott Schebler following flies in the face of all common sense.

Of course as usual hubris lost out and in a close play Hamilton was DOA at third for only the first out of the inning. Cozart, curiously, who must not have checked his e-mail, stayed at first while Hamilton was heading for third. He got to second anyway as Votto walked setting the stage for the key defensive play of the game. Adam Duvall scorched a liner into left centre on which Carrera raced laterally into the gap, launched himself into a flat dive, and just barely flagged the ball down for the second out. If he misses that ball, Toronto needs Morales’ subsequent homer to tie the game, not take the lead. Tepera’s strikeout of Eugenio Suarez to end the inning was rather anticlimatic, but the Reds had tied the game nonetheless.

After Lorenzen finished his stint, John Gibbons brought Aaron Loup in to start the eighth by matching up with the lefty Schebler. Just as Babby or Tuck (can’t remember which, so we’ll just amalgamate here) was saying, “You know, Loup’s numbers are actually much better against right-handed batters”, Schebler hit a double to right centre. So Loup was one and done, and Joe Smith came in to deal with the fallout.

Smith has been great coming in for a clean start to the eighth, but this time he had that little present of Schebler at second waiting for him. The next thing you knew there were two outs and Schebler hadn’t moved up as Smith fanned Devin Mesoraco and retired Patrick Kevlihan on a liner to first. Then things got dicey, as the lineup moved on to the pesky speed guys, Peraza followed by Hamilton.

Peraza hit a tough grounder to the left side that signalled that Tulo was back full tilt in the field again. He had to dive to keep the ball in the infield and keep Schebler from scoring, and he did, though Peraza was safely across with a hit. With Hamilton at the plate, the Jays let Peraza steal second in order to keep the infield positions where they needed them. But Hamilton then hit a harmless fly to centre, and a Guy Named Joe had done his job.

Blake Wood, another more seasoned member of the Cinci bullpen was brought in for the eighth inning and it didn’t take the heart of the Toronto order long to hang the collar on him for a loss. A single by Bautista brought Morales to the plate, and a good swing by Morales on a high 1-0 fast ball sent the ball over the fence in right centre and put Toronto into the driver’s seat.

After Morales’ shot, Wood efficiently tidied up the barn and locked the door for the Reds, but that horse was gone, baby.

And so it was Osuna time, and perhaps in anticipation of another round of the Knock-Knock Game because Russell Martin was behind the plate, Osuna was as neat and tidy as Wood had been, but without the dramatic precursor, and secured his tenth save in thirteen chances with three up, three down on eleven pitches.

So, after seventeen runs on Monday against Cincinnati, the Jays’ production was significantly curtailed tonight, but whether you measured tonight’s by runs scored or combined distance the four homers travelled, it was enough, in the end, to outscore a Cininnati team that for the second night in a row was unable to put up significant numbers against a hard-working Toronto pitching staff.

With a series win already in the books, looking ahead to tomorrow afternoon’s affair, the Blue Jays should have just enough time in the morning to check out the supplies in the broom closet.