One of the most remarkable developments in contemporary baseball is the incredible level of accomplishment that has already been achieved by players in their early twenties.
Looking at the American League alone, consider that among the Blue Jays Roberto Osuna is 22, Aaron Sanchez is 25, and Marcus Stroman is 26. Mike Trout, a veteran at 26, made his major-league debut at 20 in 201l. More noticeably, the sparkling Boston duo of Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts are 24, Carlos Correa of the Astros is 22. Meanwhile, Jonathan Schoop of the Orioles is 25, and hasn’t he played second for Baltimore for at least ten years?? Jose Ramirez of the Indians is 24. So is Gary Sanchez of the Yankees. Aaron Judge is a relative senior citizen in his first full year at 25.
In this context, then, it wasn’t all that surprising to watch twenty-three-year-old centre fielder Byron Buxton utterly dismantle Toronto twice to lead the visiting Minnesota Twins to a crucial (for both teams) series win over the weekend.
Reggie Jackson famously and rather arrogantly referred to himself as the “straw that stirred the drink” for the Yankees, which is probably the origin of the stirring motion that players make these days after a base hit in the middle of a rally.
When you look at Buxton’s contribution to the three Twins’ games in Toronto, it can be truly said that, at his tender age, for this weekend at least, Buxton was Minnesota’s straw. When he went well—and boy, did he go well when he went well—the Twins won; in the one game when he didn’t have an impact, the Twins lost.
On Friday night he went three for five with two bunt singles and two RBIs. In the third inning after Joe Mauer and Brian Dozier pulled off a hit-and-run to send Dozier to third he bunted safely to third to score Dozier on the safety squeeze. In the fifth inning, following a leadoff double by Mauer, he bunted him to third, but ran that into a base hit as well, and immediately stole second. In the ninth inning, with one out and Chris Gimenez on third after a double and Mauer (again) on first with a single, Buxton took the more conventional route of a line single to left that scored Gimenez for the Twins’ last run in a 6-1 win over Toronto. Incidentally, when you have Joe Mauer getting three base hits hitting second right ahead of Buxton comin of of the three-hole, you’re looking at lots of scoring opportunities. I mean a lot.
And what was all that horse manure about Mauer being washed up a couple of years ago, with injuries and all? Don’t see it now: he’s hitting like a member of Mike Trout’s graduating class, not like the fragile 34-year-old he’s supposed to be: .303 in 436 at bats this year. Are you kidding me??
But to get back to Byron Buxton, his three hits were just his contribution at the plate. In the eighth inning he robbed Rob Refsnyder with a running, leaping grab of a ball that was over his head in right centre. The catch saved two sure runs. Miguel Montero had led off with a walk, followed by Kevin Pillar hitting a hard liner right at the right fielder Max Kepler. Nori Aoki hit into a fielder’s choice for the second out, replacing Montero’s lack of speed with Aoki’s quickness. Ryan Goins lined a single to left, against the left-handed Taylor Rogers, we should note, sending Aoki to second and bringing Refsnyder to the plate. If Refsnyder’s ball clears Buxton’s glove, with two outs both runners easily score, and the game is suddenly five-three, and Refsnyder has at least a double, with the top of the order coming up.
Let’s be clear, though. As much as Buxton stood out, those “random guys in Twins’ uniforms” that I referred to in my headline contributed a great deal to what was essentially a walkover, even if the score was only 6-1. The moment when you thought Refsnyder’s drive might reach the wall was the only moment that the Jays were ever in this game after the Twins’ three-run start in the third.
For one thing, as maddening as it was to watch, they never solved Bartolo Colon, the elderly humpty-dumpty who wasn’t good enough for the lowly Atlanta Braves, but now finds himself smack dab in the middle of a pennant race. His pitching line speaks for itself, six and two thirds innings, nine hits and a walk but only one run, and no strikeouts. Everything you need to know about Bartolo Colon on this night and maybe about his whole career is encapsulated in this single image: Colon standing off the mound waiting for play to be called again after some delay or other, tossing the ball up in the air and catching it with his meat hand, like some ten-year-old kid on the playground, waiting for someone else to come along and have a catch. You can see that he finds it immensely amusing at his age and condition that he can still get major league hitters out.
For another thing, in the words of my summary of the game notes for this night, the game represented a “clinical dissection” of Toronto by a Twins’ team still very much in the hunt despite the absence of such salwarts as Miguel Sano, Robbie Grossman, and number one catcher Jason Castro.
The Twins were relentless in putting pressure on Toronto. They put their leadoff hitter on in seven of nine innings, three times with extra-base hits. Even in the first two innings, when Jay Happ managed to keep them off the board, they had leadoff singles, and in both cases the runner ended up in scoring position before the inning ended.
Ironically, in the third inning when they opened the scoring, Chris Gimenez led off by flying out to centre. But then Dozier walked, starting the sequence that resulted in Buxton plating him with his first bunt single. But then Jorge Polanco came through with a two-out drive to the gap in left centre that scored both Joe Mauer and Buxton from first. (Did I mention that Buxton can fly, as well as hit and field?)
Justin Smoak had doubled off Colon with two outs in the first. When he hit a two-out solo homer in the bottom of the third, it might have looked this could still be a ball game, but as it turned out, Smoak was the only Blue Jay able to solve Colon; the other seven hits he allowed were scattered singles.
In any case, the two-run differential only lasted two batters into the Twins’ fourth; these guys just don’t like to let their opponents off the mat. Mitch Garver hit a ball off the wall in centre that took a bad hop and eluded the fielders, allowing him to reach third, and he was immediately plated by a sacrifice fly off the bat of Max Kepler, making it 4-1.
in the fifth Mauer led off with a double and was bunted to third by Buxton as mentioned on a sacrifice attempt that turned into a base hit, and then he scored on a sacrifice fly by Eduardo Escobar, and it was 5-1.
it wasn’t like they were clobbering Jay Happ. The only decisive blow with runners in scoring position was the Polanco double in the third. For the rest, it was just chipping away, while Colon befuddled and annoyed the Toronto hitters until it was too late to mount a comeback. Rather, in the immortal words of the Randy Bachmann anthem, the Twins were just “taking care of business”.
Except for that one dicey moment in the eighth, cut off by Buxton’s acrobatics in centre, the Jays were never really in this one, and the top-off run by Minnesota in the top of the ninth, driven in by Mr. Buxton, was one last stake in the hearts of the Blue Jays.
Looking forward to Saturday afternoon’s game two of the series, the prescription was clear for Toronto: neutralize Byron Buxton, get the bats going against the Twins, and keep Minnesota’s leadoff hitters off the freakin’ bases.
So, how did we do Saturday afternoon compared to my “keys to victory”? Well, Buxton went oh fer three, we got ten runs, Minnesota put only two leadoff batters on base the whole game, and Marco Estrada pitched six innings for the win.
So why were my nails down to the bloody* cuticles by the time Roberto Osuna finally nailed down the save?
*Not swearing here, just being descriptive!
Because this Minnesota team is relentless. Marco Estrada avoided his first inning funk this time out, and after four innings he’d given up only a walk and a base hit, facing only two over the minimum.
Meanwhile, Toronto was facing Dillon Gee, who’d been somewhat of a fixture in the Mets’ rotation for a number of years until he ran into injury problems, spent 2016 in the Royals’ bullpen, and been signed and released (twice) by the Rangers this spring, eventually signing with Minnesota and going to their Triple A team. Today was his second start with the Twins after being called up to the big team; he’d gone six strong innings and recorded the win against the White Sox in his first start.
Toronto picked up a run off Gee in the second when Kendrys Morales hit a leadoff home run to right centre, and another one in the third, the only time before the fifth that Gee allowed more than one baserunner, and he did a good job of getting out of it after filling the bases with nobody out. Raffie Lopez and Zeke Carrera singled to right. Josh Donaldson surprised everyone so much laying down a sacrifice bunt that he was easily across first to load the bases. Then Gee fanned Justin Smoak, gave up a sacrifice fly to Jose Bautista, and popped up Morales to the shortstop to end the inning.
Down 2-0 and not doing much so far against Estrada, the Twins tied it up in the fifth on a two-out, two-run shot to right field by Eduardo Escobar which scored Kennys Vargas, who had led off the inning with a drive off the right-field wall that Bautista played skillfully to hold him to a single.
Two batters in to the top of the fifth showed that Gee had overstayed his welcome. Zeke Carrera led off with his second hit in three appearances against Gee, an infield single to third, and Donaldson, continuing his August tear, followed with his twenty-third homer of the season. This restored Toronto’s two-run lead, and Jays’ fan favourite and Twins’ manager Paul Molitor decided that at 74 pitches he’d seen enough from Gee and went to his bullpen.
The only false note played by the Twins this whole weekend series was the failure of the Minnesota bullpen to retire Toronto in this fifth inning.
Tyler Duffey was charged with four additional runs on three hits and a walk, and though Ryan Pressly technically didn’t give up a run in getting the last two outs, he gave up a two-out single to Lopez, his second of the game, that drove in the last two baserunners left by Duffey.
Duffey’s tenure, starting with a do-over of nobody on and nobody out after Donaldson’s home run, started innocently enough with a walk to Smoak. Bautista followed with a bloop single to left centre. Morales ripped a rope of a single through the shift into right, but with Smoak leading the way the Jays had to play one base at a time. With the bases loaded Kevin Pillar singled to left to finally bring in Smoak and move everybody up one. Ryan Goins had maybe the key at-bat of the inning. With nobody out and the bases loaded he tied into one and hit it to Buxton in the deepest part of the park, not only driving in Bautista but allowing Morales to move up to third, and Pillar to second.
Molitor brought in Ryan Pressly to face Rob Refsnyder, now with runners at second and third and one out. He retired Refsnyder on a grounder to second while the runners held with the infield in, but then Lopez came through with his clutch base hit, bumping the Toronto count for the inning to six runs, and their lead to 8-2.
Maybe suffering the effects of the very long bottom of the fifth, Estrada came out for what would be his last inning and gave up a single to Joe Mauer, who had another three-hit game. Jorge Polanco followed with a double to right, and the Twins held Mauer at third. Eddie Rosario immediately cashed in Mauer with a sacrific fly to Carrera in left. Estrada then struck out the quiescent Buxton and retired Max Kepler on a fly ball to centre.
Danny Barnes for Toronto and the combination of Pressly and Glen Perkins kept their opponents off the board in the seventh, and Toronto cruised into the Minnesota eighth enjoying its 8-3 lead, with Tim Mayza coming on to pitch for the Blue Jays.
But, like I said, these Twins are relentless.
With one out, Mauer (third hit) doubled to left centre. Mayza got the second out, punching out Jorge Polanco, but then Eddie Rosario singled to right, Mauer stopping at third again. Manager John Gibbons, taking no chances, decided to bring in Ryan Tepera to face Buxton.
Nope, it wasn’t Buxton’s night to kill us, but he did take one for the team: Tepera hit him with a pitch, loading the bases and bringing Max Kepler, possibly the most dangerous .248 hitter ever born in Berlin (Germany, that is) to the plate. Tepera, who has been so good for so long this year, made a huge mistake, leaving a 2-2 cutter right in the power zone, and Kepler pulled it out of the park for a grand slam, closing the score to 8-7. Kenny Vargas grounded out to end the inning, and the nail-biting started.
Things looked better—a lot better—after the bottom of the eighth, when Toronto picked up two more runs to restore a bit of a cushion against the Twins. Minnesota brought in John Curtiss, a young right-hander who’d made his major league debut on Friday night, rather embarrassingly having been brought in to mop up in the ninth against the already dissected Blue Jays.
Friday night he’d dismissed the Jays in order on thirteen pitches, but on Saturday not so much. He wasn’t helped by his catcher Mitch Garver, who threw the ball away when Zeke Carrera tried to steal second after a leadoff walk. So Curtiss had a runner on third with nobody out, right off the bat.
The rest was all on Curtiss, though. Donaldson doubled down the line in right, scoring Carrera. Smoak grounded out to the first baseman, moving Donaldson to third with one out. Then Curtiss wild-pitched him home with the second run of the inning, making it 10-7 Toronto. Then he walked Bautista, and that was enough for Paul Molitor, who brought in Trevor Hildenberger, a sharp-looking right-hander with a good mix of pitches, who put out the fire by fanning Morales and Pillar.
On came Roberto Osuna for the save. Cue the bated breath.* The trouble started immediately with the improbably-named Zack Granite hitting for catcher Mitch Garver. Granite golfed a pitch at his feet he never should have swung at and looped it into right field for a base hit.
*Anyone who thinks I mis-spelled “baited” can save your own breath. The phrase means that the person is holding his/her breath, and comes from “abated breath”, with the “a” poetically dropped to create alliteration. It was first used by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice, when Shylock, asked to lend money to Antonio after Antonio has abused him for being a Jew, chides Antonio, asking if, after the way Antonio has treated him, he should wait with “bated breath” to be asked for a loan. See what kinds of things you can learn here?
Back to the game, there came a moment of pure shock that left runners on second and third with nobody out, without a trace of blame accruing to Osuna. Eduardo Escobar hit a sharp grounder to the almost perfect-fielding Justin Smoak. He was two feet off the bag, and it was absolutely a 3-6-3 double-play ball. Somehow, probably, he was anticipating the play, the ball went right through the wickets and down the line for a two-base error, with Granite going to third.
Knowing the Twins, you know both runners scored. Brian Dozier singled home Granite, with Escobar checking in at third. Then came the break Osuna and the Blue Jays needed. Joe Mauer grounded into a double play, scoring Escobar but clearing the bases with two outs. Jorge Polanco grounded out to short and that was the ball game, 10-9 for the Jays.
Just in time to save my poor cuticles from further damage.
And when have you ever seen a game end up 10-9 yet both the winning pitcher and the losing pitcher were the starters? Must turn this over to Jerry Howarth for further research.
Well, it was obvious what Paul Molitor had to do for game three of the series: get Byron Buxton back in gear, of course. That’s exactly what he did, and boy, did it ever work!
This was Joe Biagini’s first start since returning to Toronto from Buffalo, where he’d been sent at the beginning of August to stretch back out as a starter, and specifically to become comfortable again pitching from a full windup. It was hard to know what to expect from him, since this whole project is somewhat of a work in progress.
As it turned out, he was lucky to get out of the first inning alive and down only 1-0. After leadoff man Brian Dozier grounded out, that old guy Joe Mauer (clear evidence that he’s slowing down: he only went two for five in this one) casually flicked a hit to left opposite the shift. Jorge Polanco, hitting third behind Mauer, doubled him to third. Toronto pulled the infield in, and it paid off: Eddie Rosario hit one to Ryan Goins at short and he threw home to retire Mauer on a tag play, with Polanco holding at second.
Maybe Biagini would work his way out of it, with two out and men on first and second. But Buxton was hitting fifth today, so he stood between Biagini and the dugout. It didn’t happen, of course, because Buxton was on his game today; he singled to centre to score Polanco and the Twins were on the board.
Eddie Rosario amost ran himself out of the inning on the play. Zeke Carrera fired to third to hold Rosario at second, but the runner had rounded the bag too far. Josh Donaldson had a shot at him going back into second, but the ball bounced away from Darwin Barney for an error on Donaldson, and Rosario ended up at third.
There was a spot more trouble for Biagini: he walked Max Kepler while Buxton stole second on him. This loaded the bases for Kenny Vargas, who fanned on curve balls to end the inning. It seemed like a lot longer than twenty pitches, and you knew that Joe Biagini wasn’t about to go six, let alone seven, innings today.
Kyle Gibson is a lanky right-hander who’s been an end-of-the-rotation fixture for Minnesota since 2014. He was on the hill for the Twins. Like his career numbers, 39-48 with an ERA of 4.73, his record for 2017, 7-10 and 5.76, reflects the journeyman nature of his career with Minnesota. He started a good deal quicker than Biagini, though, retiring Toronto on twelve pitches despite giving up a leadoff single to Carrera.
The second inning represented a reversal of the first, as Biagini retired the side while stranding a base hit by catcher Chris Gimenez. Then, the Jays made Gibson work a little harder and tied it up in the process, taking advantage of the only misplay by Buxton the whole weekend, and then loading the bases before Gibson induced a double play ball that prevented further damage.
With one out, Miguel Montero hit a liner to centre that took a turf bounce over Buxton’s head, and then came off the wall with backspin on it so that he couldn’t get a handle on it, while Montero chugged into second with a double. Nori Aoki lined a base hit into centre to score Montero and tie the score. Ryan Goins moved Aoki up to second with a ground single up the middle. Darwin Barney hit a grounder to second that went for a fielder’s choice, but the shortstop Polanco fumbled the catch for an error and everyone was safe, to load the bases for Carrera. This may have been the high point, and the key moment, of the game, Carrera having a chance to break it open with only one out. But he grounded into a double play to end the inning.
It wasn’t obvious yet, but the moment Carrera’s out was recorded at first and we moved on to the Twins’ third, the momentum shifted to the Twins, and it would never shift back.
In the third Biagini found himself right back in the deep end, though once again he seemed to have been rescued by an out at the plate, and then once again the Twins came on to score after the play at the plate. This time it took 32 pitches, the Twins ended up with a two-run lead, and not only Biagini but the Blue Jays were pretty well toast, and it would only remain for Byron Buxton to spread on the peanut butter and jam.
The Twins started with a spot of luck. Jorge Polanco hit a blooper to centre; Zeke Carrera dove for it, but it ticked off his glove and got away from him as Polanco reached second. Then Nori Aoki hustled to get a quick throw off on a single by Eddie Rosario, and held Polanco to third. Then Buxton, not contributing this time, hit a grounder to third. The Twins had the contact play on, and Polanco was out in a rundown. This helped, but not much, as Rosario and Buxton ended up at second and third. Biagini walked Max Kepler to load the bases for Kennys Vargas, who singled to left to knock in two runs.
Biagini was able to hold the damage to the two runs, but only after he fanned Escobar, walked Gimenez to reload the bases, and fanned Brian Dozier to strand the bases loaded. But at 72 pitches, what was left of Biagini, even if he still could throw strikeouts?
With the score 3-1, you could take the progress of Friday night’s game for a template; Gibson kept the Jays off the board in the bottom of the third, Buxton’s turn came around again in the fourth in time for him to hit the first of his three homers, which chased home Joe Mauer, on third with a triple, and chased Biagini from the game, even though he’d gotten two ground-ball outs after Mauer’s leadoff triple, which was actually a single that bounced over Aoki’s head and went to the wall. It was now 5-1, and the only hope was for Toronto to start doing some damage against Gibson.
They got one back in the bottom of the fourth from a surprising source. After Montero flew out to centre, Aoki drilled one to right for his fifth homer of the season to make it 5-2. Gibson must have been a little annoyed at serving up a gopher ball to Aoki (shoudn’t have been: Aoki swings hard when he gets one he likes, and the ball really jumps off his bat). Gibson hunkered down and fanned Goins and Barney to end the inning.
The fifth and sixth innings went by scoreless, the score holding at 5-2. Aaron Loup who’d finished the fourth inning for Biagini struck out the side in the fifth, giving him four in a row after he’d fanned Kepler to finish the fourth. Matt Dermody finished off a clean sixth by fanning Polanco with a big, beautiful sweeping curve ball.
Meanwhile, Gibson retired six in a row, eight in total after the Aoki homer, through the fifth and sixth, ending with fanning both Morales and Montero.
Dermody stayed on for the seventh for the Jays, which gave him the distinct pleasure of giving up Buxton’s second homer of the game. Too bad the homer spoiled his work. Having struck out Rosario in the sixth, he struck out the side in the seventh after the Buxton home run, only giving up a two-out base hit to Escobar, and that on the tenth pitch of a tough battle.
It’s interesting to note Toronto logged three and a third innings out of the bullpen to this point, giving up one run and two hits while striking out eight of ten batters, using two left-handed relievers. I’m not sure if a Toronto bullpen has ever been able to pull off something like this.
It wasn’t enough, though, to make up for the Twins’ built-up lead, that reached its final form in the top of the ninth when you-know-who—initials, BB—jacked his third home run of the game to left as the leadoff batter against Tim Mayza, another left-hander, who took over from Dominic Leone, who’d pitched the eighth. Besides being his third homer, it was his fourth hit and his fifth RBI. He never got to six geese a-laying, though.
After the Buxton shot, Mayza in turn struck out the side. In all, quite amazingly, Toronto pitchers struck out 17 batters in a game that the team lost 7-2. Too bad all that hurling firepower was wasted on an anemic offensive effort, not to mention the scratchy aggressiveness of the Twins’ offense.
So, as I said from the start, Toronto won one game in the series, Byron Buxton won two, and the Twins rode out of town still well in the mix for a Wild Card spot, while the Jays slunk home for the night to lick their wounds and think about the season that might have been while waiting for the high-flying Boston Red Sox to arrive Monday for another three-game set in the TV Dome.
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