Oh, the pressure was terrible.
The Yankees had scored a wipeout win in game one of the series and we had to get that game back. Michael Pineda was pitching for New York and he’s had a good year so far, but usually struggles at the TV Dome. And tonight marked the return of Francisco Liriano to the mound after a stint on the disabled list.
Like I said, the pressure was terrible. And that’s just me.
One batter into the game, the pressure, on Liriano and on the Blue Jays was not theoretical, not something airy and vague, but real and immediate. The one thing that Liriano and his mates absolutely did not need after last night’s embarrassing walkover was leadoff batter Brett Gardiner standing on third base courtesy of a three-base error by left-fielder Zeke Carrera.
Back in April Greg Wisniewski published a fascinating article on Baseball Prospectus Toronto, “Coming Up Short: Ezequiel Carrera’s Hidden Problem”, that you can read here: ,http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/27/coming-up-short-ezequiel-carreras-hidden-problem/ The article was based on an interview with Carrera, in which he told how he had realized from studying videos of his own play in the outfield that he had often over-run balls and missed them by reaching too far, not slowing down at the right moment, and so on, and he had determined that he’d been being misguided by a perception that his glove arm, or more accurately his reach, wasn’t as long as it actually was, and he would regularly sense that he was still going to come up short when he had in fact already reached the right spot to make contact with the ball. He revealed, in fact, that he had often been teased as a child by the other kids for having short arms, and this had created an on-going body-image misperception that actually interfered with his fielding as I’ve described. If you looked back over videos of bad Carrera plays in the outfield you would see that almost all of them were caused by his over-running the ball.
Watching the replay of Gardner’s admittedly tricky slice into the left-field corner, that somehow made contact with Carrera’s back side because he had over-run the ball, suggested immediately to me that he had run into that old problem again. In any case, Gardner was on third, Zeke was sheepishly in the doghouse, to mix up my animals a little, and Liriano was in the deep doo-doo, only six pitches into the game.
Ah, but this was the post-disabled-list, new and improved Francisco Liriano, the guy we saw when he arrived from Pittsburgh last year, and his help-mate and support, Russell Martin, wasn’t even behind the plate, still sitting out with that vaguely-descibed muscle strain problem. (Not that it matters these days, as well as Luke Maile has been doing behind the dish.)
All Liriano had to do was retire Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge, and Matt Holliday to strand Gardner at third. So Sanchez hit a hard chopper to third. Josh Donaldson, playing maybe half-way, gloved it smartly to his left, glanced Gardner back to third, and fired out Sanchez.
Up to the plate strode the imposing figure of Aaron Judge. (I pledge to you all hear and now that I will never use the line “Here come de judge!” to refer to Aaron Judge.) If pitchers around the league are learning anything about Aaron Judge, it’s not to throw him fastballs, and generally not to throw him anything above his shoelaces, unless it’s really high, and really fast. The PitchCast chart for Liriano’s strikeout of Aaron Judge makes it look like Liriano was trying to extinguish a particularly annoying bunch of ants that was threatening his picnic. Only Liriano’s first pitch, called a ball by plate umpire Adrian Johnson, a low and outside four-seamer, might have been on the black. Everything else was headed for the dirt, with Liriano trusting that his catcher would catch or block them all. Judge laid off the second one, a changeup for a ball, but then he couldn’t resist, and starting swinging. He swung over a fast ball, a chageup, and one of Liriano’s finest, a slider. Judge was out, and Gardner still on third, now with two outs.
On a 1-2 pitch, Matt Holliday got under an inside pitch and hit a lazy fly ball to left. The happiest person in the ball park, beside Francisco Liriano, must have been Zeke Carrera as he settled under the can of corn for the third out, while Gardner trotted down the line, abandoned by his mates, his run stranded by the Jays’ starter.
So what other writer do you know could tease 773 words out of the top of the first inning of a ball game. Well, you know what? I’m proud of it. I’ll wear it. I own it. That half inning might have been the entire ball game.
Because, by god, whether it was inspired by Liriano’s tough stand or not, what happened in the bottom of the first, after the miracle of the top half of the inning, put Toronto completely in charge of this game, a position which they never relinquished.
After Kevin Pillar led off against Pineda by pounding one up the middle that Starlin Castro fielded in the shift to throw him out, Donaldson came up, took one pitch for a ball, and crushed the next one to left for a 1-0 Jays’ lead. His shot looked like it was going to be solo lightning in a bottle when Jose Bautista skied weakly to left for the second out, but then the fussin’ and fiddlin’ Michael Pineda that we’ve all come to know and love (not!) became obsessed with pitching Kendrys Morales low and away. After he managed to throw one low in the zone for a 1-1 count, he threw three in the dirt and turned his attention to Justin Smoak with two on and two out.
After throwing his fourth straignt in the dirt for ball one to Smoak, Pineda gave up and threw a strike, any strike, a four-seamer in the zone, which was exactly what Smoak was looking for, and suddenly Pineda and the Yankees were down 3-0 after one.
Now it wasn’t like Liriano settled down and just blew the lights out after the first inning. He had more moments in the second and third, moments, in fact, to rival the first, if you like that sort of thing. In the second he had to strike out Didi Gregorius and induce Chase Headley to fly out to left after Double-or-Nothing Aaron Hicks hit a one-out double to right centre.
The third was fun, and had a different flavour all its own. Chris Carter, hitting ninth, started things off with a ground-rule double to centre. When Liriano walked Gardner, it was a cue for the “oh, no-o-o” groans to start. Gary Sanchez then hit one right on the nose on a line at Devon Travis. Luckily for the Yankees, both runners avoided wandering off into what could very possibly have been a Toronto triple play.
So, two outs, runners on first and second, Aaron Judge at the plate: walking him: a good thing, or a bad thing, with Matt Holliday looming on deck with his menacing veteran National League vibe going for him. In this case, a good thing, because Holliday hit into a fine and sharp around-the-horn double play initiated by a good Donaldson grab, and ended by a great Smoak scoop. Still 3-0. Whaddaya think of that?
The Blue Jays were so excited by the sharp play they had just pulled off that they added a run in the bottom of the inning by playing good old-fashioned baseball. Bautista worked Pineda for a 3-2 walk after being behind 1-2. Then, if you can believe it, they started Bautista with Morales at the plate. this opened a seam in the New York shift deployed against Morales. The cleanup hitter hit the seam with precision, and Bautista sailed around to third, a perfect hit-and-run. The new-model Justin Smoak came up looking for a pitch to drive and got it, going fairly deep to centre field, plenty enough to plate Bautista with a sacrifice fly, and Liriano had a lovely add-on run to work with.
Seemingly heartened by that taste of pretty baseball, Liriano set the Yankees down in order on only six pitches in the fourth inning, and turned it back to the offence. With some help from the sloppy Pineda, theystretched the lead once more. Luke Maile, who is showing a penchant for the key base hit despite his low average, led off with a single to centre. Aaron Hicks, showing off his athleticism, made a nice sliding catch on a sinking liner by Kevin Pillar, which actually averted a big inning for Toronto. Josh Donaldson made the second out with a fly ball to centre, bringing Bautista back to the plate, and this time he was on the back end of a surprising first-to-third dash by Maile, who’s pretty agile for a catcher, when he singled to right. This left Maile in position to score on a wild pitch by Pineda, and Liriano’s cushion was up to five.
This was even more of a tonic for the Venezuelan lefty, who merely came out in the fifth and struck out the side, Chase Headley, Chris Carter, and Brett Gardner, on fifteen pitches. On the other hand, Pineda had another rocky inning, though this time he managed to keep Toronto off the board. Justin Smoak, continuing to make effective contact however he can, dropped a Texas Leaguer into left. Troy Tulowitzki followed with a single to centre. Devon Travis blunted the threat by bouncing into a double play with Smoak going to third. But Pineda still walked Zeke Carrera before fanning Luke Maile, who can’t do everything, to end the inning.
Liriano’s fun night on his return to the mound ended quickly in the sixth, with a couple of not-so-fun at-bats that caused John Gibbons to call for reinforcements for Liriano.
Gary Sanchez singled to centre leading off, and somebody—is that you hiding back there young Mr. Liriano?—finally grooved a fast ball to Aaron Judge, and he judiciously pounded it over the fence in right field to cut the Toronto lead to 5-2. Cue the laconic Gibbie march to the mound, and the call to the bullpen for Danny Barnes.
For only the fifth time in eighteen appearances this year, Barnes came in with gas, rather than heat, to throw on the fire. He walked Matt Holliday on a 3-2 pitch, and then free swinger Starlin Castro didn’t wait around for any old balls and strikes, but lined the first one over the fence in right centre to tighten the noose to 5-4. For some reason Barnes didn’t have his strikeout mojo working, and he was a bit lucky that he threw several right-at-ems. Hicks lined out to right. Gregorius singled to right. Headley flew out to left. Chris Carter flew out to right to end the inning.
For once Toronto was in the position to push the ante up on its opponent, with the Yankees having closed the gap. Joe Girardi decided not to risk more foolishness from Pineda, and brought in Johnathon Holder to try to keep the Jays close. Holder, a big (what else?) young righty didn’t quite do the job, retiring three but giving up Donaldson’s second homer of the night, a solo shot to left that gave the Jays a little breathing room.
Aaron Loup started the seventh for Toronto and did his matchup job, striking out Brett Gardner on four pitches, then yielding to Ryan Tepera to pitch to the next four right-handed batters. If he were a hitter he’d have done really well, “batting” .500; but that means he fanned Gary Sanchez for the second out, and Starlin Castro for the third, but in the meantime walked Aaron Judge, and gave up a double over Kevin Pillar’s head to Matt Holliday. Judge, who may look somewhat like an ostrich, runs more like a gazelle, and scored from first with two outs, to cut the Toronto lead once again to one. (Actually, that’s not a great line, because as I recall ostriches run pretty damned fast as well.)
How many times have we been in this boat:? Time for somebody else to suffer. As soon as the Yankees cut the lead to one, they gave the run back to us, via an error by Chris Carter at first that allowed Justin Smoak to reach leading off. It was a curious play, actually. The Yankees were in the usual extreme switch for Smoak, with Castro playing a deep rover in right centre. Smoak hit a medium-speed grounder out to Castro. The latter had a long throw to first, it was a little off the mark, and Carter was charged with an error for not keeping contact with the bag. There comes a point when the placement of the second baseman, no matter how accurate it might be to the hitting charts, means he is being asked to make throws that are well beyond the comfort zone of any previous experience.
In this case it could be argued that the shift was responsible for the unearned run. Tulo followed Smoak with a double to left, bringing Smoak around to third whence he scored on another—can you believe it—sacrifice fly, this time delivered by Travis.
With the 7-5 lead, Joe Smith came in for the eighth. After giving up a leadoff single to Aaron Hicks, who never gives up, Smith kept the ball between himself and the catcher by striking out Gregorius, retiring Headley on a comebacker, and taking Carter’s soft liner himself. This guy Smith is making a name for himself.
After Chasen Shreve breezed through the Toronto ninth, Roberto Osuna did the same for the Blue Jays, finishing the game off with an electric strikeout of Aaron Judge on three pitches, Judge reaching to foul the first two off as Osuna climbed the ladder to the clincher, a 95 mph fast ball on the upper outside corner. The only difference between Shreve’s ninth and Osuna’s ninth, besides the fact that Osuna threw eight pitfhes to Shreve’s sixteen, is that Osuna got an “S” for his efforts.
So Francisco Liriano returns to the mound, performs a Houdini act for three innings and then cruises for two, Josh Donaldson hits two homers, Justin Smoak hits a two-run dinger for the early lead, and Toronto goes wire-to-wire for the win that ties the series.
Sure, the Yankees have a big lead in aggregate runs, but this ain’t soccer, eh?
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