Editorial note: Jerry Howarth many years ago stopped using the team nickname for Cleveland out of respect for the native peoples of North America. If it’s good enough for Jerry Howarth, it’s good enough for me.
By the end of the third inning of last night’s game, all of the warm and fuzzy thoughts I’ve been having about these surprising 2018 Toronto Blue Jays were draining away from me as blood from a cadaver on an icy slab.
It took less than an hour for my spirits to be carried back to the ugly days of the 2016 ALCS, when a terrible team hitting slump swept away any hope that the apparent team of destiny, walkoff winner of the Wild Card game and sweeper of the hated Texas Rangers, might carry on to its first World Series appearance in 25 years.
Shaggy herky-jerky righty Mike Clevinger was mowing down Toronto’s lineup like a rack of defenceless tenpins before the wily tosses of The Big Lebowsky. 9 out of 10 retired, save for a stirring double off the left-field wall by Kevin Pillar. 4 strikeouts. 4 groundouts. 43 pitches.
Meanwhile, the recently revived Cleveland hitters were treating the mystifying Marcus Stroman like a second-string batting-practice pitcher, spraying base hits all over the park and racking up a 4-run lead in the first two innings, and threatening
more in a two-out rally in the third.
Francisco Lindor, who came into the game hitting .208, keyed the attack with 2 hits in his first 2 at-bats. Jason Kipnis rapped an RBI double to the wall in centre on which Pillar took that one fatal step in before retreating too late.
Worse, Stroman’s infield defence, so crucial to the success of this quintessential ground ball pitcher, was less than crisp in the first inning, contributing materially to Cleveland’s first two runs. After Lindor’s leadoff single, Kipnis hit a sharp grounder right at Smoak, a perfect DP ball that would not even have required Stroman to take the return throw. Smoakie swooped with his big trapper, and left the ball on the dirt, leaving himself no choice but to take the out at first, sending Lindor safely to second and missing the bases-clearing double play.
Stroman followed by walking Jose Ramirez, always a tough out, on a 3-2 pitch. Yonder Alonso singled to centre scoring Lindor and sending Ramirez to third. After Big Edwin obligingly struck out on a checked swing call he didn’t like, Tyler Naquin bounced one up the middle that snaked its way past a diving Devon Travis, a base hit stemming from a lot of luck and another dive from Travis that didn’t quite make it.
No errors, a play that should have been made, and a play that might have been made, and 2 Cleveland runs.
In the second, luck contributed to the third run. With one out, old friend Rajai Davis, completely handcuffed on a 1-1 fast ball, topped it slowly to third. Well, of course he beat it out; Brooks Robbie wouldn’t have made the play.
So Davis was on base to be doubled home by Lindor who was doubled home by Kipnis for the fourth run.
Arguably, luck and lack of strong defence cost Stroman, who was throwing way better than he did in Texas last Saturday, when he actually threw more balls than strikes (last night it was 62 strikes and 37 balls in 99 pitches), three of the four runs and certainly contributed to his having thrown 72 pitches in three innings.
But it didn’t seem like it was going to matter, the way Mike Clevinger was mowing down the Jays.
But then came the turning point in the game: Clevinger took the mound for the top of the fourth. Oh, he struck out Teoscar Hernandez on a 3-2 pitch leading off, but the balls were really balls, nowhere near the plate.
Hernandez, you say? Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: before the game the Blue Jays finally acknowledged the elephant in the room and put Josh Donaldson on the 10-day disabled list to tend to his “dead” shoulder, and brought up, not a backup infielder, but a bat, Hernandez, who’d had a good start in Buffalo with the Bisons.
Back to the Mike Clevinger turnabout scene: he walked Smoak on 3-1; none of the balls were close. He walked Solarte on 3-2; none of the balls were close. He went 3-0 on Russell Martin; all 3 balls were buried outside. But he fought back to 3-2 on Martin and flied him out to right for the second out, bringing Pillar to the plate. The Jays’ centre fielder had the only hit so far off him.
Pillar went down 1-2, took a ball, and then rifled a line single into left to score Smoak with Toronto’s first run, another two-out base hit with ducks on the pond. That brought the shortstop Aledmys Diaz to the plate.
So this Diaz guy, this guy they got for cheap from the Cardinals; they got him cheap because he had a so-so 2017 after making the All-Star Game in 2016. I don’t usually bother with slash lines, but in his case it’s really illustrative. 2016: .300/.369/.510, 2017: .259/.290/.392. His power production went from 17 homers to 7. It was a gamble both ways: the Cards were gambling he was a 1-year wonder, the Jays that there was something more to him than that.
Well, coming off the heels of a sixth-inning solo shot Wednesday night that brought Toronto back within one of the Orioles, he stepped up last night and won a big battle with Clevinger, or Clevinger lost it, same result. Clevinger threw him six breaking balls in a row. He fouled off two of the last three and the third one was in the dirt. Clevinger thought he could sneak a fast ball by him for the punchout.
Foolish, foolish Mike, he must have been thinking to himself as the ball disappeared over the centre-field fence for a 3-run homer and a brand new ball game.
Take your time in rehab, Troy, we got you covered here!
Go figure: the Indians had 7 hits and four runs in the first four innings, and the Jays had 3 hits and 4 runs in the first four innings.
Clevinger finally retired the side on a Randal Grichuk broken-bat grounder to short, but oh, looky here, Stroman’s pitch count after 3: 73, Clevinger’s after 4: 82. And whoever would have imagined that Clevinger would be gone from this game before Stroman?
Now for the next up in a series of well-worn baseball clichés, your pitcher needs to have a shut-down inning after you’ve rallied to catch up. As clichés go, it’s kind of a “well, duh”, but it still serves as a measure of a pitcher’s focus, if not his intestinal fortitude.
Marcus Stroman came out for the fifth and gave up a third hard shot to Francisco Lindor, but this time we got to see why Randal Grichuk is still in the lineup. He came in alertly, slid, and took a base hit away from Lindor with a sparkling catch. Stroman took seven pitches to get past Lindor, but then he got Kipnis to ground out on the second pitch, and Ramirez on the first pitch, for a 10-pitch inning, bringing him to 83, only one more than Clevinger.
But Francona chose not to give Clevinger another inning to try to get his early chops back, and went to the bullpen for Dan Otero, who settled Toronto’s hitters nicely for Cleveland, retiring the side on 13 pitches in the fifth, despite having to pitch around his catcher Yan Gomes’ throwing error, when he failed to complete a strikeout on Granderson by making a bad throw to first.
Gibbie is without question a pitchers’ manager, so there was little doubt that Stroman would come out for the Cleveland fifth. After all, if he held the fort, he’d have one more shot at securing the win, and after battling back from such a bad start he deserved it.
He got through the inning, but it was not an easy go of it. Once again it was infield defence that made things more difficult for him. Edwin grounded a single up the middle, and then Naquin rapped one on the ground to third, a good double play ball, despite Naquin’s speed. Solarte couldn’t handle the hop, and it went off him into left field. It was scored as a base hit, but it was a play that should have been made. Nevertheless, Stroman was able to buckle down and get the last two outs, fanning Gomes on a high fast ball, and retiring Zimmer on a comebacker.
All things considered, it was a gutsy performance by a pitcher who’s just not sharp yet, as he limited the damage to the 4 runs despite giving up 9 hits and having less than stellar support from his infield.
But it wasn’t enough to get him a win as neither team scored in an eventful sixth inning, with Cleveland having the better chance. Otero carried on for a second inning on the hill against Toronto and had to work around a rare fumble at shortstop by Lindor that let Russ Martin reach with one out. But he then made quick work of Pillar on a punchout and Diaz on a groundout to finish with only one baserunner allowed, 2 strikeouts, and only 27 pitches for two innings.
Danny Barnes came on to pitch for Toronto, and was happy to start with a clean slate for once. But with one out Lindor hit the ball hard for the fourth time, slapping a double the opposite way to left field. Barnes came back to fan Kipnis on a nasty breaking ball for the second out, setting up an interesting but messy play by Devon Travis that brought the inning to an end on a tag play at the plate.
Jose Ramirez hit one up the middle to Travis’ backhand, and Travis took two steps and went to his knees. The ball deflected squarely off his glove, so it stayed in front of him. Lindor, running from second with two outs, never slowed down at third, and it’s hard to know whether he kept going because he knew Travis hadn’t picked it cleanly, or he was just going for it anyway. To his credit, Travis pounced on the ball, made a strong slow slightly up the first-base line to Russell Martin, who caught it and made a very athletic diving sweep tag that caught Lindor on the hand; he was clearly out.
Kudos to Travis for finishing the play, but again I see him not catching a ball cleanly that’s not beyond his reach. Plays that should be made.
Zach McAllister came in to pitch the seventh for Cleveland, and he benefitted from an out at the plate as well, but didn’t escape unscathed as Barnes had. He issued a leadoff walk to Randal Grichuk, who promptly stole second and moved to third as Travis skillfully moved him up with a right-side grounder. Credit is also due to a guy who can help his team at the plate even in the middle of a slump.
This was the time for Terry Francona to play his little bullpen trick of bringing his best reliever in at the toughest spot, regardless of the inning. So with Granderson coming up the call went to Andrew Miller, which of course brought Steve Pearce in to hit for Grandy. Pearce hit a grounder to Alonso at first, and Grichuk was a fairly easy out at the plate on the contact play.
Then came the key play of the game, if it went almost un-noticed at the time. With Hernandez at the plate, 0 for 2 so far, Gomes wasn’t able to block one of Miller’s pitches, moving Pearce up to second. Then the rookie Hernandez had the audacity to get all over a 1-2 Miller slider that didn’t go where he wanted, and drive it into the left-field corner for a double and the go-ahead RBI.
Funny thing was, Miller, Gomes, the batter, and everyone watching the game thought Miller had struck out Hernandez on the previous pitch, a low slider on the outside corner. Hernandez even started for the dugout, and only stopped in his tracks when he realized that the only person in the park who didn’t think it was a strike was the plate umpire, Gerry Davis, but his vote was the only one that counted.
Now playing on the lead, John Gibbons was able to go to what looks like his set rotation for protecting a lead. Tyler Clippard breezed through an easy seventh on ten pitches. Ryan Tepera gave up a hit to Gomes leading off the eighth, but fanned Zimmer and induced a first-pitch double play from the speedy Davis. He clocked in at 9 pitches.
After the right-hander Matt Belisle easily retired Toronto in order on 14 pitches, Terry Francona had seen enough to send him out again in the ninth. This didn’t turn out to be a great idea because the Blue Jays’ hitters jumped on him for 3 insurance runs and Francona had to run in another reliever, Tyler Olson, to finish the inning.
Aledmys Diaz went with the pitch and lined his second hit of the night to right field leading off. Breaking for second as Grinchuk struck out, he beat Gomes’ high throw for a stolen base. Belisle then plunked Travis on the wrist, a frightening scene that left Travis in the game to run, but caused Gibbie to insert Gift Ngoepe at second for the bottom of the ninth. We await news on his condition.
Steve Pearce came up to the plate for his second at-bat and rifled the first pitch he saw into the left-field corner, driving in both Diaz and Travis, running all the way from first. We saw Travis protecting his hand as he high-fived in the dugout after scoring.
This brought Hernandez back to the plate with another RBI opportunity, and he didn’t waste it, driving a low 2-1 fast ball over the head of Zimmer in centre for his second run-scoring double. A very nice return to the bigs for Teoscar Hernandez.
Roberto Osuna had been heating up for the save opportunity so he was ready to go. In keeping with Gibbie’s policy of trying not to have relievers get completely ready without using them, he brought Osuna in to finish up anyway. Which he did with panache, striking out Lindor on 3 called strikes, grounding out Kipnis to short, and fanning Ramirez in a typical Ramirez at-bat, going down on the eighth pitch.
Lots of heroes in this one. Stroman, for hanging in. Diaz, for a big blast. Hernandez, for two clutch doubles, and for uncovering the humanity of Andrew Miller. Travis and Martin, for combining to cut Lindor down at the plate. Barnes, Clippard, Tepera and Osuna for keeping Cleveland off the board. Grichuk, for a great catch. Pillar, for the first two hits and first RBI off Clevinger.
It’s a team game, and last night the team won a big one, and banished some pretty ugly ghosts in the process.
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