So it was quite the matchup last night in Baltimore between the surprising Toronto Blue Jays and the exhausted Baltimore Orioles.
Toronto swept into town on the fresh breeze of a 2-1 series win over the Rangers in Texas, their first road series of the year.
The Orioles, on the other hand, limped back into town from a weekend series in New York that they actually won 2 games to 1over the Yankees, but drained and arm-weary from a 14-inning victory on Friday night, and a 12-inning victory on Sunday afternoon.
The pitching assignments lined up strength versus strength, Jay Happ against Dylan Bundy. The question to be answered was whether the Orioles could score enough against Happ to enable Bundy to give them some innings on the lead and rest their bullpen.
Well, Bundy gave his team the innings all right, seven of them, giving up only 2 runs on 4 hits with 2 walks and 10 strikeouts.
The problem for Baltimore, though, was that no matter how many baserunners they had in no matter how many innings, the powerful Happ shut the door on them time and again, only giving up a solo home run to Manny Machado in the third inning.
Bundy only made two mistakes, but the first one was to walk Curtis Granderson before Steve Pearce hit his third home run in three games.
So it ended up being Baltimore manager Buck Showalter’s worst nightmare after the nightmare weekend in New York, having to go to his bullpen with his team behind in the game.
And when he did, with Mychal Givens replacing Bundy for the start of the eighth, there began the process of a pitching duel featuring tense moments and miraculous escapes devolving into a decisive rout of Baltimore’s undermanned relief corps.
There was something about Jay Happ last night, that he seemed to need runners on base to get him to reach down and pull out his best.
Dylan Bundy had raced through the top of the Jays’ order on 15 pitches with two strikeouts and a ground-out. But when Happ came out for the bottom of the first he promptly yielded a leadoff single to Trey Mancini and a walk to Manny Machado on a 3-2 pitch.
Then, for the first time in what became a pattern for his six innings of work, he bracketed fanning Adam Jones on high heat with punching out Jonathan Schoop on the inside corner and the soon-to-be-haplessly-infuriated Chris Davis with a well-set-up fourth straight fast ball on the outside corner. It took Happ 20 pitches to get out of it, but boy, was it fun.
In the second inning former Blue Jay Danny Valencia reached on a throwing error by first baseman Josh Donaldson, and Tim Beckham singled to right with Valencia checking in at second.
Wait, what? Josh Donaldson at first? How did that happen? Well, Kendrys Morales was in the starting lineup at first base, and Justin Smoak was the designated hitter. But in the top of the second, after Morales hit a solid single to right centre, he had some obvious issue with his right hamstring, and after one more play he was pulled for a pinch-runner, putting Yangervis Solarte in the game.
With Smoak already in the lineup, John Gibbons had to find another solution, and came up with Donaldson, with Solarte going to third to replace him. Not sure why the other options, Pearce or Solarte, weren’t utilized, but there it was. (Note: if the team moves the DH into a position, it loses the DH and the pitcher has to hit in the DH spot for the rest of the game.)
So, the error: Valencia hit a ball between first and second. Donaldson, nothing if not eager to impress at his new job, over-enthusiastically ranged far to his right to snag the ball, but he was in a terrible position to make the throw to Happ covering, and it skipped into foul territory. Problem was, Donaldson cut in front of Travis, who had plenty of time to make the play.
Back to the second: 2 on, nobody out, it was time for Happ to get to work, striking out Anthony Santander, Caleb Joseph, and Trey Mancini. By now he had 6 strikeouts in two innings and had stranded 4 baserunners. His pitch count was 43 for the two innings, but who was counting?
Third inning, after he gave up Machado’s leadoff homer, he got a popup and then Adam Jones singled only to be erased when Davis grounded into a double play. I’m not sure what was wrong with the Orioles, but Happ retired them in order in the fourth inning, his only 1-2-3 effort of the night.
Ah, but the fifth inning made up in drama for what the fourth lacked. Joseph singled to left. Mancini walked. Machado flew out to right with the runners holding. Schoop was barely grazed by a Jay Happ pitch to load the bases for Adam Jones. Bye-bye tie game? Not on your life! Jones chopped one back to Happ, who went to the plate but made a messy throw. Russ Martin had to make a great play just to get the force at home, and he was in a terrible position to throw to first. His throw wasn’t very good, and the inexperienced Donaldson couldn’t handle it. Mancini came in to score as the Jays tracked down the ball. Bases still loaded, 2 outs!
But wait, what’s going on? Home plate umpire Chris Segal was signalling that Jones was out, and the Jays were coming off the field. Buck Showalter didn’t like it, but Jones had been called out for runner’s interference for going down the line in fair territory, rather than in the marked runner’s lane on the foul side of the line. The reason the lane is there is so that a catcher can have a clear throw to first. So Happ had escaped again, despite his own poor throw, and Toronto still led 2-1.
Other than the fourth inning, the sixth was Happ’s easiest. He only allowed Beckham to reach on a base on balls, and picked up his eighth and ninth strikeouts, Davis and Santander. It may have been the best thing on Baltimore’s highlight reel this sad night, but after Davis struck out, he treated us for the second time against Toronto to a demonstration of his bat-breaking skill, splintering his useless lumber after going down in flames to Happ again.
By the way, Danny Valencia hit one to Donaldson at first that he and Happ turned into a perfect 1-3 putout, just like they do it in spring training. Josh took the ball, Happ hustled over, and took a perfect feed for the out. The kid’s got some potential at first, methinks.
All of the extra work that Happ put in meant that his night was done after six innings, as he had gotten up to 104 pitches. It was time for Gibbie to go to the bullpen for the seventh.
Meanwhile Bundy, whose pitching line was better than Happ’s in every respect except the one that counts, had a far quieter night of it. The only time he allowed more than one baserunner was the second, when Steve Pearce obligingly helped him out of the only jam he was in all night.
Pearce had led off with a rip into left that beat the Baltimore shift. Morales followed with the deep single to right that moved Pearce around to third and caused the big first baseman to leave the game. Then Russ Martin bounced one back to Bundy, and with nobody out Pearce made a cardinal baserunning mistake, allowing himself to be trapped off third for the first out. Bundy followed with a walk to Pillar, but then stranded the runners.
Dylan Bundy deserved better in this start, but these Blue Jays are feisty, and in truth he would have had to pitch the whole game to have given Baltimore a chance to win.
A game that had been a pitchers’ duel for six/seven innings turned into a bullpen duel, and Buck Showalter came to this duel without his second, and without any pistols. It was no contest.
Though I have to say that the Baltimore hitters found Danny Barnes’ offerings much to their liking, and hit four balls solidly after Caleb Joseph struck out. Mancini and Machado singled, but then Schoop was out on a solid liner to centre and Jones out on a solid liner to left. Let’s just say that Danny Boy was lucky this time.
Ryan Tepera pitched around a base hit by Valencia in the eighth, an inning that was marked by a further sign of the humiliation of Chris Davis. Leading off, and remember that this game was 2-1 at the time, with everybody but the ball girl on the right side of the infield, Davis showed bunt toward the open space, and then, with two strikes on him, he tried it again, and dragged one fairly hard to Tepera’s left. With the right side playing ultra deep, Tepera was the only line of defence, and he cut the ball off with a valiant dive and threw Davis out at first.
John Axford pitched a wild and wooly but oddly effective ninth that was largely irrelevant because by then the Jays were up by a half-dozen, thanks to the fact that they had stripped bare the temporary weakness of the Baltimore ‘pen.
Showalter sent Mychal Givens, the flame-thrower, out to pitch the eighth inning. It’s not that Givens had been overworked on the weekend in New York. He had thrown two innings on Friday night, 33 pitches in total, and didn’t pitch in the second and third games of the series.
With Givens, it’s more that his 2018 has not started out well. At all. In 6 appearances (including last night) he’s pitched only 7.2 innings, when he’s usually good for 2 innings per outing, his ERA after this game is 7.04, and he’s “only” fanned 9 in the 7-plus innings, which is low for him.
The Jays greeted Givens rudely in the eighth inning, and it was only by the grace of a bad baserunning decision by third base coach Luis Rivera that Toronto didn’t add to its lead.
Aledmys Diaz singled to right. Curtis Granderson singled to right. Josh Donaldson was walked on four straight bad ones, bringing Justin Smoak to the plate. Hitting left-handed against Givens, Smoak flared a short fly to left. Rivera decided, with only one out, to challenge the strong arm of Trey Mancini and it was a very bad idea. Easy 7-2 double play, as Diaz was DOA at the plate. Givens escaped the bullet for the time being when Pearce flied out to right to end the inning.
But it was a measure of the paucity of troops Showalter had available that after that shaky showing in the eighth inning, he sent Givens out to start the ninth, with 16 pitches, 2 hits, and a walk already under his belt.
The result was predictable, though Givens came close to bringing it off. He walked Solarte, the Jays’ Designated Walker so far this season, fanned Russell Martin, gave up a single to Kevin Pillar, and dinged Devon Travis on the elbow pad to load the bases. Aledmys Diaz obligingly fouled out to the catcher, bringing Granderson, who had singled off Givens in the eighth, back to the plate.
Showalter was damned either way. He could stick with a flagging Givens, already up to 37 pitches, or try a lefty matchup on Granderson. He opted for the matchup.
Nelson Cortes Jr. is a 23-year-old rookie left-hander who doesn’t throw very hard. His first two outings hadn’t been too bad for Baltimore, giving up a run on 3 hits in one and a third against the Astros, and keeping the Yankees off the board for an inning with one hit.
But this wasn’t his night, nosiree!
Cortes went to 3-1 on Granderson then issued the bases-loaded pass that gave the Jays an insurance run. Roberto Osuna, smelling his hundredth career save, the youngest to get there in MLB history, bore down in the Toronto bullpen.
This brought Donaldson to the plate. Donaldson is always on the quest for the perfect pitch, and he never seems to care what hole that might put him in. Cortes threw two four-seam fastballs to him, neither of which touched 90. The first was “right there” and I muttered bigly at Donaldson on the tube. The second was a bit inside, but the ump gave it to Cortes. I mumbled louder. My wife, the placid neutral observer, wanted to know what I was upset about, because he wasn’t out yet.
Just as I was explaining forcefully to her how I hate that Donaldson always puts all his eggs in the basket of one pitch, Cortes threw him one more weak fastball up in his wheelhouse, and Donaldson knocked it out of the park for the grand salami that turned this baby into a laugher.
Roberto Osuna sat down, just as happy to have to wait another day for his big achievement.
Wife: “Well, there you go, Mr. Smart Guy!” Me: “Splutter!”
There was one more incident of note before Gibbie turned the ball over to Axford for his practice inning. After the big dinger, Smoak whacked a base hit to centre for his second hit of the night, bringing Randal Grichuk to the plate for the first time. Grichuk had been sent out to right in place of Pearce to tighten the defence when it was still close, and the late rally had won him an at-bat. Delighted to be facing Cortes in the doldroms of the worst slump of his career, Grichuk nailed one over Jones’ head in centre for a double, sending Smoak to third. Both died there, however, when Yangervis Solarte grounded out to second to end the inning, finally.
Like I said a few days ago, it’s always good to win the first game of a series, because then you’ve got two shots at winning the series.
Tonight it’s Aaron Sanchez against Andrew Cashner, another likely pitchers’ duel. Let’s see if Sanchez can find his 2016 groove at long last.
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