How wolfishly the Blue Jays’ hitters must have felt as they contemplated facing the soft-tossing slants of journeyman lefty Wade LeBlanc Wednesday night, 24 hours after they’d been overwhelmed by the power of James Paxton.
So how’d that work out for them? Not so good, it turns out, as LeBlanc, the starter that nobody wants but everybody could use, twirled and spun and kept Toronto off balance and behind on the scoreboard for five innings.
With the injuries to Curtis Granderson and Steve Pearce, and the falloff in production from the promising start of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. , the leadoff spot for Toronto has fallen by default to Teoscar Hernandez.
It only took Hernandez three pitches to end the hitless spell after Paxton’s no-hitter Tuesday night. Showing a good approach, he slapped an outside 0-2 changeup on the ground through the vacant right side of the infield for a base hit.
So simple. How come nobody could do it the night before? Oh, yeah, Paxton. Right.
Unfortunately, in his own way LeBlanc was nearly as effective as Paxton. He went 3-1 on Josh Donaldson, fought back to 3-2, and then threw a cutter that may or may not have been on the low inside black, but in any case Donaldson deigned not to swing, and plate umpire Quinn Wolcott deigned to ring him up. Yangervis Solarte then hit a bouncer back to LeBlanc that the latter adroitly turned into a double-play, with Robinson Cano doing the honours at second.
Thus was wasted the first base hit the Blue Jays had mustered since Sunday afternoon in Minnesota. As I recall, they didn’t tot up a whole bunch on that day, either.
The Hernandez hit was the only safety allowed by LeBlanc until the fourth, and only one other Jay reached base in the first three innings, Gurriel Jr., whose fly ball to left centre got swept up in the swirling wind currents and fell for an error charged to Dee Gordon, the centre fielder. (Did I mention that the dome was open for the first time Wednesday night?)
Unfortunately for Gurriel, he was so dead certain that Dalton Pompey’s one-out liner to left centre was going to fall in that he broke too far off second and was doubled up
by Guillermo Heredia, who made a nice catch and threw behind the runner.
By the time LeBlanc got to the bottom of the fourth, he had a little wiggle room, with a two-run lead, as we shall see, so he was able to emerge from the fourth, his only tough inning, still on top.
Once again it was Hernandez leading off with a base hit, but this time it left the yard for his sixth of the year, and the Jays were on the board for the first time since the ninth inning Sunday against Tampa Bay. LeBlanc gave up two more base hits with one out after the homer, singles to Solarte and Pillar, but managed to pick up fielder’s choices from Smoak and Martin after each hit to limit the damage.
LeBlance was back on track and sailing in the fifth, throwing only eight pitches to get two ground ball outs and fan Pompey. It should be said though that Pompey was called out on a checked swing that looked pretty checked to the untrained eye.
To everyone’s surprise except the Mariners’ coaching staff, LeBlanc did not come out for the sixth inning. He’d only had one bad inning, and had reached a measly 58 pitches for five innings, but it turns out that he’s transitioning back into the rotation, and was on a limited pitch count.
Good thing for the Jays, because maybe they could hope for a little more against the Seattle bullpen.
Now, Jaime Garcia, Toronto’s starter. What can I say about him in this game, other than that it was a stereotypical start for a lefty? (Back in the old days, before the likes of Chris Sale, or even Jay Happ, all lefties were considered to be wild and wooly until proven otherwise.)
When we talk about Jaime Garcia’s performance in this game, we have to talk about Luke Maile, too. If there was ever a night when a catcher’s performance behind the plate resembled a country bear auditioning for a spot as a dancer in a Russian circus, it was the act Maile had to put on while Garcia was on the mound.
The game actually started with the dreaded strikeout on a wild pitch allowing the batter to reach. That’s because Garcia’s strikeout pitch in the dirt was so wicked that Maile didn’t have a chance on it.
That leadoff batter was Dee Gordon, and of course this being the Mariners he would come around to score. In this case, almost instantly, as Jean Segura doubled him home and took third on the throw home. So Garcia was down 1-0 after two batters, and was looking at worse to come.
But then something funny happened. The Jays’ defence stepped up, and Garcia worked his way through with some help from Maile, who kept the ball in front of him. Robinson Cano flew out to right, but the wind pushed the ball in so that Hernandez had to charge it, and he was flying toward the infield when he caught it, forcing Segura to hold at third.
Nelson Cruz hit a one-hop shot that should have been past Gurriel at short, who was playing at normal depth because the Jays were conceding the run to get the out. But Gurriel snagged the ball, and it was hit so hard that when he came up with a strong throw to the plate, Segura, who runs well, stopped cold halfway to the plate and was tagged out by Maile coming up the line without even a rundown. Two outs!
But Garcia wasn’t out of the woods yet. Not this night. With Cruz on first on the fielder’s choice, he walked Mitch Haniger on a 3-1 pitch. Then he hit Kyle Seager to load the bases.
This prompted an extraordinary moment: a first-inning mound visit by manager John Gibbons who was not taking his pitcher out of the game. It would appear that he came out to, as my Dad used to say years ago, to “talk turkey” to Garcia. It must have worked, because Garcia froze Ryon Healy on a beautiful curve on the outside corner with his twenty-fifth pitch to end the inning and escape, improbably, with only one Mariners’ run on the board.
And that’s just the kind of night that Jaime Garcia had on the mound.
He had a relatively easy second inning, aided by another baserunning mistake, this time by Guillermo Heredia, on first with a one-out walk. For some reason he broke for second while Garcia was holding the ball, and he was an easy out, pitcher to first to short. Only 14 pitches in the second.
But then there was the third, when the Mariners picked up another run, and it could have been much worse. The run was unearned, and another example of the crazy situations where the pitcher made the error that caused the run to be unearned.
Leading off, Segura topped one to the right of the mound, an obvious infield single. But Garcia decided to make the throw anyway, and it was worse than any of his wild ones to the plate. Segura ended up on second, moved to third on Cano’s groundout to Smoak, and then had to hold third when Cruz hit another hot one, this time to Martin at third, who threw him out for the second out.
Did I say Martin at third? Yup, Russell Martin had the start at third, with Maile behind the plate and Donaldson as the DH, reportedly because Donaldson’s “sore arm” needed some more rest.
Two things about Martin at third: first, he played one hell of a game there, and handled everything that came his way, including some really tough chances. Second, he must have been really happy that it was Maile catching Garcia, rather than himself.
But back to Jaime, who wasn’t out of it yet. Haniger plated Segura with a ground-rule double to left-centre, and then Garcia walked Seager on a 3-2 pitch before retiring his boy Healy on another grounder to Martin at third.
Garcia was now at three innings, 64 pitches, and one earned run. Heartened, he breezed the fourth inning on ten pitches, then walked two but didn’t give up a run in the fifth, finishing with a line of 5 innings pitched, one run, three hits, five walks, three strikeouts, and 92 pitches. It was a gutsy performance by Garcia to keep his team in the game, but it was no more gutsy than that of Luke Maile behind the plate.
Seung-Hwan Oh came in for Garcia in the sixth and absolutely died the drama down, imposing his calm visage on the flow of the game. Three up, three down, as has become the norm for him. Notably, the third out was a little hopper to third by the speedy Heredia. Russell Martin charged it, barehanded it, and fired a strong throw to first to nip the batter by a hair. Vintage Josh Donaldson from the vacationing catcher.
Hmm. Morales to wherever, Josh to DH, Martin at third two games out of three, Maile behind the dish two games out of three . . . Ya think? I’d do it in a New York minute.
(Whatever the hell that expression means. Wait—we have Google now: it probably originated outside New York, maybe in the sixties, and it refers to the frenzy of the lifestyle of New Yorkers. Perhaps best defined, as in an old Johnny Carson joke, as the time it takes for the car behind you to honk after the light has turned green.)
In the bottom of the sixth the Jays lost a golden opportunity to tie the game on a really strange NewYork umpire’s review. Hernandez led off against reliever Chasen Bradford—put a “t” in his first name and he sounds like one of the judges from the Salem Witch Trials—with another hit, this time an opposite field double to right. The ball skipped into foul territory, ran down the wall, and was grabbed by a young woman in the front row.
This person was apparently unaware of the First Commandment of sitting in front row seats at the ball yard: Thou shalt not touch a ball in play hit by the home team! And she was wearing a Blue Jays shirt, too. Sheesh!
Anyway, the ump’s called time, and, amazingly, pointed to third, where Hernandez had been heading, having rounded second under a full head of steam. You see, this wasn’t a ground rule double, but a case of fan intereference, in which case the umpires can place the batter-runner where they think appropriate.
But that old pooh-pooh Seattle manager Scott Service raised a stink about it and the umpires went to the headsets. It was most disappointing when the decision came back to place Teoscar at second.
Still, at second with nobody out he should have scored, but didn’t. The key at bat was that Donaldson was punched out yet again on a checked swing. Hernandez moved up briskly on a deep fly to centre by Solarte, but got there with two outs. After a walk to Smoak and a pitching change, Nick Vincent replacing Bradford, Pillar lined out to right and Hernandez died on third.
John Axford pitched the seventh for Toronto and benefitted from two more fielding gems to keep the deficit to one. Martin again sparkled with a quick glove to his left to snag a hot one-hopper from Dee Gordon, and Kevin Pillar almost made a diving catch on a sinking liner from Segura, but kept the ball in front of him so that it was a single instead of a triple or worse.
Toronto ended up with a runner at third and two outs in the bottom of the seventh, and this time it was Hernandez, who couldn’t come through again, flying out to right on the first pitch to leave Maile on third after a two-out triple.
Wait—Maile, a triple? Oh, yeah, it was a turf bounce of a base hit that went high over Heredia’s head in left because he charged it too hard. Still, it was the shortest throw to third, and you have to give the hard-working backup catcher full marks for not resting content with a double.
Too bad there were already two outs when it happened, though Vincent had been lucky that Gordon had made a sliding catch on a Gurriel drive prior to Maile’s hit, or it would already have been tied. Pompey walked on a 3-2, setting up a first and third for Hernandez, who skied out.
The M’s got a runner to second with a walk and stolen base off Ryan Tepera in the top of the eighth, but he shut them down after that. The second out was a Ryon Healy grounder to third on which Martin showed off his strong arm. Frisky as a colt out there, that kid! Tepera finished off his inning by fanning Mike Zunino with his trademark nasty diving slider.
This brought us to the bottom of the eighth, when everything changed. I mean everything. It was like an artillery barrage, except that the Mariners’ setup man, Juan Nicasio, didn’t have a trench to dive to for cover.
It was boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Little Boom! Boom! Four doubles and Kevin Pillar’s single on which he was thrown out at second protecting Smoak while he scored. I’ll explain the reference to protecting in a minute.
As Nicasio was going to a 2-2 count on Donaldson leading off, Buck and Tabby were gushing, as they do, about how well Nicasio had been doing as setup for Seattle. Then on 2-2 Donaldson hit a liner to left centre and hustled it into a double.
Nicasio went to 3-2 on Solarte, hitting left, who slashed one the opposite way to left for a double that scored Donaldson. While Seattle was getting a review of whether Solarte popped off the bag, John Gibbons sent Anthony Alford in to run for Solarte, carrying the lead run. An interesting question arises: Alford was announced into the game in effect before Solarte was officially safe; if the call was overturned and Solarte out, had Alford been used or not? (This is right up there with the tree falling in the forest . . . )
Problem resolved: Solarte was ruled safe and Alford took his place at second. Smoak boomed a double to right centre to score Alford.
Pillar hit one of his patented shots into the left-field corner, but Heredia got to it and played it quickly; Pillar, who might otherwise have stayed at first, wanted to make sure that the ponderous Smoak would score, so he tried for second, drew a throw, and was called out while Smoak scored.
That’s what I was referring to earlier when I mentioned Pillar giving himself up to protect the other runner.
With the bases empty and one out, Nicasio gave up another drive to left centre by that hustling third baseman Martin who dove into second with a flourish for the fourth double of the inning. His hit also ended the night for Juan Nicasio, who came in to protect a 2-1 lead and left down 4-2 with a runner on second and one out.
This brought super-sub catcher Luke Maile to the plate. Maile shook off all his aches and pains from five innings blocking Garcia’s junk, strode up to the plate after the new pitcher, Erik Goeddel, had fanned Gurriel Jr. . Maile shot one through the left side of the infield to drive in the frisky Martin with Toronto’s fifth run. Maile took second on the throw to the plate and advanced to third on a wild pitch.
But for the second inning in a row Luke Maile died at third. Curtis Granderson, hitting for Pompey, struck out to end the inning. I doubt that Maile cared he hadn’t scored this time.
What’s really neat about taking the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning is all you have to do is run out your closer and most times it’s over. But who would be the closer with Osuna on the shelf?
If you look back over the box score, there were only two real possibilities left, Aaron Loup and Tyler Clippard. Gibbie wanted to reserve the option of bringing in the lefty mid-inning if needed, so Clippard got the call.
Clippard gave up a base hit to Ben Gamel, who hit for Heredia. But then Gordon skied to right, and Clippard fanned Segura and Cano to end the game in impressive fashion.
So, where do you go with the accolades for this one? Jaime Garcia, for fighting through five innings? Luke Maile, for fighting Garcia for five innings, hitting a triple, and an RBI single? The whole bullpen? Or the meat of the order for crushing it in the eighth?
How about all of the above? “A” for effort for the whole team on this one.
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