Following the huge disappointment of Sunday’s meltdown by Robert Osuna, which cost the Blue Jays a series win in Houston, they came home to a day of regrouping, which may have contributed to their solid 4-2 win behind a strong Jay Happ on Tuesday night.
But the holes in their starting rotation, which exacerbate the over-use of the bullpen on occasion, have made it very difficult for Toronto to string out the run of wins they need to get themselves back in the race for a playoff spot.
That’s why watching the Jays and the Yankees Wednesday night, it would be really hard to see Toronto as the same team that shut down New York the night before.
Once again I’m combining two game reports because, thanks be to god, I saw very little of the Wednesday Yankee dismantling of Buffalo’s, er Toronto’s, pitching staff, so I thought I’d tack it on to the Tuesday game report, so we can spend more time on something a little more positive.
I missed most of Wednesday’s game because our grand-daughter’s birthday was last week, and we finally had the opportunity to celebrate it by taking her out to dinner at her favourite restaurant. This involved a trip downtown for an early dinner and then a drive across town to take her home. So I didn’t get home until about 9:00, just in time to see things go south on Toronto, as they went from one run down to six behind in the late innings.
Ah, but Tuesday’s game was another story.
It was a matchup between two veteran lefties, Jay Happ and C.C. Sabathia. By the numbers, their respective ERAs matched up quite well, though their won/loss records, Happ at 4-8 and Sabathia at 9-4, simply reflected the relative success of their teams, the Yankees chasing the Red Sox for the division lead, and the Blue Jays struggling but failing to escape from the cellar in the division.
The first inning marked a distinct departure for Toronto from recent experience, in that Happ had a relatively easy time of it, stranding a two-out walk to Aaron Judge that may have been more strategic than in error.
On the contrary, it was Toronto that started with a rush for once against Sabathia, and by the time the inning was over it was 2-0 for the home team.
Jose Bautista started things off by taking an outside pitch from Sabathia down the right field line for a double. Then a strange thing, no, a very strange thing, happened: Russell Martin laid down a sacrifice bunt to move Bautista to third. That’s right, in the first inning, playing in Toronto, not at Wrigley Field, Toronto employed the sac bunt after a leadoff double. I doubt that it was called by manager John Gibbons.
Funny thing is, the sac bunt became irrelevant when Josh Donaldson powdered one to right centre off Sabathia for a two-run homer. Next up was Justin Smoak, who drew a walk, bringing Kendrys Morales to the plate. Morales fanned on a checked swing for the second out, but Steve Pearce kept the inning alive with a double to left. Unfortunately, this was not an occasion when Smoak was able to make it all the way around, despite the advantage of being able to take off with the pitch with two outs, so he only made it to third. Kevin Pillar hit the ball hard on the ground, but right to Garret Cooper for the final out. Still, the Jays had two runs, the Yankees none.
To their credit the Yankees came back in the top of the second and put the first two hitters on against Happ, as Chase Headley hit one off the end of the bat into right for a single, and Didi Gregorius followed with another base hit to right. Happ, who doesn’t usually throw too many double-play balls, threw one to Todd Frazier, who swung at the first pitch from Happ and hit it to Ryan Goins to start the twin-killing, with Headley moving up to third. All Happ had to do was get by the newly-arrived rookie first baseman, Garrett Cooper, to preserve the lead. But as the Toronto pitching staff was to learn, getting by Cooper’s not so easy. He hit a two-out single to right to score Headley before Ronald Torreyes grounded out to second to end the inning.
As C.C. Sabathia was coming out to the mound for the second inning, something was picking at my memory. I was trying to figure out whose image was called to mind by watching Sabathia on the mound. Sabathia, with his cap slightly askew, his ears a bit Dumbo-ish, his belly pushing out his shirt, even the fingers of his glove slightly splayed out, like some old raggy thing that badly needs to be restrung. Even from behind, he looks a little off-kilter, like he might just fall over.
Then it came to me: Max Patkin, the self-declared Second Clown Prince of Baseball. At this stage of his career and in his life, C.C. looks an awful lot like Max Patkin. Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61l4QMCb8E Lest you think this is an insult to C.C., be aware that I’m old enough to have seen many clips of Max Patkin in action, and I have a lot of affection for his act. But Patkin never had Sabathia’s arm, nor his stellar career.
So the veteran lefty came out for the bottom of the second after seeing his team cut the lead to one, and blew the Jays away on thirteen pitches, two ground outs and a strikeout of Bautista. Happ answered in the top of the third with a perfect inning: he struck out the side but walked Aaron Judge, which was a fine result, because Judge didn’t hit one out on him.
It looked like a game that was going to stay tight and low-scoring, and be a battle between the two crafty left-handers. It’s not like the Jays blew the Yankees out of the water in the bottom of the third, but the course of the game changed in a significant way: the Toronto lead was extended to 4-1, and the inning marked the surprising end of Sabathia’s night.
The damage was done quickly. Russell Martin singled to left past the shortstop Didi Gregorius. Josh Donaldson, who’d never taken Sabathia out before the first inning tonight, did it again, with a rope down the line that stayed fair, scoring Martin ahead of him. After Sabathia fanned Justin Smoak, Kendrys Morales doubled to the left-field corner, but Sabathia retired Steve Pearce and Kevin Pillar to strand Morales, though it took a nice over-the-shoulder catch by Ronald Torreyes on a teasing looper by Pillar to get the third out for him.
Happ did what he needed to do in the fourth as the beneficiary of two extra runs, and that was to shut the Yankees down, retiring them on nine pitches with the help of a marvellous leaping grab by Donaldson, doing it all tonight, of a screamer off the bat of Todd Frazier.
Surprisingly, though C.C. Sabathia did not come out for the bottom of the fourth. Having been touched up only by Donaldson, it didn’t add up that he’d be pulled after three complete, especially after clamping down after each of Donaldson’s homers. We later learned that his arthritic right knee—his landing knee—had been acting up, and it worsened to the point where he couldn’t continue. It’s a bit odd to think of someone three years short of forty being limited by arthritis, but if he weren’t a ball player I guess we wouldn’t think twice about it.
Brian Mitchell, a 26-year-old right-hander who’d started the season with the Yankees, but had just been recalled from Triple A where he’d been starting, came out for the fourth inning. Normally, losing your starter after three innings in the first game of a three-game series is a bit of a disaster for a team, triggering a domino effect of having to use too many pitchers out of the bullpen for too many innings with two games still to play.
But this time the Yankees caught a break in having Mitchell available. With his recent string of starts in the minors, he’d been well stretched out, and was up to the task of shutting down the Jays over a protracted outing. He ended up going four innings plus a batter, giving up no runs on four hits with only one walk, on 67 pitches. An oddity in his performance was that he compiled zero strikeouts against the whiff-happy Toronto lineup, meaning that he was generally in the zone and pitching effectively to contact.
Mitchell had to work around two base runners in each of the fourth and fifth innings, pitched a clean sixth, and worked around his own one-out error in the seventh. In fact, the only real problem Mitchell had to deal with was fielding off the TV Dome mound and its surrounding turf. In his first inning of work an easy grounder by Jose Bautista went right through his wicket for an error, and in his last inning his cleats caught in the turf and he fell awkwardly before he could release his throw to first to retire Donaldson on what was generously, though fairly, scored a base hit.
After Mitchell’s fine work, leaving with Steve Pearce on first after a leadoff infield hit in the bottom of the eighth, he gave way to the newly-acquired bullpen stud David Robertson, who got Kevin Pillar to hit into a double play erasing Pearce, gave up a base hit to Ryan Goins, and retired Darwin Barney on a looper to centre. Mitchell and Robertson had held Toronto scoreless for five innings.
But beyond Donaldson’s two round-trippers, the story of this game really wasn’t about how the Jays’ hitters succeeded, or didn’t, against the New York pitching, but whether the Yankees’ hitters could mount a counter-attack against Jay Happ and the Toronto bullpen.
After shutting down the Yankees in the fourth inning, Happ pitched around a leadoff single by Garrett Cooper, his second hit of the game, in the fifth. In the sixth, facing Aaron Judge leading off, Happ froze him with a 3-2 fast ball right down the middle.
But then he went 3-2 on both Gary Sanchez and Chase Headley, and lost them both. Manager John Gibbons went one more batter with Happ, so that he would face the left-handed Didi Gregorius, who flied out to left for the second out, but Gibbons wasn’t about to let a tired Happ face the right-handed slugger Todd Frazier. So Happ was done, with a line of 5.2 innings pitched, one run, four hits, four walks, and 5 strikeouts on 97 pitches. Dominic Leone came on to face Frazier, whose infield single loaded the bases, bringing the dangerous Cooper to the plate again. In perhaps the key at-bat of the game, Leone got Cooper to fly out to Bautista in right to end the inning.
Danny Barnes started the seventh, gave up a base hit to Ronald Torreyes, and then got a double-play ball from Brett Gardner. But when Clint Frazier followed with a base hit to right, the call went out for Ryan Tepera to come in early, before the eighth, to face Aaron Judge, who for the second at-bat in a row looked at a called third strike, this time a curve ball.
Tepera of course came back for the eighth, and struggled, but managed to hold the Yankees to one run and turn the game over to Roberto Osuna with a two run Toronto lead. Tepera hit both Gary Sanchez, who doesn’t appear to have paid attention during the “drop away from inside pitches” drills, and is lucky he didn’t leave the game with a broken bone, and Chase Headley. Didi Gregorius popped out on the infield fly rule, Todd Frazier walked to load the bases on a 3-2 pitch that looked pretty good, and Garrett Cooper strode to the plate with a chance to break the game open for the Yankees. But the best he could do against Tepera was a sacrifice fly to score Sanchez with New York’s second run. When Torreyes lined out to centre, the threat was over.
For anybody worried about how Roberto Osuna would do this time out in the save situation (which included everyone watching), it wasn’t worth troubling ourselves over.
It took Osuna only 9 pitches to dispose of the Yankees and secure the win for Toronto. A soft liner to short, a popup to second, and the coup de gràce, a foul popup to first by Aaron Judge, who ended his night with two strikeouts, two walks, and the popup. After the horror of Sunday’s ninth-inning breakdown by Osuna, it was balm to the afflicted, and a good start to the crucial Yankee series.
But one question lingered: with Cesar Valdez going on the disabled list, who was going to start for Toronto Wednesday night against Masahiro Tanaka?
And a special award goes to anyone who, 48 hours before game time on Wednesday, would have come up with the name, Nick Tepesch. Say who?
Nick Tepesch is a guy who was actually in the Texas Rangers’ rotation in 2014, but anyone who doesn’t know that is forgiven: after all, 2014 is the antediluvian period, i. e., before the flood, pre-Tulo trade, pre-bat flip, pre-everything, and who was paying attention then?
Anyway, Tepesch missed 2015 with an injury, had a cuppa with the Dodgers last year, and another cuppa with the Twins this spring, but spent most of this year for the Twins at Rochester in Triple A, until the Twins cut him loose and the Blue Jays picked him up for rotation depth in Buffalo, along with most of the Red Army Chorus. (Don’t laugh: some of those bassos have tremendous arms!) His Buffalo record is pretty short: three appearances, two starts, twelve innings, a win, an ERA of 3.00 and a rather impressive WHIP of 0.92.
By the time I got in the car from the restaurant tonight it was the bottom of the third inning, the Yanks were leading 3-1, and the Jays were coming to bat. Raffy Lopez, who was spelling Russell Martin behind the plate, not a bad thing, since he had at least caught Tepesch in Buffalo, was leading off. He reached on catcher’s interference, and Jose Bautista popped out, and then Tanaka walked Josh Donaldson and Justin Smoak. Tanaka obviously wasn’t sharp. Steve Pearce scored Lopez on a sac fly and Kevin Pillar popped out, so the Jays had shortened the Yankee lead to 3-2 without a base hit. The Yankees hadn’t driven Tepesch out of the box, and Tanaka wasn’t particularly sharp.
Ominously, though, I learned that all three Yankee runs had come on solo homers. Having heard that Tepesch is a bit of a soft-tosser, images of Marco Estrada or even R.A. Dickey having a bad day came immediately to mind.
The game progressed under Jerry and Joe’s narration as we rolled up the Parkway and headed east. Tepesch survived two two-out base hits, one by that rookie guy Garrett Cooper, when Brett Gardner lined out to Pillar in centre. Tanaka racked up another walk, Ryan Goins with two out, but fanned Nori Aoki to end the inning.
Tepesch’ not-so-bad debut ended in the fifth. But he was pulled by manager John Gibbons before actually giving up the fatal blows. That was left to Leonel Campos, who came in to a pickle and hopped into the brine himself to join the fun. Chase Headley was caught looking by Tepesch for the first out, and then the fill-in righty walked Aaron Judge. So far, so good, really. But when Didi Gregorius, who always seems to find a way to pop the Jays’ bubble, doubled to centre, with Judge stopping at third, Gibbie decided to call it a night on Tepesch, and brought in Campos, who started well by fanning Gary Sanchez, but then gave up back-to-back two-out doubles to Todd Frazier and Jacoby Ellsbury, plating both inherited runners from Tepesch, and one for Campos, just for extra.
Tepesch was out, it was 6-2 New York, and by now we were heading home to Etobicoke, thinking black thoughts about Aaron Sanchez’ blister and a mediocre record that forced us to sell off Francisco Liriano.
As we pounded along the 401, Bautista led off the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer to cut the lead to 6-3, and Tanaka walked Donaldson, causing Yankee manager Joe Girardi to call quits on Tanaka an inning short of qualifying for a victory, and bring in Chad Green, who proceeded to strike out the side.
Aaron Loup came in and pitched a clean sixth, bringing the Jays back to the plate for the bottom of the sixth, when as we got closer to home in the gathering dusk they put up another rally. Whatever magic rock Chad Green had rubbed before coming in for the Toronto fifth must have had only one dose in it, because the bottom of the Jays’ order chased him unceremoniously in the sixth. Nori Aoki singled to centre. Darwin Barney hit into a force play. Mr. Clutch of 2017 Ryan Goins doubled to centre to score Barney, making it 6-4.
Exit Chad Green and enter newly-acquired Tommy Kahnle for the Yankees. Kahnle promptly endeared himself to Joe Girardi by wild-pitching Goins to third while walking the number nine hitter, Lopez. Kahnle popped up Bautista for the second out, but Donaldson singled to centre to score Goins and surprisingly send Lopez around to third, but Justin Smoak struck out on a 2-2 pitch.
We arrived home as the top of the seventh began, and I excitedly settled in to watch my boys pick up that next run to tie it up, anticipating an exciting finish to a see-saw game. Silly me.
Looked pretty good for an inning, as Dominic Leone and David Robertson traded clean innings, each using only twelve pitches.
Ah, but then came the eighth, and the beginning of the end for the Toronto bullpen. John Gibbons sent Leone back out for the eighth, which almost never works, even though the pitcher might have been lights out in the previous inning.
In this case Leone gave up a single to Todd Frazier, and he was finished. The lefty J. P. Howell came in to match up with Jacoby Ellsbury and struck him out. Gibbie then called on Taylor Cole, a recent callup from Buffalo who after six years in the minors, was making his major league debut, parents in the stands and all. Too bad what should have been a happy occasion turned into a walk off the plank for Mr. Cole.
Garrett Cooper (remember him?) doubled to left, Frazier to third. Ronald Torreyes singled both home. 8-5 Yankees. Brett Gardner walked. Chase Headley singled to left, and the Yanks tried to send Torreyes, but Nori Aoki gunned down Torreyes at the plate for the second out. The only positive note came when Cole struck out Aaron Judge on a 3-2 count to end the inning. Besides letting in Leone’s run, Cole had given up only one of his own, despite giving up three hits and a walk.
If he had been allowed to take his seat then, after the eighth inning, it wouldn’t have been a great debut, but he could have cherished the Judge strikeout, licked his wounds over the base hits, and bought Aoki a steak (Wagyu beef?) to celebrate surviving his first major league pitching appearance.
But baseball is a cruel game, and sometimes it doesn’t go like a fairy tale, even a tainted one. Cole was brought up as a fresh arm, perhaps just for one game to give an arm a break in the Toronto bullpen. John Gibbons needed to have him at least try to get through the ninth, for the sake of the rest of the pitching staff, and so out he came to face the Yankees again.
Gibbie’s strategy didn’t pay off, and unfortunately the brunt of his decision fell on Cole. Gregorius singled. Sanchez singled. Cole hit Todd Frazier to load the bases (and send Frazier to the disabled list, we later learned). This is where I take issue with John Gibbons, who should have pulled Cole at this point, even if you can understand why he was sent out in the ninth in the first place. But he didn’t pull him. Jacoby Ellsbury dribbled one out to second base that scored Gregorius and moved the other runners up because Rob Refsnyder could only play it to first. Cooper, again, singled to centre to score both Sanchez and Frazier. 11-5 Yankees. Oh, then it was time for Danny Barnes to bail out Taylor Cole, after the latter had given up four runs on six hits in one inning in his major league debut.
Barnes got the last two outs to end the farce, and the series was tied.
Taylor Cole? Oh, the Didi Gregorius single leading off the ninth deflected off his right foot and broke a toe, and he was put on the 10-day disabled list. Maybe he’ll get a Purple Heart?
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