Talk about your pressure situations. Francisco Liriano definitely did not need this.
Coming back fom a stint on the disabled list, in the midst of an inconsistent season-long funk that nobody had anticipated, the last thing Francisco Liriano must have wanted was to be thrust into the role of rotation stopper in a game that had “must win” written all over it, or at least far more than it should have been for so early in the season.
As well, in the wake of Tuesday night’s loss that was marred by disturbing signs of defensive breakdown, today’s game would be played in broad sunlight, creating even more difficult conditions for whoever would be patrolling the worst sun field in baseball.
These days it seems like it wouldn’t be a Toronto game if there weren’t some issue with the opposing starter. He might be a callup; he might be coming off the disabled list; he might be coming out of the bullpen; seldom do you think, oh, yeah, that guy’s their number two, or whatever. The corollary of this, as you well know, is that it’s pretty rare for the Jays to beat up on somebody they’re not familiar with.
And so it was today with Oakland’s starter, Jharel Cotton. He’d had nine starts for Oakland before this afternoon, pitching to an ERA of 5.11 over 55 innings. In a statistical anomaly that hearkens back to baseball’s ancient history, when men were men (lol) and starting pitchers only came out if they were clocked by a liner, Cotton had taken the decision in every one of his starts up to today: nine starts and a won-loss record of 3-6.
In a another curious twist, when Jesse Hahn, Monday’s Oakland starter who came off the DL to start against Toronto, was placed on the disabled list in late May, Cotton was recalled from Triple A to take his place on the roster. Cotton had been sent down in early May partly to sort out some issues he was having, and partly because at the time the Athletics had six healthy starters. (How does that even happen in 2017?)
So Cotton was that typical combination of kind of wild but with great stuff, a combination that sets many hitters back on their heels. He started out not badly, giving up only a walk to Josh Donaldson, but striking out Jose Bautista and popping up Kendrys Morales in the first.
This brought the A’s to the plate in the bottom of the first, and whetted the curiosity of yer humble scribe as to how the Jays’ opponents would manage to score a first inning run this time. It didn’t take too long to find out, nor did it take too long to discover that, day or night, Zeke Carrera or Chris Coghlan, the Jays still have a serious problem in left field.
Rajai Davis continued to torment his former team by hitting a double over the head of Kevin Pillar in centre. Liriano then got serious and fanned both Chad Pinder and Jed Lowrie, but Davis stole third with Lowrie at the plate. Then Khris Davis hit one to the wall in left that stranded Rajai Davis for the third out. Er, no, he hit one to the wall in left that Coghlan didn’t get back for quickly enough, and then mis-timed his jump on. The ball hit the wall within what should have been Coghlan’s reach, and went for a double to score Rajai Davis with the first run for Oakland. Ryon Healy grounded out to end the inning, but the Jays had given up another first-inning run, and their left-field woes were continuing even with a change in personnel.
But right away in the top of the second things looked a little different. Justin Smoak led off, and was quickly 2-0 as Cotton throw one low and outside, and another one wildly high and outside. This forced him to throw a strike, and it was juicy: 92 mph, thigh high, centre cut, and Smoak was all over it, staying with the pitch and hitting it out to left centre for his seventeenth of the season and a 1-0 Toronto lead.
Cotton settled down right away, and fanned both Troy Tulowizki and Russell Martin,
using a wipeout slider for the knockout pitch after throwing everything low and away. He only had Chris Coghlan to go to keep the game close, but he lost concentration again, and walked the number eight hitter on a 3-1 pitch, a walk during which only one of the balls was even close. With Ryan Goins at the plate, he was wild low with his first pitch, but then painted the black twice, freezing Goins on one low and outside, the second up and in. Cotton tried to go low and outside to finish Goins off, but the pitch was up, and Goins, swinging more to protect, hit it late and rifled it through the empty left side for a base hit, with Coghlan stopping at second.
This brought Keven Pillar up to face Cotton for the second time, after pitching coach Curt Young paid a visit to the mound. It’s been a frustrating period for Pillar lately, as he has continued to hit the ball hard, but had little to show for it, and has been watching his average drop from over .300 to below .270. After the visit, Cotton continued to work in and out, getting a called strike inside, and inducing a foul ball outside. Then he missed up and in, and good job he missed Pillar. But Pillar didn’t miss the fourth pitch from Cotton, which was down the middle but marginally low, and drove it into the left-field seats for an extra three-run gift to Liriano, and a 4-1 Toronto lead. Josh Donaldson drew another walk from Cotton, but Jose Bautista flew out to centre to send Liriano back out there with a three-run lead to protect.
Despite walking Trevor Plouffe to lead off the bottom of the second, Liriano retired the next three Oakland batters, fanning Mark Canha and Adam Rosales, and getting catcher Josh Phegley to fly out to right. But Liriano took nineteen pitches to do it, so after two innings his pitch count was already at 41. Cotton retired the Toronto side in order in the top of the third, although Smoak hit the ball hard and deep again to centre, but this time it stayed in the park for an out.
Any hope of Liriano having an easy ride of it on the lead were dampened by an unearned Oakland run in the bottom of the third. It started with, of course, a single to centre by Rajai Davis. Chad Pinder followed with what should have been a double-play ball to Troy Tulowitzki, but Tulo couldn’t come up with it for yet another error by a player who, I repeat, does not seem to have come back healthy and effective from his time on the DL. With Davis on second and Pinder on first and nobody out, all Oakland needed was two fielder’s choices to score Davis with Oakland’s second run. There was chatter from the booth that the second fielder’s choice by Khris Davis, the one that scored Davis, might have been a double-play ball as well, because Ryan Goins had trouble getting a handle on the ball and ate it rather than try to get the gimpy Davis at first. But when I see the replay I see a slow bounder to Tulo that wasn’t a DP candidate no matter who was running down the line.
After an uneventful top of the fourth marked only by Cotton issuing his fourth walk to Russell Martin and then stranding him, Liriano grooved one to Trevor Plouffe in the bottom of the inning, and Oakland was within one of the Toronto lead.
Cotton retired the Toronto side again in the fifth, bringing the leadoff hitter Davis back to the plate for his third kick at Liriano’s can, and another adventure by Chris Coghlan in left. Davis hit one to the wall, a high drive that should have been the first out, that a competent left fielder would need to make a little jump for with his back to the wall. But somehow Coghlan didn’t get back quickly enough to time his jump, and the ball hit the wall next to his upstretched glove. It then took a funny bounce which Kevin Pillar had to retrieve, while Davis easily steamed into third with (to me) a tainted triple.
Chad Pinder immediately delivered Davis with a sacrifice fly, and Toronto’s lead was now gone. Liriano’s adventures in the fifth didn’t end there, as he gave up a base hit to Jed Lowrie that didn’t stick in Pillar’s glove at the end of a dive, and then needed a brilliant double play started by Tulo and turned by Goins to finish off the fifth.
After Smoak singled to lead off the sixth, Cotton retired the side to go out on a high note, with an odd look to his line, suggesting he may have been engaging in four-play this afternoon out there in front of all those people: 6 innings pitched, four runs, four hits, four walks, four strikeouts, on 106 pitches.
John Gibbons didn’t wait for the sixth to pull Liriano: for his first start back from rehab, 92 pitches was enough; it was just too bad that his mates didn’t help him keep the lead. His line was five innings, three earned runs, 6 hits, one walk, and five strikeouts.
Danny Barnes came in for the sixth, and with his arrival the game was officially in the hands of the bullpens. Barnes turned in yet another perfect two-inning bridge with three strikeouts. With the score tied Gibbie turned to a Guy Named Joe for the eighth inning, and he delivered again, fanning two and retiring the side on 17 pitches. Meanwhile ex-pat Canadian John Axford pitched around a walk in the seventh, and ex-pat Aussie ex-Blue Jay Liam Hendriks threw an excellent eighth with two strikeouts on just nine pitches.
Hendriks stayed on to stifle the Jays in the top of the ninth, chalking up two more strikeouts in the process, retiring six hitters in a row on just 19 pitches. Can we trade to get this guy back, at least so we won’t have to face him in an enemy uniform?
John Gibbons changed his strategy for the ninth inning of a tie game and brought in Ryan Tepera rather than Roberto Osuna. Perhaps he had a presentiment that there was more thunder coming from his big bats, and would need Osuna to close, or perhaps his decision reflected his growing confidence in Ryan Tepera, but in any case it was Tepera, not Osuna, who came in and blew off the Athletics on eleven pitches to send the game to the tenth.
Extra innings on enemy turf—been there before in this rocky season. The only thing for it is rack up a bunch of runs and take the “last-bats” right out of the equation. Nice work if you can get it . . .
Manager Bob Melvin tabbed Frankie Montas, a 24-year-old right hander from the Dominican, to start the tenth. In his first season with the Mariners, he’d seen plenty of work out of the bullpen, working 28 innings in 20 appearances, with 30 strikeouts, but 15 walks.
He got in trouble with command on the first at bat; he went 3-0 to Kevin Pillar, worked his way back to 3-2, and then plunked him right in the middle of his averted back. This brought Josh Donaldson to the plate, and Montas settled in and fought him hard, but lost the battle. Donaldson took him to the seventh pitch on 2-2, and Montas threw it right on the black at the bottom of the zone, and Donaldson reached down for it, and just drove it out of the park, plating Pillar ahead of him and giving Toronto the first two of that “bunch of runs” I was talking about.
After a coaching visit to the mound, Montas retired Murderer Three, Bautista, and Murderer Four, Morales, on easy grounders, but he couldn’t get past the whole row, as Justin Smoak, in a pitch sequence similar to that faced by Donaldson, went down and got all of a 2-2, seventh-pitch slider and hit it straight out to centre for a three-run Toronto lead.
Was three enough of a “bunch of runs” for Roberto Osuna to protect? Well, good thing that they didn’t just get one for him: Osuna breezed through Josh Phegley, whom he fanned, and Adam Rosales on a short fly to centre, but—who else?–Rajai Davis doubled to right to keep the M’s alive. He scored on Matt Joyce’s two-out single to right, though if Bautista’s throw hadn’t short-hopped Russell Martin at the last minute, Davis might have been DOA. But it was now 7-5, Joyce was on first with two outs, and there was nothing left for Osuna to do but to fan Jed Lowrie to end the game and secure the save.
So sure, there was lots of pressure on Liriano and his team mates today, but they were up to it. Maybe Liriano couldn’t hold the leave they gave him, but he kept it even, turned it over to an unbelievably effective bullpen, and then just sat and watched and waited to see if there would be an outbreak of bashing. This time, there was.
Now it’s off to Toronto West, aka Seattle, where the home team Blue Jays will host the visiting Mariners. Two out of three in Seattle will give us a split on the trip, which is the least we need.
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