When you’re not hitting (yet again) the microscope tends to be focussed rather more intently on a team’s defense. The molehill of a couple runs’ deficit can look like Mt. Everest to the team that just can’t buy a base hit when it’s needed.
The most egregious of a number of sketchy fielding plays on display by the Toronto Blue Jays tonight was the circus-clown dive Zeke Carrera made in an attempt to catch or block a catchable line drive off the bat of Ryon Healy. Of course he did neither, the ball went all the way to the wall for a double, and Oakland had its fourth and final run in its 4-1 win, their second in a row over the visiting Blue Jays.
I like Zeke Carrera, as a team member, as a player who maximizes relatively modest offensive abilities, and seems to be able to rise to the occasion when most needed. But let’s face it. Expecting him to manage a flawless fielding performance in one of the worst sun fields in baseball is a bit much. Maybe if Marcus Stroman or Francisco Liriano were throwing a bunch of ground balls he’d be okay, but with Marco Estrada making the hitters put the ball in the air, all bets are off.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: even with Devon Travis on the shelf again, the current Toronto lineup is solid defensively everywhere but left field. Or should be.
Remember the frustrating days of the first half of 2015, before the Reyes-for-Tulowitzki trade, when it seemed that the Blue Jays’s most pressing day-to-day need was for a left-fielder who could catch the ball, not to mention occasionally throw someone out, or at least somewhat regularly hit the cutoff man?
It wasn’t supposed to work out that way. 2015 was supposed to be Dalton Pompey’s year to take over in centre field. With Jose Bautista in right, Pompey in centre, and Kevin Pillar in left, the outfield promised to be swift, sure-handed, and attentive to detail. But then Pompey’s first time around with Toronto crashed and burned as he showed he wasn’t ready to hit at the major league level, and his hitting problems, presumably, bled over into his performance in centre, where he looked less and less sure of himself.
Fixing the hole in centre was easy. John Gibbons moved Pillar over from left, he brought his already-acquired Super Kevin cape with him, and we all know how that turned out.
But the hole that Pompey’s departure for Buffalo created in left was another story indeed. Gibbie tried offensive prowess, putting Danny Valencia, a corner infielder out there, and eventually Chris Colabello after he arrived from Buffalo carrying his sizzling bat. But to the shame of neither, neither was an outfielder, though Colabello reportedly worked very hard at becoming one.
Occasionally Gibby tried defensive skill, and pencilled in Steve Tollesen or the multi-talented Ryan Goins, but neither could produce enough offensively to sustain their position in left, normally a power hitter’s home. As Jose Reyes’ problems at shortstop continued to worsen on both sides of the ball, there was one report that he had been seen working out in left field. I liked the notion of Reyes in left which he could surely handle, and the defensively superior Ryan Goins at short, but it never happened, and the Reyes problem, and the Reyes contract, were eventually resolved in the Tulo trade.
Still, there was left field, and the question on a daily basis of whether the position would throw away more runs than it would produce would remain on the agenda until the trade deadline, when Ben Revere was picked to solve the problem, though there were times when I had my doubts about Revere in the field.
So here we are a third of a way in to 2017 and we’re still fighting the left field problem, Captain Canada Michael Saunders’ one brief shining moment having passed. A look at the Jays’ 25-man roster shows only three outfielders listed. Steve Pearce, pencilled in from the start as more or less the regular left fielder, is on the disabled list. So are Dalton Pompey, who should still be in the picture on promise alone, journeyman slugger Darren Ceciliani, and otherwise-rising phenom Anthony Alford. It’s a bit of a distortion to say the Jays are carrying only three outfielders, because all three of Ryan Goins, now slotted at second because of the current Travis injury, Chris Coghlan, and Darwin Barney, listed as infielders, are all more or less capable of playing left competently, if not contributing much to the offense.
In some ways it’s ironic that the last personnel decision team management apparently made out of spring training was to release Melvin Upton, who was strangely inconsistent in his short Blue Jays’ career, though undeniably a skilled fielder, and keep Ryan Goins. Though who could question that decision now, given the amount of playing time Goins has received because of our—shall we say—rather delicate starting middle infielders?
All of which leaves Ezequiel Carrera ensconced in left most nights these days, whether the opponent’s starter throws from the left side or the right side. For good or for bad, both at the plate and in the field, he’s what we’ve got for the moment, and given the need for an extra bullpen arm, with our starters not going as long as in the past two years, I don’t see that changing any time soon. In fact, I wonder what the decision will be once Steve Pearce is ready to return, whether that will mean going one pitcher short, assuming that the lengthening of Joe Biagini and Jay Happ continues apace, and Aaron Sanchez’ return is on schedule, or whether, say, Chris Coghlan will find himself on the bubble?
And so to the matter at hand. Oakland started Jesse Hahn, a right-hander who was making his first start since returning from two weeks on the disabled list with a triceps strain. Prior to that he had done a decent job in the rotation, with nine starts for an ERA of 3.81, though without a lot of luck in spearheading Oakland wins, showing a won-loss record of 1-4. Opposing him on the hill was the bad-luck kid of the battered Toronto rotation, Marco Estrada.
Toronto started the top of the first as if wanting to suggest that maybe Hahn should have stayed on the DL a bit longer. Kevin Pillar led off and ripped a liner, but right at Mark Canha in left. Josh Donaldson singled to left. Jose Bautista singled to left. Yes, three right-handed batters in a row all pulled the ball effectively against Hahn, who was then rescued by Kendrys Morales slapping the ball out to the shortstop for an easy double play.
Then the Athletics took a 1-0 lead on Estrada in the bottom of the first. Have I said that before? Of course it was the annoying Rajai Davis, who never played as well for us as he has against us, who created the run. Leading off, he lunged for, and just barely fouled off, a low, outside fast ball from Estrada. Then, on 3-2, he basically swept a ball four change-up off the plate and hooked it into left field for a double.
Estrada fanned Chad Pinder while holding Davis at second, and then Jed Lowrie singled to right. It was a hard one-hopper right at Jose Bautista, so hard that even Rajai Davis had to be stopped at third. That brought up the gimpy slugger Khris Davis, whom Estrada caused to mis-hit a fast ball up in the zone after two changeups down and away. Unfortunately, he hit a lazy slice of a foul fly to right that Bautista maybe would have let go if it were later in the game, but you don’t want to give away an out in the first inning even at the expense of a run, so he made the catch but had no chance of throwing out Davis on the sacrifice fly.
For the real baseball newbie out there, yes, a runner can indeed advance on a caught foul ball with less than two outs, just like a caught fair ball. For the slightly more advanced beginner, please do not be shocked to learn that fielders will occasionally let a catchable foul ball drop harmlessly to the earth instead of making the catch and being unable to stop a baserunner from tagging up and scoring. Imagine the home team having a runner at third with less than two outs in an extra-inning game. A left-fielder having to make a long run into foul territory to make a catch would merely hand the game to the home team on a walk-off sacrifice fly: a perfect example of making a spectacular catch being a Pyrrhic victory.
It was a match made in heaven: Rajai Davis always gets on and scores in the first inning against Toronto. Marco Estrada always gives up a run in the first inning. So, 1-0 Oakland, it was inevitable, let’s move on.
Except, here was the first crack in the Toronto defensive veneer. Remember that when Khris Davis hit the sacrifice fly to Bautista in foul territory, Jed Lowrie was on first with his previous hard single to right. Not only did Bautista try in vain to throw out Rajai Davis at the plate, but he also missed the cutoff man with his throw, allowing Lowrie to advance to second. It came to naught, but still. Another base hit would have scored a giveaway run.
After a quick second inning for both pitchers, in which notably there was no further hard contact by the Jays against Hahn, Toronto tried a little flash and hustle in the third inning in an attempt to tie the score, but it didn’t pan out for them. On a 2-2 pitch, Ryan Goins, hitting eighth, reached out and down and rifled a liner into left for a single. Manager John Gibbons decided to try to scratch for a run with the bottom of the order and started Goins on a 1-0 pitch to Luke Maile. It worked as Maile grounded out softly to third, with Goins safely into second. Pillar hit the ball on the nose one again, but once again it was right at somebody, Rajai Davis in centre.
Donaldson, facing the shift with two outs, according to his own theory made a mistake and hit a bounding ball past the pitcher to the left of the bag at second. Third baseman Ryon Healy, playing at short, ranged to his left and hustled the ball to first, but Donaldson, showing no ill effects from his leg injury, easily beat it out. Meanwhile, someone, whether Goins was running on his own or he was sent by third-base coach Yonder Alonso, decided to replicate Eric Hoskins’ famous dash from second against Toronto that scored the winning run for Kansas City in the 2015 ALCS, and steamed for the plate. Yonder Alonso was very alert coming off the bag, fired a strike to catcher Stephen Vogt, and Goins was an easy out. The score remained 1-0 for the Athletics.
Oakland went quickly in the bottom of the third as Estrada settled into his typical early-innings rhythm. By the end of the inning he had retired seven Oakland batters in a row, and had struck out three so far.
The Goins play at the plate seemed to have encouraged Toronto, and they came out for the fourth ready to take advantage of an Oakland error and stir up more trouble for Hahn. Jose Bautista hit a grounder to third leading off but Ryon Healy’s throw was off, with Bautista safe on the error. Kendrys Morales finally beat the shift when his shot to short right deflected off Jed Lowrie’s glove for an “infield” hit. Justin Smoak hit into a fielder’s choice that moved Bautista to third, whence he scored on a single through the open right side by Troy Tulowitzki which tied the game at one.
Amazingly, after an incredible dry spell, this was the second base hit in two innings for Toronto with a runner in scoring position, though it was the first one that actually scored a runner. The inning continued with Zeke Carrera taking one for the team and loading the bases on a hit batsman, but Ryan Goins hit into a double play to end the threat. Little did we know that this was the last real threat the Jays would pose against the Athletics.
Here’s what the Jays managed in the last five innings against Jesse Hahn, who went six innings for the win, Daniel Coulombe and Ryan Madson who shared the seventh and eighth, and Santiago Casilla who closed it out: against Hahn, Kevin Pillar singled with one out in the fifth, but tried to stretch it into a double and was gunned down on a great throw from right fielder Chad Pinder, who certainly gets around. And Justin Smoak walked with two outs and was stranded in the sixth.
Coulombe came on for Hahn and walked Darwin Barney to lead off the seventh, and then fanned Ryan Goins and punched out Luke Maile with a beautiful curve ball before turning it over to Madson who got Pillar to ground into a fielder’s choice. In the eighth Madson started by walking Donaldson, but retired Bautista on a liner to centre, and then fanned Morales and Smoak.
Oakland’s closer Casilla gave up a leadoff single to Troy Tulowitzki in the top of the ninth. Tulo moved to second, the only batter to reach second since the fourth, when the pinch-hitter Chris Coghlan, hitting for Barney, grounded to first. But then, like his predecessors, Casilla opened up a can of Whiff and blew away the last two batters he faced, Goins and Maile, again.
Marco Estrada’s string of consecutive outs carried through the fourth, when it extended to ten, and into the fifth, when he retired Healy leading off, on a short fly ball that had Carrera and Tulowitzki all tied up in the evening sun field until Pillar, with a better angle on it, came in and called them off.
But the string was broken with the next batter as Estrada walked the number eight hitter, the catcher Stephen Vogt, and then gave up a double to Mark Canha. With the game still tied, and no indication that Estrada was tiring, Oakland tried to force matters as well, and sent Vogt to the plate from first. But a quick recovery by Carrera in left and a strong relay by Tulo cut Vogt down for the second out. Canha took third on the throw, however, whence he was able to score on an infield hit by Adam Rosales off the glove of a diving Tulowitzki. The A’s were up 2-1 with a scratchy run that would eventually stand up for the win.
Unfortunately for Estrada and the Jays, while Jesse Hahn and the Oakland bullpen were keeping the Jays from getting anything going, the Athletics managed to push across a couple more runs in the sixth, enough to drive the last nails into the Toronto coffin.
After fanning Chad Pinder for his seventh strikeout, Estrada gave up a single to right to Jed Lowrie. Lowrie came around to score on a double to dead centre by Khris Davis that carried well over Pillar’s head; to be fair to Pillar, by now it seems as if he’s done something wrong when he isn’t able to run one down. Then came the final dagger: after Yonder Alonso fanned for Estrada’s eighth strikeout, Healy hit what appeared to be a catchable liner to left centre that Zeke Carrera got to, but missed catching in a very awkward dive toward centre; it was pretty apparent that he’d lost the ball in the lights. In any case, it rolled to the wall where Pillar had to retrieve it and hustle it in to keep Healy at second. Davis, of course, hobbled leg and all, scored easily with the fourth Oakland run.
Aaron Loup came on to strike out Josh Phegley hitting for Stephen Vogt to strand Davis at second, but given the inability of Toronto to string together some baserunners, it made the rest of the proceedings academic. Dominic Leone retired the A’s in the seventh on eight pitches. Ryan Tepera pitched the eighth and retired the side, walking Lowrie with one out but getting Khris Davis to ground into a double play to finish off the inning.
So some cheapish runs for Oakland, a continued hitting funk for Toronto, and some dicey defensive plays all added up to two in a row for the Athletics over the Jays, putting Toronto into a hole on the road trip, needing to salvage the third game in Oakland tomorrow afternoon and a sweep in Seattle to come home four and two.
Well, one game at a time, and it starts with Francisco Liriano’s return to the rotation. One game at a time.
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