When Kevin Pillar almost lined into a double play five batters into last night’s game against the Angels, threatening to cut short a promising start, my Spidey sense was alerted to the possibility that it was going to happen again, this awful melange of bad luck and poor play by the Blue Jays.
Then, with two outs, runners on first and second, and the uber-slumping Russell Martin at the plate, the worm finally turned.
Martin scorched one to right. It was headed for the alley, but still definitely within range for an ordinary right fielder.
But Chris Young, a well-travelled veteran valued more for his bat than his glove, was on patrol for LA in right. He took a bad route to the ball, but almost managed to cut if off, only to have it deflect off his glove and bounce away.
Smoak and Donaldson both scored, and Martin ended up at second.
This sort of thing is only supposed to happen in favour of the other team, not in favour of the Blue Jays, according to the lights of recent weeks.
And with the even more uber-slumping Kendrys Morales at the plate with Martin on second and two outs, that worm not only turned again, but put on a white robe, stood up on his tail, and spun like a Turkish dervish.
Angels’ starter Garrett Richards, no doubt steamed, got an early visit from his pitching coach to settle himself down. Morales stepped in, took a curve for a called strike, and then laid off two low and inside balls. Apparently, Richards didn’t get the memo about low and away breaking balls to Morales. Then he threw a hanging slider right in the sweet spot, and for the first time since the beginning of the month, Morales didn’t miss it.
He massacred it into the right-field seats, and the Toronto lead was 5-0. In a truly ironic twist after the terrible performance in the field on Sunday, four of the five runs off Richards were unearned.
The question then became how would Jay Happ respond? He had run through the fearsome top of the Angels’ order, Ian Kinsler, Mike Trout, and Justin Upton, on eleven pitches, striking out Kinsler to lead off the game.
The answer to that question was he’d do pretty damn well, and after the top of the second you felt you were in for a good ride with Happ:
Albert Pujols hit a soft bouncer to Justin Smoak at first with Happ covering on the first pitch. Shohei Ohtani, the Angels’ designated hitter and premier pitcher, walked on a 3-2 count in his first TV Dome at-bat, but Andrelton Simmons grounded into a fast (had to be, with Ohtani and Simmons running) around-the-horn double play. Two innings, twenty pitches, is that a sigh of relief?
Once Happ settled into his rhythm, the story line would become how far could he go, and could the bullpen hold off the Angels once he was finished? Oh, for the days of the complete game start!
In the third Happ gave up his first base hit, a one-out ground ball by Chris Young that sneaked through the left side of the infield, and nearly doubled his pitch count, but it was still below 40 for three at 38.
The Angels chipped two runs off the Toronto lead in the fourth, despite only one solid hit off Happ, who made the primary error of walking the leadoff batter, who happened to be Mike Trout.
Of course he came around to third on the one good hit, a line single to right by Upton. And thence he was able to score on Albert Pujols’ exceedingly cheesy popup single that drew a crowd in left centre, but a crowd that had been playing too deeply for such a lollipop.
Upton, who moved to second on Pujols’ blooper, moved to third on Ohtani’s fielder’s choice, and scored on Simmons’ high chopper to Donaldson, on which the Toronto third sacker had no play at the plate and had to play it on to first to get Simmons.
Happ had had enough of that nonsensethough. Ten pitches to retire the side in the fifth, twelve pitches in the sixth, and twenty in the seventh, his last, only because all three hitters worked him deep into the count, Ohtani with a strikeout, Simmons with a walk, and then Cozart with another double play started by Donaldson
So Happ finished seven innings, gave up two runs on three hits with three walks and a relatively low five strikeouts over 99 pitches.
Richards, meanwhile, threw much better than the score, obviously, given the four unearned runs. But he needed some luck to keep the Jays from adding to their lead.
He gave up just one base hit in the second and third, but then had to work his way out of trouble in the fourth, when he walked Martin leading off and gave up a base hit to Morales off Kinsler’s glove that moved Martin to third with nobody out.
But Martin was caught out in a botched contact play on Gio Urshela’s grounder to thirth that resulted in a one-person rundown by catcher Martin Maldonado, Travis fanned, and Grandy flew out to right, leaving Morales at second.
In the fifth Garrett faced the Jays down after Donaldson reached third leading off with a double to the same alley as in the first inning, and moving up on a Garrett wild pitch.
But none of Smoak, Hernandez, and Pillar could do the job and it remained 5-2 as Garrett wrapped his night up at 92 pitches and turned his game over to the Angels’ bullpen.
But Toronto remained stalled at five runs. Noé Ramirez retired six in a row in the sixth and seventh, striking out three on only 25 pitches, and Cam Bedrosian issued a leadoff walk to Justin Smoak in the eighth, threw a double-play ball to Teoscar Hernandez, and got a fly ball from Kevin Pillar, all on eleven pitches.
The Angels had crawled a run closer in their eighth off Ryan Tepera. They cashed in a leadoff double by Martín Maldonado; he moved to third on a grounder to first by Kole Calhoun and scored on a sacrifice fly to right by the veteran Ian Kinsler. Sometimes this game seems so easy: leadoff double, ground out, sac fly, run.
Los Angeles certainly had things lined up for a comeback in the ninth with Justin Upton, Shohei Ohtani and Albert Pujols set to face Tyler Clippard, standing in once again for the missing Roberto Osuna.
But it was easy-peasy for Clippard to earn his second save. He fanned Upton, retired Pujols on a fly ball to centre, and popped up Ohtani, who went hitless in his Toronto debut, on only ten pitches.
The nay-sayers might natter about Toronto only scoring when runs are handed to them, as in last night’s five unearned markers, but you have to put the ball in play for the other team to make an error,
The fact is, the Jays not only put the ball in play, they hit it hard. Donaldson, Hernandez, Pillar with his liner to third, and Martin all smoked the ball. Good things happen when you square it up a few times.
And good things happen when you can send Jay Happ to the mound, especially with a cushion like that. Five runs in the first? Happ the starter? Put it in the books, baby, and let’s move a little closer to .500 tonight.
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