Be careful what you wish for: you could end up carrying an awful load of guilt.
I was about to ask if anyone would rid us of these infernal Rays, when I thought of Thomas á Becket and Henry II. And then I thought of the Orange Trumpkin, Jeff (Forrest Gump, but dumber) Sessions, and James Comey, and I thought, best not tempt the fates.
Still, according to Tuck and Babbie, the all-time season record for Toronto versus Tampa Bay is 106 wins and 70 losses, prior to tonight’s smothering, and it ain’t Toronto what’s clinging to those 106 wins, in case you hadn’t guessed. Maybe there is room for thought of assassination . . .
Toronto had its most experienced, savvy starter, Marco Estrada, on the hill. For whatever reason Tampa manager Kevin Cash swapped his rotation around and inserted young Jacob Fario into the lineup for the veteran left-hander Jake Odorizzi.
What could go wrong with a setup like that? Well, huh! Or in an older vernacular, don’t ask.
Estrada was eminently, embarrassingly hittable, to the tune of six runs and twelve hits over three and a third innings. Faria handled the Toronto lineup like a seasoned pro, leaving after six and a third innings having given up one run on six hits while walking one and fanning eight.
To be depressingly specific, after two innings of giving up four hits, three of them of the incredibly cheesy variety, but keeping the score sheet clean by virtue of a great peg from Russell Martin to Josh Donaldson to throw out Corey Dickinson at third in the first inning, and a quick 6-4-3 double play in the second to escape from a bases-loaded situation, in the third the Rays continued to cheap it up, with three more lucky hits, but they also added some legits, a solo shot by callup shortstop Taylor Featherston (he should go to England; I think there’s a cricket team that needs a batsman with a name like his) and a three-run job by Logan Morrison*, and after the top of three it was Tampa 4, Toronto no score, and Tampa had already racked up ten hits, to Toronto’s one.
*There was also a legit double to right by Colby Rasmus, but it didn’t account for any of the runs, and we don’t like to mention his name anyway, okay? I don’t know why, but even seeing him on TV makes me feel like I need a shower. If you ever need an example of a dirt bag, just dial up Colby.
Despite the double-digit hits, knowing that only about three of them were solidly hit, that the runs had come on homers, and that the lead was only four with a rookie on the mound to protect it, you might have had a little hope, even if the only response by the Jays in the bottom of the third was a lonely base hit by Zeke Carrera.
But the top of the fourth sealed the deal, both for Estrada and his team, and the game basically ended with a dagger blow by Evan Longoria. Estrada started by getting Taylor Featherston on a grounder to third. But then two left-handed hitters in a row, Mallex Smith and Corey Dickerson, reached, Smith up and Dickerson out, and slapped base hits into left field. John Gibbons had read this script already, and wasn’t about to see Estrada let one good hit follow two bads, so Estrada was out and Dominic Leone was in to face Longoria.
Didn’t really matter to Longoria, who hit the double anyway, a soft little humpbacked thing down the left-field line on the first pitch from Leon. Both runners scored on the hit, and now you had a six-run lead after four, and it’s a rare team of birds that can come back from that kind of dead. The Toronto Blue Jays weren’t that team tonight.
Estrada’s early departure meant extra work for the Toronto bullpen, of course, and Gibby had to use four arms to finish the game, pretty well eliminating all four from the possibility of being used in the second game of the series tomorrow night. Two of them, Leone and the somewhat chastened Steve Grilli, were sacrificial lambs, but Gibby also allowed the pitches to pile up on both of the lefties in his ‘pen, Aaron Loup and Jeff Beliveau, rendering them unavailable for Wednesday’s game. Note to self: must decide if Jays are birds or sheep, and stick with decision.
Leone pitched well, after the double by Longoria, though he did need a nice running catch by Kevin Pillar on Steven Souza to strand Longoria in the fourth before pitching a clean fifth. Leone went out having given up two inherited runners but striking out four in an inning and two thirds.
After Leone, newcomer lefty Jeff Beliveau pitched a quick sixth, retiring the side on 14 pitches with two strikeouts, but was victimized for a seventh Tampa run after he walked Evan Longoria leading off the inning. Logan Morrison hit a ridiculously fluky bloop single to right—this was Tampa’s night for flukes; isn’t that some kind of fish?—and Longoria came around to third. It took two tries to score him with a sac fly, as he held third on the first, by Steven Souza, when they chose not to test Bautista’s arm in right, but when Rasmus forced Pillar to make a running, over-the-shoulder catch in deep centre, he was able to walk in with the seventh run.
(Just looked it up. Yes, the fluke is another name for the “summer flounder” which is an Atlantic species. Maybe the Rays could change their name to the Tampa Bay Flukes. Suits their style, and it wouldn’t be the first name change for them. After all, they already dropped the “Devil” from their name, presumably because of right-wing religious fundamentalism in Florida.)
With Tampa up 7-1, it seemed a good time for John Gibbons to get Jason Grilli back into the fray. He hadn’t pitched in ten days since his horrendous 3-homer outing against the Yankees, and clearly needed to be vetted for future work. I’d say he passed the audition. Gave up a leadoff single to Derek Norris that set up one of the prettiest double plays you’ll ever see. Taylor Featherston bounced one back to Grilli who turned and tossed the ball over the bag at second. But Troy Tulowitzki was easily two steps from the base when Grilli let go of the ball. Tulo glided across the bag, took the ball out of the air in stride as he touched the bag, and glided out of the way of Norris coming in to complete the throw to first. It looked for all the world like a quarterback leading his receiver with the ball. Mallex Smith flew out to right for the last out, and Grilli sat down after 18 pitches.
Mission accomplished for Jason Grilli. Maybe the team won’t release him the day after his Father’s Day barbecue apron promotion this Sunday, a cynical thought I’ve been harbouring ever since the Yankee debacle.
Aaron Loup pitched the ninth, and retired the side with a walk to Longoria, but only after Corey Dickerson lost his first pitch of the inning in the second deck in right. Though Loup has show himself to be very effective as a full-inning reliever recently, his situational success against left-handed hitters is still lacking. To say the least. But to be fair, nobody else seems to be getting Dickerson out either.
It’s hard to assess how effective a starter Jacob Faria is going to be for Tampa. He’d had one good outing before tonight, and of course was very steady tonight. But pitching with a solid lead from the third inning is quite a bit different from turning in a quality start in a close, low-scoring game.
It wasn’t like Faria was mowing the Jays down in order. He only retired the side without a runner in the first and fifth innings. After all, since he scattered six hits over six and a third innings, he had to have base runners. But there never seemed to be a threat from Toronto, even when he did have two runners on, via an error and a single in the second, when he ended the inning with a double play, and in the sixth via a walk and a single with one out. In the sixth with two on he fanned Morales and retired Smoak on a deep fly to centre, the only time before the seventh when his mastery of the game was in any way threatened.
The Jays finally broke through in the seventh when they started measuring Faria. Troy Tulowitzki led off with a hard grounder to third on which he was retired. Russell Martin followed with the only extra-base hit off Faria, a liner into left that went for a double. Zeke Carrera delivered Martin with the Jays’ only run on a single to centre. That was enough for manager Scott Servais, and he brought in right-hander Austin Pruitt to get the last two outs and strand Carrera at first.
We later learned that after taking a foul ball off his foot earlier in the game, Carrera played the rest of the game, including knocking in the Jays’ only run, with a broken bone in his foot. So it’s off to the DL for him. At least he’ll have company in the sick bay.
Pruitt came back out for the eighth inning and had an exciting ride of it, but emerged with the 7-1 lead intact. Josh Donaldson led off with a base hit, and then Jose Bautista
hit a drive that seemed headed for the left-field corner. But Colby Rasmus came across and reached up with a stab and snagged it in his glove, a most lucky and inelegant grab, but snag it he did, and with that grab he probably stifled any chance the Jays may have had of a late rally. After Kendrys Morales struck out, Justin Smoak singled to centre with Donaldson going to third, and then Pruitt walked Tulo to load the bases. You can reconstruct for yourself what might have been if Bautista’s shot had gotten past Rasmus. As it was, Russell Martin grounded into an unassisted fielder’s choice at second with the second baseman playing right up the middle in the shift, and the chance was wasted.
Pruitt stayed on for the ninth with the large lead to protect, and the other bullpen arms to spare, and had an easier inning of it, fanning the hobbled Zeke Carrera and getting ground-ball outs from Ryan Goins and Kevin Pillar, to put the Blue Jays out of their misery.
So, a flock of lucky hits by the Rays, the inability of Marco Estrada to avoid hard contact on hits not so lucky, a good pitching performance by Jacob Faria ably seconded by Austin Pruitt, and not a home run in sight for Toronto, all added up to a desultory 7-1 loss that once again turned the Jays away from that .500 level they’ve been trying to reach since the end of April.
We split with the Yankees at home, we split on the road out west, and now we have to beat Jake Odorizzi tomorrow night to split this short home series with Tampa Bay. It ain’t much, but at the moment it’s the best we can do. With our division rivals eating each other alive there’s still hope.
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