I can’t say whether the outcome of tonight’s game between the Blue Jays and the Orioles was written in the stars, but from the point of view of a Toronto fan it sure as hell looked like it.
It was really nice for once to be on the right side of a well-pitched, low-scoring game, with Marcus Stroman throwing seven and two thirds innings of shutout ball and the Jays scoring just enough to ensure Stroman’s heroics on the mound did not go unrewarded.
For just a moment it looked like Yogi Berra time, as in “déjà vu all over again”. After Stroman had missed badly inside with the first pitch of the game, he came in with a get-me-over fast ball that sayed up in the zone, and leadoff hitter Seth Smith smacked it into left field for a solid base hit. Top of first, one on, nobody out: stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
But what you haven’t heard, at least lately, is what came next. After taking two called strikes and seeing Stroman waste one, really high, Machado reached for a tempting pitch on the outside corner, up in the zone, rolled over on it, and hit it out toward the shortstop, stationed near the bag, who started an easy double play. Just so there was no doubt in our minds as to who was on the hill today, Jonathan Schoop tried to play umpire with Stroman on the 1-2 pitch with two outs, and lost his bet, as plate umpire Quinn Wolcott declared to the world that he would give the outside corner to the pitcher tonight, and rung up Schoop for the third out.
The second suggestion that things might be different tonight came on the second pitch by Baltimore’s left-handed starter Wade Miley to leadoff man Jose Bautista. Bautista had fouled off a waist-high fast ball on the outside corner for strike one, and Miley came back with a curve in exactly the same spot. Bautista went with it, and hit a fly ball to right that kept going, and going, as Seth Smith drifted back, and back, and back, until he pulled up in bewilderment and watched the ball just clear the fence for a solo homer and a 1-0 Toronto lead. We had all just witnessed a rare bird indeed, an opposite-field home run by Jose Bautista.
Miley quickly settled down and retired the side in order after the homer, but there it was, after one inning, Toronto in the lead, and not the other team. After three innings it was still 1-0 Toronto, both pitchers having had to strand scattered base hits without either team developing a real threat. Miley gave up hits to Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce in the second, but Troy Tulowitzki grounded into a double play to erase Morales before the Pearce hit. In the third he walked Darwin Barney leading off, and then Russell Martin, but once again there was an intervening double play off the bat of Bautista.
As for Stroman, he gave up solo hits in the second, to Trey Mancini with two outs, and in the third to Caleb Joseph leading off, but Baltimore was unable to capitalize on either. Then in the Orioles’ fourth Stroman kept them off the bases altogether, putting up his first clean inning.
He had his ground ball mojo working through the first four innings, getting eight outs on ground balls. He deployed his three strikeouts to best effect by using them to record the third out in each of the first, second, and fourth innings.
If the turning point of this game didn’t come in the first inning, it surely came in the Toronto fourth, when a combination of Justin Smoak power, good base running, and a dicy fielding play by Baltimore shortstop Paul Janish all combined to put up three more runs on the board for Toronto, runs that effectively iced the game. The command that Stroman was displaying with his stuff was so good that making up four runs against him would look like an insurmountable task for the Orioles, who could only hope that Stroman would run out of gas early enough for them to mount a comeback against the Jays’ bullpen. (Um, he didn’t.)
Smoak led off the inning with another home run to straightaway centre field, his twenty-first of the year, and one last statement to boost his chances of making it into the starter’s spot at first for the All-Star Game. After getting a called strike on a marginal slider on the outside corner, on a 1-1 count Miley tried to go back to the same spot with a fast ball, but it caught just a touch too much of the plate, and Smoak made him pay the price for it.
If the Smoak homer had ended the Jays’ offensive thrust in the fourth, the game would have taken on a very different aspect, but Miley followed up by walking Morales. Though he next struck out Tulo, he soon found himself surrounced by Jays after giving up one-out singles to right by Pearce and to left by Pillar that loaded the bases. Darwin Barney eased the pressure on him by popping out to short right with the runners holding. This brought Bautista back to the plate for what would become the key at-bat of the game.
On a 3-1 pitch, Bautista hit a sharp one-hopper to the glove side of the shortstop Janish, who went to his knees to made a nice pick of the hard-hit ball. This should have ended the inning, except for two things. With the first baseman playing well off the bag with the pull-hitter Bautista at the plate, Pillar had taken a huge lead at first. Second, whereas the ball was hit sharply enough that Janish had plenty of time to take the out at first he chose to go the short way to second for the force. But because of his lead, Pillar beat the throw to second, allowing Morales to score the third run. Jonathan Schoop alertly turned the ball over to first, in the hope of still being able to catch Bautista for the third out. Unfortunately for him he threw the ball in the dirt, Mancini couldn’t pick it, Bautista was safe, and Pearce followed Morales to the plate with the fourth, unearned, run.
Despite Pillar’s advancing to third on the error, Miley escaped further damage by fanning Russll Martin to end the inning.
So after four Marcus Stroman had a four-run lead. His offence wouldn’t provide any further cushion for him, but he didn’t really need it. At all.
In fact, he became stronger and more efficient after the three-run outburst. In the fifth he stranded a two-out walk to Joseph, getting Janish to ground out (what else?) to short to end the inning. In the sixth, he fanned Smith and Machado, and retired Schoop on a fly ball to right, on only eight pitches. In the seventh, he struck out Adam Jones and retired Mark Trumbo and Hyun-Soo Kim on grounders, the latter after he gave up a two-out single to Trey Mancini.
At 101 pitches for seven innings the assumption was that Stroman was finished. Danny Barnes had been warming up and was ready to start the inning. But oh, that John Gibbons, he’s a man of many surprises, he is! Who should emerge from the dugout, fresh as a daisy, but Marcus Stroman, ready to brave the Orioles’ lineup one more time.
He almost got to the eight-inning mark, but Gibbie’s hook was well within reach and ready to be employed at a moment’s notice. Stroman got the first two outs from the bottom of the Baltimore order, punching out Joseph and retiring Janish on yet another grounder to short. But then Seth Smith stepped in and lined one smartly into right that fell in front of Bautista for a base hit, and that was it for the Toronto manager, who called quits on his young starter’s fine effort at the seven and two thirds innings’ mark, with Stroman having held the O’s scoreless on five hits with one walk and eight strikeouts, on a career-high 119 pitches.
Danny Barnes came in and walked Mannie Machado, who’d been kept quiet so far in the series, and whom it probably wasn’t a good idea to wake up, bringing the tying run to the on-deck circle, before blowing away Jonathan Schoop to end the threat and preserve Stroman’s shutout performance.
Though Ryan Tepera had been warming up in the bullpen, now it was Roberto Osuna who was getting ready to come in to pitch the ninth, despite the fact that it wouldn’t be a save situation. Not sure here if Gibbie was just being excessively cautious in wanting to preserve the win, or was using Osuna in order to keep his focus on the field rather than on the anxiety issues with which he has been dealing.
In any case, Osuna was simply unhittable. For the second outing in a row, after finishing off Sunday’s win in Kansas City, he struck out the side. This time on fourteen pitches, and on this night he couldn’t have faced a stronger part of the order: he fanned Adam Jones, caught Mark Trumbo looking, and fanned Trey Mancini to end the game.
Baltimore manager Buck Showalter made an interesting call to finish off the game after Miley departed. After the odd fourth inning, Miley had walked Donaldson, and then fanned Smoak and Morales before retiring Tulowitzki on a ground ball into the shift. So he finished up with five innings, three earned runs, six hits, four walks, five strikeouts, and 109 pitches.
For the sixth inning Alex Asher, who has been a spot starter for Baltimore, was given the call, and Showalter was happy to have him save the bullpen by pitching the rest of the way, going three full innings and giving up only one hit while striking out three and throwing only 37 pitches. I imagine the Toronto hitters would not be happy to see Asher’s name penilled in for a start against the Jays later this season.
One of the essential characteristics of the ace of a pitching rotation is to be the stopper, the guy who can come in and give you a guaranteed (well, more or less) winnable start, and put things back on the right path. Marcus Stroman definitely provided such a performance tonight, and contributed a great deal to the growing respect he has been earning around the league.
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