One of the great things about baseball is that you can have exciting, tense games in a wonderful old park like Wrigley Field, and you can have tense, exciting games in a clangy, tin-can abomination like the Orange Juice Dome in Tampa Bay.
One of the lousy things about baseball is your team can be competitive in tense, exciting games no matter the venue, yet lose almost all of them, as in the sweep of the Blue Jays by the Cubs in Chicago last weekend being followed by a two out of three loss to the Rays in Florida during the week.
But one of the great things about baseball is that sometimes the play between two teams, teams that have a particular rivalry, can be so sharp, so exciting, that a series can have the atmosphere of the playoffs, even though one team is iffy and the other likely out of playoff contention.
The first game of the series on Tuesday featured a return matchup between the mismatched Chrises, the veteran front-liner Archer for Tampa Bay and the rookie Rowley for Toronto, who had prevailed over Archer five days earlier in Toronto
The game started with a rush and a shock. Nori Aoki, inserted in the leadoff position for the Blue Jays, as he had been the last time they’d faced Archer, laid off a high and outside fast ball on the first pitch of the game, but when Archer threw the same pitch in the strike zone, Aoki whipped that short stroke of his at the ball and drove it hard, out of the park to right centre, for a 1-0 Toronto lead. Archer retired the side after that, with a couple of strikeouts, but what a start.
In return, Rowley hung a 1-1 breaking curve ball right in the wheelhouse of Lucas Duda in the bottom of the first and the game was tied.
After Archer disposed of the Jays on ten pitches in the bottom of the second, just to clarify any lingering nonsense about this being another “pitching duel” here, Tampa piled on Rowley for three more runs. By the end of the inning it was pretty clear that the bloom was off the rose for Chris Rowley, following two effective, if short, starts in a row.
With one out, Corey Dickinson unloaded on Rowley with a line shot that put the Rays in the lead, which they would never relinquish. Two left-handed power hitters, two solo home runs, okay, you can sort of deal with that. But when Wilson Ramos, hitting right, singled, and Brad Miller walked, you had to start crossing your fingers, like, really hard. When Adeiny Hechavarria popped out to short on the infield fly rule you had some hope.
But unlike last week in Toronto, the always-dangerous Kevin Kiermaier, especially against Toronto, was back in the lineup for Tampa. Kiermaier delivered a two-out triple to centre that chased Ramos and Miller home and pushed Archer’s cushion to 4-1.
From this point on, the whole question would be whether the Blue Jays could keep Tampa Bay in their sights until Archer finished up, and whether Toronto could mount a comeback at the end of the game against the Tampa bullpen.
But Toronto took a significant blow, right away in the top of the third. After Kevin Pillar grounded out to short for the first out, he was trotting behind the plate back to the dugout; without turning his head or stopping, he said something—he later claimed that all he said was that the first pitch to him had been “terrible”—and plate umpire Chad Fairchild immediately ejected him, gesturing at Pillar’s retreating figure. Pillar was in disbelief; it was his first ever ejection in the majors. When the Jays came out for the bottom of the third, Zeke Carrera was assigned to patrol centre in Pillar’s stead.
The lead held through the fourth inning, but when it was over so was Rowley’s night. Archer retired the Jays in order with two strikeouts. Then Rowley gave up a deep fly ball to centre to Wilson Ramos, and walked Brad Miller on four pitches before giving up a bloop single to centre to Adeiny Hechavarria.
That was enough for manager John Gibbons, who came out with the same hasty hook he used on Nick Tepesch the other day in Chicago to pull Rowley at almost the same point, 3.1 innings pitched, 4 runs, 4 hits, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts but only 62 pitches. Gibbie wanted the favourable matchup of bringing lefty Matt Dermody in to match up with Kevin Kiermaier, who had already tripled off Rowley for two runs in the second inning.
The strategy worked. Kiermaier hit a fly ball to left on which Miller was able to advance to third, but Duda lined out to Justin Smoak at first for the third out.
Toronto rallied in the top of the fifth to cut the Tampa lead to one on Archer. The little rising featured a clutch hit by Ryan Goins, and a sacrifice fly, this time by Nori Aoki, another occasion when the “little guys” have been able to step into the gap created by the middle-of-the-order power outage that continues.
It started with one out, just like the Cubs’ Sunday extra-inning playbook: Archer fanned Miguel Montero on a wild pitch that enabled Montero to reach first. Zeke Carrera hit a liner to left that Steven Souza took an ill-advised dive on, and missed. Carrera ended up with a double, Montero moving to third. Then Ryan Goins hit a solid base hit up the middle to score Montero, but Kiermaier charged it really well, and Carrera had to stop at third after making sure the ball went through. He was able to show his speed though when he and coach Luis Rivera challenged Corey Dickinson’s suspect arm to score on a shallow sacrifice fly by Aoki, who collected his second RBI of the game. Goins moved up to second on the throw, but was stranded there when Josh Donaldson was rather irately caught looking.
This was a game of day late and a dollar short for our guys.
Again like the Cubs, Tampa manufactured a run in the bottom of the fifth by means of one decent hit, a ball hit to the left-centre alley by Longoria that looked like it had bounced out and back in. It was bobbled in centre by Carrera, who had replaced the ejected Pillar. This allowed Longoria to get to third, where he remained after the video review confirmed that the ball was live when it bounced back. A cheap infield hit to Bautista at third by Ramos scored him, after he had held while Logan Morrison and Corey Dickinson made outs, and Steven Souza received an intentional walk. Gibbie replaced Dermody with Dom Leone, who gave up the bouncer to Ramos, and then brought the inning to an end by getting Brad Miller to fly out to left.
Archer walked Bautista in the sixth but fanned Smoak and Morales and got Pearce to sky out to left. The Tampa hitters came back and added another insurance run in the bottom of the sixth, restoring their original three-run lead. Day late, dollar short.
Leone gave up singles to Hechavarria and Kiermaier, but Duda hit a line drive right to Smoak at the bag at first for an easy double play. But with two outs and Hechavarria still on, it was Longoria who delivered again, a triple to left centre that scored Hechavarria. Tim Mayza came in and got Logan Morrison to fly out to left; it was now 6-3, and up to the Rays’ bullpen to protect the lead for Archer, who was finished at six innings and 104 pitches, but another ten strikeouts against Toronto.
After the sixth the Jays’ bullpen was more effective than the Rays’. Mayza carried on in the seventh and gave up two singles, one of them a Tampa Dome roof special, a popup lost by Barney just beyond second, but escaped without a blemish, and T.J. House made his Blue Jays’ debut with a very quick nine-pitch eighth.
Meanwhile, the Rays’ new lefty Dan Jennings threw a clean seventh inning, but Tommy Hunter gave up a solo homer to Donaldson in the eighth, inching Toronto closer at 6-4 as we headed for the ninth inning.
Alex Colome, the Tampa closer, took the mound for the save, and he got it, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was knee-knocking time for both teams.
Kendrys Morales led off with a single to centre. It might not have been a decisive move, but John Gibbons, who still had Rob Refsnyder on the bench, didn’t run for the DH, so when Steve Pearce followed with a double to left centre Morales only checked in at third. Montero plated Morales with a sacrifice fly to centre, and Pearce advanced to third on the catch and throw. Now Refsnyder appeared, to run for Pearce.
Maybe this decision didn’t matter, but it might have if Pearce had hit the ball on the ground, instead of going for extra bases. Also, with nobody out, a run in and the tying run on second, maybe Colome pitches Montero differently, or Montero takes a different approach.
This brought Barney to the plate, who had hit for Carrera against the left-hander in the seventh. Barney grounded out to second with the runner holding at third. But consider yet another consequence of Pillar receiving the ridiculously quick hook in the third: Barney was in Pillar’s spot in the order, and that could have been Pillar at the plate with the tying run on third and one out. No guarantees, of course, but you never know. Goins ended the suspense by hitting the ball smartly, but right to Souza in right to end the game.
It was close all right, that close: the tying run on third with one out in the ninth. But Toronto couldn’t bring him home, and that was the ball game.
It was a chastened and determined lot of Blue Jays who turned out on Wednesday night for game two of the Tin Can Series in Tampa Bay, now having lost four in a row on the road, at a time when every game had to be won, or there would be no further point to the season, save for playing the role of spoiler.
The Jays’ hitters came out loaded for bear in the middle game of the series, and it would have been a tough go no matter who the starting pitcher was. The lot for Tampa Bay fell to Austin Pruitt, a rookie who has been up and down in the minors this year, though mostly up, and has appeared in relief against Toronto three times this year, two of which were quite effective. He came into the game with a positive win/loss record of 6-4, but a tellingly high ERA of 5.37.
It was Pruitt’s twenty-fifth appearance and eighth start for the Rays, and he did not get off on the right foot; Steave Pearce whacked a 1-2 fast ball up and out over the plate for an opposite-field double to start the game. Josh Donaldson followed by golfing a 2-2 fast ball on the outside corner over the fence in left centre, and the Jays were on the board. After getting Justin Smoak to fly out to centre field and fanning Jose Bautista, Kendrys Morales hit a shot to left that came off the wall so hard that he only got a single out of it, but Kevin Pillar flew out to right to end the inning.
After Marcus Stroman disposed of the Rays on twelve pitches—groundout, strikeout, fly ball—Toronto went back to work with the lumber. Ryan Goins led off by falling into a count that he likes, 1-2 that is, and then got a pitch to his liking, even if it was up in his eyes, and pulled it over the right-field fence. 3-0 Jays. Darwin Barney
flew out to Kevin Kiermaier in centre. Raffie Lopez clobbered a pitch on the outside corner into the left-field seats. 4-0 Jays. Steve Pearce back-to-backed with Lopez with a long drive down the left-field line. 5-0 Jays.
So, end of Pruitt? Not quite yet. End of Rays for tonight? No, sir. End of Toronto’s long-range artillery attack? Not quite.
Despite the crazy start, crazy-good if you’re a Toronto fan, crazy-bad if you’re a Tampa fan, this game ended up being as close and exciting as the first game of the series, thanks to the fact that the Rays battled back and treated Marcus Stroman with considerable disrespect.
Oh, Stroman still had it in the second, getting Steven Souza to ground into a double play erasing a leadoff walk to Logan Morrison.
But after Pruitt pitched a 1-2-3 third, thanks to a brilliant play by Adeiny Hechavarria at short, who went into the hole to flag down a shot by Kevin Pillar that was past him for the third out, the Tampa comeback started in the bottom of the third when with two outs Kiermaier hit a blast to centre that scored catcher Wilson Ramos, on base with another blankety-blank infield hit to third, ahead of him to make it 5-2 Toronto.
Pruitt’s start came to an end in the fourth inning with two outs and Darwin Barney on first with a single; manager Kevin Cash brought in Chase Whitley to face Steve Pearce. After wild-pitching Barney to second, Whitley retired Pearce on a hard liner to right. Cash seemed to be taking a page out of John Gibbon’s playbook with the rather abrupt removal of his starter at that precise point. It seems that the monitoring of how many times the order has been faced has become a major factor for managers. Of course, Pearce was two for two with six total bases against Pruitt, so that might have had a little to do with it as well. Ya think?
Stroman quickly got two outs in the bottom of the fourth before the Tampa hitters started measuring him again. Steven Souza got every bit of a hanging 0-1 curve ball and hammered it out to left, followed by singles to right by Corey Dickinson and Ramos, who actually reached the outfield this time. Brad Miller closed out the inning with a short fly to left, but the Rays had inched a little closer.
The bombs continued to fly in the fifth inning as the teams traded solo homers, Justin Smoak to centre for Toronto and Kiermaier’s second, the wrong way to left for Tampa, so the two-run difference still stood. Whitley needed some help from Hechavarria after the Smoak homer to get out of the inning. Kendrys Morales had followed Smoak with a base hit into the teeth of the shift. Kevin Pillar followed with a grounder that deflected off Longoria’s glove and took a late, high bounce. Hechavarria leapt for it, came down with his momentum taking him backward away from second, and still managed a one-hop throw to force the chugging Morales for the third out.
No one seems to comment on this any more (maybe Jerry Howarth on the radio?) but it used to be proverbial that a player who made a great play in the field would be first up to bat next inning. It just always seemed to happen, and still does, but hardly anyone notices. So Hechavarria led off the bottom of the fifth for Tampa, but, sadly for him, struck out on a checked swing. Kiermaier’s homer to left followed, which cut the Toronto lead to 6-4.
The Jays wasted a chance to extend their lead in the sixth when they got two runners on with one out, but Kevin Cash pulled Whitley and brought in Andrew Kittredge, who got a fielder’s choice and a strikeout to strand the base runners.
The Rays cut the lead to one in the bottom of the sixth, and got Stroman out of the game in the bargain. With one out he gave up an infield hit to Souza and a single to centre by Dickerson, and that was it for this night. At five and a third innings, five runs and eight hits, it was his least effective performance since a start in Oakland on July twentieth-seventh when he went four and two thirds and gave up three runs on six hits. Danny Barnes got the second out with a popup, but gave up an opposite-field hit to Brad Miller that scored Souza and cut the Toronto lead to one.
Kittredge maneuvered a quick top of the seventh, giving up a one-out single to Jose Bautista, but then throwing a double-play ball to Kendrys Morales. The Rays came back at Barnes in their half of the inning, taking advantage of a leadoff walk to Kiermaier by Barnes, a stolen base, a throwing error by catcher Raffie Lopez, all with nobody out, to set up the tying run, with Evan Longoria cashing Kiermaier on an infield single to short off Ryan Tepera, who’d relieved Barnes after he failed to retire a batter. Tepera in turn was lucky to get out of the inning, walking Dickerson with two outs to load the bases before getting Wilson Ramos to ground out to third.
With the game tied and both starters now off the record, Tommy Hunter took the mound to try to maintain the tie until the Rays could scratch out another run or two. Well, that only lasted until Hunter’s sixth pitch to Kevin Pillar, who attacked another hanging curve with abandon and broke Toronto’s three-inning homer with a blast to left that put the Jays up by one. How’s this for an odd offensive night for Toronto: they scored seven runs on six home runs, five solo jobs and Josh Donaldson’s two-run shot in the first.
Aaron Loup and Roberto Osuna finally were able to stop the bleeding against Tampa, shutting them down in the eighth and ninth to protect the one-run lead. Loup got the first two outs in the eighth, then gave up an opposite field hit to Kiermaier, who just never gives up, does he? John Gibbons made the unusual move to bring in Roberto Osuna in the eighth to try for a four-out save. He got the first one, a groundout to first by Cesar Puello, hitting for Duda, on two pitches.
No chance for Toronto to add an insurance run in the top of the ninth as Steve Cishek came in and retired the side on 14 pitches with two strikeouts. Unfortunately for the Rays Osuna was even more efficient than Cishek. He retired Longoria on a fly ball to centre on the first pitch, caught Logan Morrison looking, which didn’t make Morrison too happy with the plate umpire, Lance Barrett, and then Steven Souza who grounded out to shortstop. So Osuna closed out the four-out save on only 15 pitches, for save number 33 in 41 opportunities.
Did I say the games in this series were close? I also said that the Jays were a day late and a dollar short Tuesday night. Wednesday night the situation was reversed, and it was the Rays who were a day late and a dollar short, not to mention a little shell-shocked by the long artillery Toronto arrayed against them.
As much as I hated the simplistic, Reagan-era crypto-fascism of Forrest Gump, there’s still something useful and true about the movie’s sappy tag line about life being like a box of chocolates, at least when you apply it to baseball. One night a team will hit six home runs, the next night it can’t scratch a run across the plate to save its skin.
And so it was Thursday night when the Jays and the Rays met up for the third and deciding game of the Tin Can Series in Tampa Bay. After all of Wednesday night’s thunder, the Jays’ hitters were able to score absolutely zero runs against a Tampa starter on a short leash and the four relievers who followed him to the mound. So when the Rays squeezed out a run in the second and Corey Dickerson hit a solo home run in the eighth, it was one more than Tampa needed to take the deciding game of the series by a 2-0 score, leaving Toronto limping home with a 1-5 record on the road trip to Chicago and Tampa Bay, and pretty much holding an empty bag of chances for the second Wild Card spot in the playoffs.
There was no way of predicting what the pitching matchup would be like. For the second time in the last two seasons Toronto would be facing Alex Cobb in his first appearance after having been on the disabled list. As I recall it, things did not go well for the Blue Jays the first time we danced this dance, last September when Cobb was making, finally, his first start of 2016.
On the other hand, facing the Rays would be the latest in what seems like an unending string of rotational fill-ins for Toronto, thirty-one-year old Tom Koehler, who spent his entire previous career with the Miami Marlins, which for the Toronto fan is akin to having spent his whole career in Siberia, only warmer.
When you dig into it a little bit, the Koehler story is interesting. Despite the fact that I’d never heard of him, turns out he had 33 starts for Miami last year, highest on the team, and went 9-13 with a 4.33 ERA, not bad for a team that went 79-82. Also turns out it was his third season with more than 30 starts for Miami. He fell from grace with the Marlins this year, though, compiling a 1-5 record and a 7.92 ERA in 12 starts. In fact, he fell so far from grace with Miami that they were willing to trade him to Toronto on August nineteenth for a minor league pitcher, Osman Guttierez, who at the time of the trade was sporting a 4-ll record and a 7.85 ERA with the Lansing Lugnuts in high A ball, in his fifth season with the team. Oh, and Miami was so eager to dump Koehler that they sent some cash to Toronto, to help cover off his 5.75 million dollar 2017 salary. Baseball’s a strange business, eh?
The Jays basically acquired him for the rotation at Buffalo and for added depth, but as we’ve seen this year, if you’re starting at Buffalo you’re only a heart beat away . . .
Funny thing is, Cobb pitched a shutout for four and a third innings against the Jays Thursday night, but reached a pitch count of 94, probably way more than enough for his first time back. Meanwhile, Koehler, mixing mid-nineties velocity with a variety of breaking balls, certainly pitched well enough for a win, though he took the loss. He went five full innings, giving up one run on four hits and three walks and two hit batters while striking out seven on 98 pitches.
The one run came in the second, when Tampa scored after loading the bases on a base hit, one of the three walks, and the first hit batter, and it resulted from a sacrifice fly off the bat of second baseman Daniel Robertson.
Koehler allowed a single base runner in each of the first, third, and fourth innings, and escaped another bases-loaded jam unscathed in his last inning, the fifth, resulting from a leadoff double, a walk, and the second hit batter. So it was not like he came in and blew the Rays away, but he did come in and pitch like a veteran, somebody who knows how to work his way around the odd baserunner or three. Like Jack Morris always said, bend, don’t break.
In the meantime, there must have been some skullduggery on the part of the home team before the game. It seemed like the good Toronto bats had all been replaced with the Tupperware variety.
Steve Pearce got a hit in the first. Darwin Barney and Pearce again got one-out hits in the third and moved up when Cobb threw a wild pitch, but then caught Josh Donaldson looking and got Justin Smoak to ground out to second.
In the fifth Steve Cishek took over from Cobb with one out and Miguel Montero on second after a walk and Ryan Goins on first with a single. It was at this point, regardless of the Tampa pitchers throwing a shutout, that this game became the Kevin Kiermaier show. First, with Cishek in, one out, and the two runners on, Pearce, already two for two, pole-axed one to right centre field that would have easily scored both runners, Goins being the trailer.
But Kiermaier, racing across from centre, closed fast on the ball, stretched out his glove hand while still in full stride, and just caught the ball as it was almost past him. Two outs, runners retreat.
But now, as much as Kevin Kiermaier wanted to stay on centre stage, the focus has to change for a moment to Josh Donaldson, third base umpire Lance Barrett, and the video review team in New York, because an overturned call on the field was as much the key to this game as Kiermaier’s heroics.
Donaldson ripped one past Longoria at third and down into the left-field corner. Lance Barrett signalled “fair ball”. Donaldson ended up at second and both runners scampered home for a 2-1 Toronto lead. We thought. But Longoria had immediately told the dugout that the ball was foul and that the Rays should ask for a review. They did, the call was overturned, the runs taken away, and the runners sent back to first and second. Donaldson then drew a walk, but somehow it wasn’t the same.
Now it was Justin Smoak’s turn. He hit a teasing, looping ball over the infield that no infielder would get. With two outs the runners were off, and with the hang time of the hit, again they’d probably both score. But here came Kiermaier, flying in and to his left, reaching and leaving his feet at the same time, and getting his glove under the ball for the third out, just before he hit the turf. He saved the same two runs twice in the inning, while his team was clinging to a 1-0 lead.
A quick note about the “make a great play then lead off” cliché: Kiermaier led off the bottom of the fifth. He flew out to—guess where—centre field, put out by his partner in crime, Kevin Pillar.
Since Kiermaier’s theft of the game narrative brohgt us back to the fifth inning, it’s worth lingering for a minute on Koehler’s last inning of work. After the Kiermaier fly ball, he struck out Lucas Duda, freezing him with a fast ball, down and on the inner half. With two outs, Evan Longoria hit one to right field that went for a double when Jose Bautista took a bad route to the ball, and might have otherwise flagged it down. That ball was hit on Koehler’s eighty-sixth pitch; if it had been caught, Koehler might have had another inning in him.
But as it was, the double was followed by a walk and another hit batter to load the bases before Dickerson lined out to left to end the inning and Koehler’s start, now at 98 pitches.
The score stayed at 1-0 for Tampa through the sixth and seventh. Brad Boxberger held the Jays at bay for an inning and two thirds, giving way for Sergio Romo to get the last out after giving up an infield single to Barney with two outs in the seventh.
Continuing his impressive work, Dominic Leone struck out the side in the seventh inning, and the young call-up lefty Tim Mayza struck out two in the eighth, Duda was the only Tampa hitter to put the ball in play, off Mayza, and he hit a liner toward left that Donaldson, playing at shortstop in the shift, made a great leaping grab on.
Romo stayed on for the eighth and retired the side in the order, bringing Mayza back to the mound to face the left-handed Logan Morrison, whom he fanned, for three strikeouts in four batters. Manager John Gibbons brought Danny Barnes on to face Steven Souza, whom he fanned for seven strikeouts out of eight batters by the Toronto bullpen.
But all good things come to an end. Gibbons left Barnes out there to face the left-handed power of Corey Dickerson, comfortable in the knowledge that Barnes has had really good numbers against lefties. But this time it went awry as Dickerson powdered one over the centre-field fence to make it just that much harder for Toronto to come back in the top of the ninth.
Alex Colomé came on in the ninth looking for his thirty-eighth save in forty-three tries, and was good for it, despite giving up a leadoff single to Kendrys Morales. Kevin Pillar flied out to right, and then the Tampa closer caught Miguel Montero looking and fanned Ryan Goins to finish off the job.
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