Long Ball Stories

The life of a pitcher on the bubble in major league baseball is not an easy one.

Consider the situation of Mike Bolsinger as John Gibbons gave him the ball for today’s start against the Cincinnati Reds. A veteran major leaguer with limited service yet out of options, Bolsinger has to stay with Toronto on the 25-man roster, clear waivers and be reassigned to Buffalo to await another inevitable callup to Toronto, and eventually end up in the same situation he is now, or be claimed off waivers by any other team, even and especially including the Cincinnati team he faced today, and signed to a major-league contract.

The reason he is in this situation is that having been brought up from Buffalo to fill in in the absence of up to three Toronto starters, he can’t just be sent back there, because of what I’ve just outlined. Jay Happ has already returned to the rotation, and Francisco Liriano is returning for a start Friday night against the Yankees, which will require someone—Bolsinger—to be removed from the active roster, since with only Aaron Sanchez still out for an indeterminate amount of time, the Sanchez spot would appear to be reasonably well-covered by Joe Biagini.

Thus he was in the position I’ve suggested in my title, of hearing, after the game, even if he went seven good innings, something to the effect of, “Great job, Mike! Here’s your hat. What’s your hurry?”

On the other hand, this is a year of great opportunity for journeyman starting pitchers, given the absolutely incredible attrition of rotation members in the major leagues this year. Look at Seattle, which was missing four starters when we played them on the road. And one team that could be taking a good look at Bolsinger was right in front of him today. The Reds have had to fill in with Lisalverto Bonilla and Asher Wojie in the first two games of this series, and only today were able to start Tim Adleman, who was actually projected to be a rotation member. Would I claim Mike Bolsinger off waivers for the Reds and put him in the rotation? In a minute.

I have to interject a note of extreme petty jealousy here. I’m not proud of it, I would like it not to be, but there it is. I cannot disavow it. I have to own it. Unbeknownst to me until just a few minutes ago, my grand-daughter was actually in attendance at this week-day May game, games for which the Jays sell lots of packages to schools. She was there. (Spoiler alert): She saw Joey Votto hit a home town homer. She saw Luke Maile hit a home run to tie the game. She saw Devon Travis hit a home run to win the game. She was there. I was not. I am bereft. Who was there to explain the fine points to her?

Now (sob!) back to the game.

It might have looked like the Jays were at a disadvantage this afternoon in trying to win their eighth of nine games, since they were the ones starting a fill-in instead of their opponents, who actually had a rotation member on the hill for once.

And yet, after one inning it was clear that Toronto was in the driver’s seat, and had the Cincinnati Reds right where they wanted them: sitting on a 2-1 lead against the home team. After all, hadn’t the Reds jumped out into a lead in the first inning of each of the first two games of this series, only to have Toronto end up on the long end of the score?

Things looked pretty good for Bolsinger to start the first inning, as he managed to keep Billy Hamilton off the bases, striking him out with high heat after fighting back from a 3-0 count. Even the ensuing base hit he gave up to Zack Cozart was a good thing, because his blast off the wall in left was hit so hard and handled so well by Chris Coghlan, playing left today, Cozart was held to a single, keeping the double play in order.

As I’ve already noted, though, limiting Cozart to a walk or a single instead of an extra-base hit is a good thing, but only keeping in mind that it does result in Joey Votto coming to the plate with a man on. This time it wasn’t a good thing, because the confident Votto turned on a good curve ball from Bolsinger, down and in but a strike, and drilled it to centre. The Reds had an instant two-run lead, and Bolsie had to limit the damage. He fanned Adam Duvall, and retired Eugenio Suarez on a sharp grounder to third on which super-sub third baseman Russell Martin made an even sharper backhand grab, ending with a strong throw to retire Suarez.

These days it seems like a little incentive is a positive influence on the Jays. How else do you explain a Toronto team that would go to work down 2-0 in the first and immediately get a run back with a combination of a single, a hit-and-run single, and a sacrifice fly by the cleanup hitter?

With Kevin Pillar finally getting a night off, maybe to try to shake up the batting slump he’s in, Devon Travis led off, and grounded out to first. Zeke Carrera singled to right, and broke for second as Jose Bautista rifled a single to left, which still allowed Carrera to make it to third. First-inning hit and run? No way, Jose! Kendrys Morales picked out a nice driveable 2-0 pitch to loft deep enough to left to score Carrera, and Toronto was on the board and Bolsinger down only 2-1.

As he often does, however, Bolsinger walked, so to speak, right back into trouble, issuing passes to Scott Schebler and Scooter Genette to lead off the inning. It almost seems like Bolsie’s not comfortable if he’s not surrounded by friendly opponents. This time he got the ground ball from Tucker Barnhart and his infield turned a double play, with Schebler going to third. But then with two down Jose Peraza hit a ground-rule double to right centre, and Schebler trotted in, restoring the two-run Cinci lead before Billy Hamilton popped out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the second a rare mental lapse by Russell Martin cost Toronto a chance to cut the Reds’ lead back to one again. Martin had led off with a solid single to left, but after Adleman walked Chris Coghlan, Martin carelessly got himself picked off second for the first out of the inning. Since Ryan Goins drew another walk from Adleman after the pass to Coghlan, Martin would have been on third with nobody out when Luke Maile muscled a solid fly to centre that would easily have gone as a sacrifice fly, but Martin was back on the bench by then.

Bolsie walked Cozart leading off the third, like I’ve been saying, a move that I generally like because I’d rather he not beat you with the homer. In the first inning he got burned by letting Cozart on when Votto followed with the homer. This time no problem, as the Toronto righty got the Toronto native on a weak fly to left, and retired Duvall and Suarez in quick succession. Adleman returned the favour after Zeke Carrera’s leadoff single, and both pitchers rolled on through the fourth without a baserunner.

Bolsinger continued to roll through the fifth, racking up nine outs in a row, and even picking up a couple of strikeouts to run his total to six on the game, by fanning Peraza and Cozart, wrapped around a Hamilton roundup. Who is this guy, and do we need to rethink the roster plan?

Adleman matched Bolsinger out for out and strikeout for strikeout. Almost. With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Ryan Goins, playing shortstop for Troy Tulowitzki in John Gibbons’ alternate-world plan of resting Donaldson and Tulo and giving Maile the game behind the dish, threw a nasty little monkey wrench into Adleman’s works and testified to his manager’s genius by dropping a perfectly-executed bunt toward third on a 2-1 pitch and was on with a base hit.

With two outs and nobody on this might have seemed a rather quixotic notion, especially with the number nine hitter Maile coming to the plate. But then the other coin dropped on Gibbie’s intuitive chops as the otherwise-light-hitting Maile jerked one hard into the seats in left. Suddenly, just when you were lulled to a fitful sleep by a couple of effective if not spectacular pitching performances, the game was all tied up.

After that, Bolsie even got to come out to start the sixth, his longest outing for the Jays thus far. But his streak of outs was rudely cut off by home plate umpire Carlos Torres at nine when the latter didn’t give him a 3-2 pitch high on the black (check it out for yourself) against Votto leading off the inning. He struck out Duvall for the second time on the night, but Suarez followed with a single, and that was enough for Gibbie, who decided to call it a night (a season?) on Mike Bolsinger.

Faced with the lefties Schebler and Gennett, Gibbie brought Aaron Loup in from the pen, and burnished his little “Genius” star a bit more when Loup fanned both to end the inning. Adleman ended his outing with a flourish by retiring the side in his half of the fifth, adding a KO of Russell Martin to finish off his night with his fifth strikeout.

Jason Grilli came on in the seventh for Toronto and contributed some patented Jason-Grilli-type dramatics to the scene. Oh, he got Tucker Barnhart easily enough on a grounder to second. But then Jose Peraza, the little pest, bunted his way on, no doubt thinking, “take that, Ryan Goins!” Then he stole second, which put him one up on Goins. But unfortunately for the Reds, there was no Luke Maile lurking in the shadows to drive him home. Billy Hamilton slapped a late, lazy fly to left, and then Grilli did what Grilli does best, fanned Zach Cozart with high heat. Actually, what Grilli does best is the fist pump afterwards, but as we have learned this season, he has to earn it first. This time it was a yes.

Came the Jays’ seventh, the end of the line for Tim Adleman, and the arrival of Wandy Peralta, who must have been a short-order cook in a previous life, because he sure knows how to make a hash of things.

Peralta started off not badly, putting pinch-hitter Kevin Pillar, hitting for Chris Coghlan in the hole at 0-1 before Pillar grounded out to short. He quickly jumped ahead of Goins 1-2, before going off the tracks and burying three straight balls for the walk. Luke Maile wasn’t able to find lightning in a bottle twice and flew out to centre. Then when Devon Travis stood in at the plate, Peralta became strangely concerned with Goins at first, and threw over there three times before throwing a pitch to Travis. As if Goins were going to steal, which would have been silly in the circustance. Even in terms of keeping Goins close to shorten his jump with two outs, the preoccupation with throwing over didn’t make sense because it was obvious that Goins didn’t have much of a lead.

The Travis at bat went like this: three throws to first, two balls, two fouls, for a 2-2 count. Another pickoff attempt (number four). Two more foul balls, then pickoff attempt number five. Suitably wound up now, Peralta did just what he didn’t want to do, and handed Goins second base by uncorking one that went over everybody’s head and actually bounced over the screen into the seats behind the plate. Then Travis fouled off pitch number eight. Finally, as so often happens in an at-bat like this, number nine was an “oh here, hit it somewhere” pitch. It was at the top of the zone, and on the inner half, and where Travis hit it was high and deep to straitaway left, and we had to wait to see if it would clear the fence. It did.

The lead brought Joe Smith in for Toronto for the top of the eighth, and he was at his best, taking fifteen pitches to strike out Votto and Suarez, and get Duvall to fly out to centre.

Drew Storen, if you can believe it, pitched the bottom of the eighth for Cincinnati, and pitched like it was 2016 and he was a Blue Jay . . .. in an alternative universe, where he actually fulfilled the optimism the Toronto management had for him when they traded Ben Revere to the Nationals for him. Really, striking out Bautista and Morales before getting Smoak to line out to first in foul territory. What’s up with that?

The Reds’ ninth brought the game to a close with some of the highest drama we’ve seen this year. It was Roberto Osuna’s game to close, of course, and not a good one for him at all. With every pitch the pile of little bits of fingernails grew at my feet.

On the first one Scott Schebler narrowed the lead to one with his sixteenth homer of the season to right field. Scooter Gennett struck out. But Tucker Barnhart, of all people, got his first hit of the series, a base hit to centre. With Patrick Kivlehan at first running for Barnhart and the Jays in a moderate shift to right with the lefty Peraza up, Osuna got what he needed, a game-ending double-play ball to Ryan Goins, stationed right behind the bag at second. But Goins, whom I just called for to take over short full time while the Jays trade Troy Tulowitzki, came up on the ball. It deflected off his glove for an error with Kivlehan reaching third.

The only thing I can say other than that shit happens is that Goins may have been rushing because Peraza’s speed in the past three games had gotten into the heads of the Jays, and Goins was rushing the play.

With that same speed, Peraza stole second to eliminate the next (we should be so lucky) double play. Unfazed or not, Osuna saved the game, the day, the series sweep, and Goins’ face by buckling down and fanning Billy Hamilton and the—need I say it?–dangerous Zack Cozart.

Today’s win and the sweep over Cincinnati brought Toronto to within one game of .500, and set them up for the big four-game home series with the league-leading Yankees starting Thursday night. It’s early for a crucial series, but you can’t call it anything else.

Meanwhile, journeyman Mike Bolsinger, nice guy who gives good effort, was packing his things and waiting for the inevitable phone call. But if the Jays can figure out how to do it, especially if another starter goes down, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the curve-balling righty in a Toronto uniform this year.