In the category of “be careful what you wish for” must come the secret desire in Joe Biagini’s heart of hearts to become a regular member of the rotation for the Toronto Blue Jays.
In the continued absence of Aaron Sanchez, Biagini’s wish, if it is indeed his wish (and who can doubt it?) seems to be coming true, to the extent that it is getting increasingly more difficult to imagine him returning to the Toronto bullpen.
Yet with the granting of a wish must come the acceptance of the realities that accompany it. And for Biagini, like most other Toronto starters, the reality is that quality starts are not always rewarded with a mark in the “W” column, and in the case of some pitchers, like, historically, Marco Estrada, handing in a quality start is pretty well a guarantee that a win, either for the pitcher or the team, will not result.
As his starts begin to accumulate, Joe Biagini’s run support from the Blue Jays’ lineup is clearly beginning to fall into a category similar to that of Estrada, rather than, say, that of the Jay Happ of 2016.
In his last three starts, including tonight, which is to say since any meaningful limits on his pitch count as a starter were lifted, he has thrown twenty innings, six against Texas in which he gave up two earned runs, seven against the Yankees, in which he gave up one earned run, and seven tonight against Seattle, in which he gave up three earned runs. Not a win to be had in the lot.
To be fair to the Jays’ lineup, however, it’s not like their failure to support the likes of Biagini and Estrada is countervailed by a huge outpouring of support for Marcus Stroman, Francisco Liriano, or Jay Happ. No, sir, the recent Toronto power outage is an equal opportunity failure, and generally goes right across the board, regardless of who is on the hill.
Tonight, for example, Sam Gaviglio was on the mound for Seattle. Since being called up in early May, the 24-year-old right hander has made six appearances, five of them starts, and he has thrown a total of 27 innings in his first five major league starts, pitching to an ERA of 2.79. I first saw Gaviglio pitch when he played for Italy in this spring’s World Baseball Classic. An incureable romantic, I contrived to watch every Italy game, just for the sake of watching Chris Colabello play for the Italian squad.
Gaviglio had one appearance in the WBC, in game two against Venezuela. It was one of the games involving Italy that turned out to be a hot, wet mess, an 11-10 Venezuela win in ten innings. But Gaviglio was the starter for Italy, and against a Venezuelan lineup that waa loaded for bear (first six batters: Jose Altuve, Martin Prado, Miggy Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez, Victor Martinez, Salvador Perez, a lineup in which Roughned Odor was used as a pinch-hitter), he went four and two thirds innings, gave up two runs on five hits, walked two and struck out one on 61 pitches. Pretty good job under pressure for somebody with no major league experience to that point.
In fact, like others involved in the WBC, most notably Marcus Stroman, it may have been that the tournament experience was the last bit of polish Gaviglio needed before stepping onto the big stage.
In any case, he started well in the first, getting two quick outs before running into trouble. The trouble was big, but he weathered it, adding to the Toronto narrative of lost opportunities, and the opposing pitchers’ narratives of coming up with the big moment. With two outs he walked Jose Bautista, and then Kendrys Morales ripped one so hard over Danny Valencia’s head at first that it got to the wall in right so quickly that Morales only got a single out of it, with Bautista moving to third. Then Gaviglio loaded the bases by walking Justin Smoak, but Troy Tulowitzki ignored one thigh-high sinker that was called a strike, and rolled over on the second one and grounded into a forceout to end the inning. Tough pitching in a crisis or a struggling batter? The jury’s out on that one.
Unlike many previous experiences, having lost an early chance with an unknown quantity pitcher, Toronto didn’t just roll up like a sow bug and quit trying. They scratched out a run in the second, but it took a big dose of help from, let’s just call it Danny Valencia’s not-so-excellent adventure. Gaviglio walked Russell Martin leading off, and Martin was able to move up right away on a passed ball charged to catcher Mike Zunino, who had just been jinxed by Tuck and Babby talking about what a good defender he is behind the plate.
Zeke Carrera followed with a line drive that deflected off Danny Valencia’s glove at first for an infield hit. Martin had to hold up to see if the liner would be caught, so only made it to third. Ryan Goins followed with a grounder to first that might have gotten Gaviglio out of the inning with a double play, but in his haste to turn and make the play at second, Valencia slipped and made a poor throw to second that nipped Carrera, but there was no chance of turning two, and Martin came in to score for a 1-0 lead. Then Kevin Pillar obliged the Mariners by hitting another double-play ball.
In the third the Jays extended their lead when Jose Bautista homered off Gaviglio with one out and nobody on. The Seattle pitcher had Taylor Motter to thank for keeping Josh Donaldson from scoring ahead of Bautista, as he had made a fine skidding play to his backhand to flag down a grounder in the hole by Donaldson, get up and throw him out.
Meanwhile, Biagini cruised quickly through the first two innings, retiring six in a row with three strikeouts on only 21 pitches. But after Bautista had given him a two-run cushion, Jarrod Dyson, who has become somewhat of a thorn in the side of the Blue Jays, manufactured a run to cut the lead to one. With one out he dumped a Texas Leaguer into centre in front of Pillar, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and scored on an RBI single by Ben Gamel.
For two teams that carry as much firepower as Toronto and Seattle, it was interesting, even a bit surprising, to see both pitchers hold their opponents scoreless through the middle innings. Biagini, in fact, starting from the third out in the third, retired ten batters in a row, a string finally broken off by Robbie Cano’s leadoff double in the seventh.
Gaviglio was a little more reachable than Biagini, allowing a single runner in each inning, but the Jays were never able to string anything together, wasting Zeke Carrera’s two-out infield hit in the fourth, Josh Donaldson’s one-out single in the fifth, and a leadoff single by Justin Smoak in the sixth, which was erased by Russell Martin hitting into a double play. Gaviglio must have been throwing pixie dust when Troy Tulowitzki was at the plate, because he struck Tulo out looking both leading off the fourth, and after Smoak’s base hit in the sixth. This was after retiring Tulo to end the threat in the first, you’ll recall.
Ryan Goins took a swipe at stirring up two-out trouble in the fourth, after Carrera’s infield hit. Seattle had put the full shift to the right on for Goins, and when he was in the hole, 1-2, he—and everyone else—noticed that they hadn’t modified the shift; it was still showing three infielders on the right side. The fact that he fouled off his attempt to bunt toward the open left side for strike three didn’t obscure that it was a smart attempt to keep the ball rolling, so to speak and turn the lineup over.
The seventh inning changed everything for both teams. Seattle manager Scott Servais decided that Gaviglio had given him all that he could, and he went out having thrown six innings, given up two runs on six hits, but only one earned run, walked three and struck out five on 102 pitches. Right-hander Tyler Cloyd got the call to face Zeke Carrera, whom he fanned looking, and Ryan Goins, who grounded out to short.
But Kevin Pillar, who has been quietly watching his batting average drop despite still hitting the ball hard, ripped a single down the right field line, bringing Josh Donaldson to the plate, and one of the pivotal moments of the game, which turned on a mis-communication between Pillar and third-base coach Luis Rivera though all credit has to be given to the Mariners’ defence, starting with Jarrod Dyson.
With two outs and Pillar on first, he would obviously be off with the hit and would have expected to score on anything hit in the gap. Donaldson hit one in the gap, all right, and Pillar was off. But no one reckoned with the speed and reflexes of Dyson in centre, who chanced everything on a dive to his backhand to try to cut the ball off. He made contact with the ball, it popped slowly away from him, but he had enough momentum in his slide to catch up to it and throw a strike from his knees to Taylor Motter, the primary relay man.
Motter whirled and fired to the plate, where Pillar, who hadn’t picked up Rivera’s stop sign until it was too late, was decisively beaten by the throw, which catcher Mike Zunino had to bring back from the first-base line to tag the desperate Pillar who was diving for the plate. There was no review, and the Toronto lead remained 2-1, with Biagini coming back out for the bottom of the seventh, an attempt to go seven for the second time in a row.
Well, Biagini finished off his seventh inning again, but by the time he was finished the Mariners had taken the lead and he was on the hook for another loss. This time there was little blame to be found, except that some of the excellent Seattle hitters finally measured Biagini. In fact, it was only the accurate arm of Kevin Pillar, now on the other end of an outfield assist, that kept the Mariners’ rally to two runs.
Robbie Cano doubled to centre leading off the inning. Ryan Goins made a fine play on a ground ball up the middle by Nelson Cruz to prevent a base hit, and hold Cano at second, crossing behind the bag and throwing across his body to retire the admittedly labouring Cruz. Then Biagini walked the left-handed Kyle Seager on four pitches, choosing to face Danny Valencia, who has had a spotty record against his old team, instead. It didn’t work, however, as Valencia grounded one through the left side to score Cano. Zeke Carrera yet again overthrew the cutoff man in a vain attempt to throw out Cano, and Seager steamed into third.
With runners on first and third, Biagini made his biggest mistake of the inning, walking the right-handed-hitting catcher Zunino, bringing, you guessed it, Jarrod Dyson to the plate again. Dyson lined a 2-1 pitch into centre, counting Seager from third with the lead run, but Valencia, attempting to follow with the insurance run, was thrown out by a hard-charging Pillar for the second out, with a perfect one-hopper right to Martin’s glove which was waiting for Valencia’s slide. Biagini, with two runners still aboard, finally got Taylor Motter to ground out to third after a seven-pitch at-bat.
Next up for Scott Servais, now that the M’s had the lead, was his best setup man, Nick Vincent. Without boring you with the details, if you look at his game log record, the lines for runs, hits, earned runs, and walks, for nearly the entire season, look like reams of old binary 1/0 computer code, with a lot more zeros than ones. He had a good news/bad news inning, giving up a leadoff single to Bautista, fanning Morales and Smoak, giving up a single to Tulowitzki, and then fanning Russell Martin to end the inning.
With Biagini done for the day, Aaron Loup was called on to face the left-handed Ben Gamel and Guillermo Heredia, and he took care of them, but not in the usual way. Gamel led off with a double to right, and Heredia followed with a sacrifice attempt. It was to the third-base side of the mound, and Loup was on it quickly. Equally importantly, Donaldson at third recognized quickly that Loup would get to it first, and reversed his charge to get back to third in time to take the throw from Loup and lay the tag on Gamel for the first out. Loup then ate up Cano with an inside pitch that the latter grounded to third, too soft for a double play; Donaldson threw out Cano, with Heredia moving up to second.
Discretion was the key here, and John Gibbons decided to save MLB ninety whole seconds and issue the no-pitch intentional pass to Nelson Cruz to set up the force for Kyle Seager. But Seager singled to left, scoring Heredia with the dreaded add-on run and moving Boog Powell, running for Cruz, and not related to the real Boog Powell, to third. That was it for Loup, and Dominic Leone came on to strike out Danny Valencia to strand Powell and Seager.
With the lanky Edwin Diaz back in the saddle as Seattle’s closer, there was one big swing from Zeke Carrera who flied out deep to centre, and a lot of whooshing as Diaz fanned Goins and Pillar to end the game.
Joe Biagini pitched a great game, but Sam Gaviglio and the Seattle bullpen were just that much better on this night, with the mighty Toronto bats failing to solve their hitting woes when they were most needed, and the Jays were now one and three on the road trip, and for them there’s no question that Friday night would be Sleepless in Seattle.
Leave a Reply