Maybe we missed something important Monday night. The apparent key to Toronto’s loss to the Yankees was the four-run New York outburst against Ryan Tepera in the bottom of the eighth inning. But in noting the significance of those add-on runs, we might have downplayed the fact that Toronto came back in the top of the ninth and picked up a couple of runs off Aroldis Chapman.
And they did it by getting base hits with runners in scoring position, Kevin Pillar’s double that scored Kendrys Morales, and Darwin Barney’s single that scored Pillar. In fact, all three Toronto runs scored on base hits with runners in scoring position. I shouldn’t have to point out that this development marks a significant improvement for Toronto in a key component of playing winning baseball.
In fact, if the Jays go on the improbable run that we’re all hoping for, and make the playoffs for the third year in a row, we just might look back to Monday’s ninth inning as the beginning of the turning point.
It was only fitting that on Tuesday, the American fourth of July, Jay Happ stifled the Yankees over six innings on three scratch hits and the obligatory prodigious blast by Aaron Judge, spoiling the national holiday, appropriately, for the team named after its country’s citizens. After all, the Red Sox had spoiled Canada Day for the Jays’ fans, so a little turnabout was fair play.
I missed all but the first inning of Tuesday’s game because of a specialist medical appointment, so I can only offer limited comments on Toronto’s tidy 4-1 win. I wasn’t even able to follow events via GameDay, as the large new public building where the medical office was located did not have public WiFi. Who knew you could have a signal-free public space in 2017? Is this a third world country or something?
C. C. Sabathia returned to the hill for New York after a stint on the disabled list, and it seemed like he’d never been away, at least based on the first eight batters he faced, none of whom reached base. But then he made the cardinal sin of walking the ninth batter, Darwin Barney, with two outs and nobody on in the top of the third.
I know it’s a cliché and all, but, man, isn’t it so often the case that the two-out walk, especially by a pitcher who’s been cruising, is the start of something bad? Sabathia had chewed through two and two thirds innings on just 34 pitches, and then he took seven pitches to walk Barney, none of the balls even close. He never retired another batter, and left the game down 4-0.
With Jose Bautista at the plate, Sabathia wild-pitched Barney to second. Bautista singled him home. Russell Martin followed with a single, Jose checking in at second. Josh Donaldson walked. Justin Smoak walked, forcing in Bautista with the second run. Kendrys Morales smoked a grounder through the left side, into the shift, that scored Martin and Smoak.
Just like that, it was four to nothing, Sabathia was out of the game, and Adam Warren had come on to retire Troy Tulowitzki on another hard-hit ball to short.
That’s really the whole story of the game. The Jays never scored again, in fact only had two base runners on once, in the seventh, as Luis Cessa shut them down over four and two thirds innings, allowing five hits but walking none and striking out three.
As for Happ, other than the excitement of allowing Judge to put a dent in the facade of the second deck in centre field with one of his bazooka blasts, he was in control all the way, and was never better than in the fifth when he fanned Judge, who represented the tying run at the plate, to end the inning.
Dominic Leone, Jeff Beliveau, Ryan Tepera, who was right back in the saddle and highly effective after Monday night’s struggles, and Roberto Osuna kept the Yankees from mounting a comeback, Osuna striking out two in the ninth for the save.
If you’re looking for another piece of the puzzle that needs to be solved to get Toronto back into the thick of things, maybe it’s lessons learned from a two-out, four-run rally against a pitcher who looked like he had your number. And how did that flow from a last-gasp rally against a dominant closer the night before?
Speaking of pitchers and numbers, today’s series final in the Bronx featured a pitcher whose numbers don’t resemble anything he’s ever experienced before, and that’s Marco Estrada. No matter where you look, it’s all bad for Estrada: ERA of 4.86 going into today’s game; nineteen walks in his last four starts; no start shorter than six innings before June first, one start of seven innings, one of five and two thirds, and five of four and two thirds or less since the first of June. When you take all this into account, add to it the historical inability of the Jays to provide run support, and the ongoing offensive slump that they still haven’t got shut of, it doesn’t leave room for much optimism when you know Estrada’s taking the mound.
Mind you, I say this as a committed Estrada admirer, who loves a well-pitched game more than anything, and has been held in complete awe by Estrada’s artistry in the past.
After the first inning today, perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking that maybe another corner had been turned by Toronto, this time by Marco Estrada. First off, the Jays put together a run in the top of the first off Michael Pineda without a home run, and with the benefit of opposite-field base hits by both Jose Bautista and Justin Smoak, not to mention Jacoby Ellsbury’s fumbling of Smoak’s hit that allowed Bautista to score from first.
So when Estrada took the mound he already had a one-run lead, not a lot, but more than he’s used to. And then he proceeded to retire the top of the Yankees’ order on twelve pitches, popping up Brett Gardner and Gary Sanchez, sandwiched around striking out Aaron Judge. And kudos to the newest Blue Jay, controversial catcher Miguel Montero, for staying with Sanchez’ nasty, twisting foul, eventually making an acrobatic catch.
After the Jays wasted two soft base hits in the second, a Texas Leaguer by Steve Pearce and a dribbler to third that Kevin Pillar beat out, Estrada retired the side in order again, adding the scalps of Chase Headley and Ellsbury to his strikeout pouch, and still coming in at a moderate thirty pitches for two innings.
By the end of the third things were looking so-o-o-o good for both Toronto and Estrada. Pineda led off the top of the inning by walking Josh Donaldson, and after Russell Martin hit into a force play, Smoak pulled a 3-2 pitch over the fence in right for his twenty-third homer of the year, and Kendrys Morales followed with number sixteen to dead centre, giving Estrada a four-run cushion to work with. He finally allowed a base-runner, walking catcher Austin Romine with one out, but then got rookie second baseman Tyler Wade to ground into a double play, Smoak to Tulowitzki, with Smoak taking the out at first and Tulo applying the tag to Romine at second.
Pineda, who’d lost an earlier start to the Jays in Toronto, didn’t retire a batter in the fourth. Pillar lined a home run to right leading off, and Ryan Goins followed with a single to left—two more opposite-field hits—and Yankee manager Joe Girardi had seen enough. He brought in lefty Chasen Shreve, who shut things down after walking Bautista by fanning Martin and Smoak, and retiring Morales on a foul popup to first.
Now Estrada had five runs to work with, and had faced the minimum number of batters. But he didn’t get the shut-down/hold-’em-down inning he needed facing the lineup for the second time. Gardner worked him for a walk, after managing to foul off two high, inside fast balls on 3-2. This brought up Aaron Judge, and he just couldn’t let Estrada’s first-pitch fast ball strike go. He launched it out of the park to centre scoring Gardner. It was the first hit given up by Estrada, and it was a doozy. Still, he went into the fifth with a 5-2 lead.
After Shreve kept it there with a clean inning in the top of the fifth, that ol’ debbil inconsistency showed up again, and not only did Estrada not qualify for the win, he left the game responsible for the Blue Jays’ loss unless something changed.
Ellsbury led off with a sharp grounder up the middle that Estrada just missed with his glove, before it went on into centre for a base hit. A game of inches, as always. This brought first baseman Ji-Man Choi to the plate. As a Korean player, Choi is an anomaly in that he was signed by the Angels at the age of 19, and never played professional ball in either Korea or Japan. His other claim to fame, or notoriety, if you prefer, is that his start tonight at first base, in his first game with the Yankees, makes him the tenth player to start at first for New York this year.
None of this mattered to anyone as much as the fact that Choi, who’d grounded out to Smoak the first time up against Estrada, hit a 1-0 fast ball up and out over the plate as far and as hard into the seats in right centre as anything Aaron Judge has hit all year. Now the nice 5-0 lead was cut to 5-4, and it would have been good if Estrada had been able to finish things off there, but it didn’t work out, as the bases on balls rose up again to bring him down.
He walked Romine, then struck out Wade on a foul tip, but walked Gardner. Two on, one out for Judge, who “only” hit a single right, so hard that Romine had to be held at third, loading the bases for Sanchez, who popped out to Tulowitzki in foul territory behind third for the second out. Estrada got that close to getting out of the inning, but no closer. Having gotten by the two most dangerous bats in the Yankee order, he had only to retire the unpredictable Didi Gregorius to escape the inning still in the lead. But Gregorius lined a double to right on the third pitch, plating two and giving New York the lead.
Also, knocking Marco Estrada out of the game after another mixed-review performance of four and two thirds innings, unable to hold a decent lead for his team. For the first time in this observer’s memory, Estrada was visibly upset with himself in the dugout, and it’s no wonder after the strange run he has had.
Aaron Loup came in and retired Headley on an easy fly ball to left to strand the last two runners left by Estrada. Chad Green took over from Shreve and retired the Jays in order in the sixth, and Loup returned the favour for Toronto in the bottom of the sixth. Curiously, both threw seventeen pitches to keep the bases clear.
But when Green returned to the mound for the top of the seventh, Russell Martin attacked his first pitch, a strike up in the zone, drove it to right centre and over the fence to re-tie the game at six. Green retired the side after that, despite giving up a two-out base hit to Tulowitzki.
Surprisingly, manager John Gibbons sent Loup back out for the bottom of the seventh. Even more surprisingly, he got away with it, with a little help from Danny Barnes, who must have ice water in his veins. I guess Loup stayed in to pitch to the left-handed Tyler Wade, whom he walked, and the left-handed Brett Gardner, who curiously was asked to bunt Wade to second. Curious, because it was obvious that Gibbons wasn’t going to pitch to Aaron Judge with first base open. The last thing Loup did was wave his hand to make Judge magically appear at first on the no-pitch intentional walk.
All Barnes did when he came in was strike Gary Sanchez out, and retire Didi Gregorius on a fly ball to right. On six pitches. Ya gotta like this guy.
However, the Jays were still left with the daunting task of being tied with the Yankees on New York’s home grounds with two innings to go, that is, one inning, the eighth, to be pitched by Dellin Betances, and one inning, the ninth, to be pitched by Aroldis Chapman.
Prospects did not look good for our heroes, until Betances came in and, like he has done at times in the past against Toronto, began throwing smoke all over the place, except over the plate, that is. In short order he walked the bottom of the Blue Jays’ order, Miguel Montero on a 3-2 pitch, and then Kevin Pillar and Ryan Goins on four straight balls each. This brought Jose Bautista to the plate, Bautista, who would either knock in some or all of the runners, or strike out. He struck out. Looking. But Betances got back off track, so to speak, and walked Russell Martin on a 3-2 pitch. As Betances left the mound, he got to wave bye-bye to Montero who was jogging in from third with the lead Toronto run.
Adam Warren came in and struck out Justin Smoak and got Kendrys Morales to fly out to centre, but there was that one-run lead for Barnes to protect, which he did by fanning Chase Headley and Jacoby Ellsbury, and retiring Ji-Man Choi on a grounder to third.
And so to the ninth, and no Aroldis Chapman. It was still Adam Warren on the hill, and he, like Barnes, finished off a stint of five outs in a row by retiring the side.
This left Roberto Osuna to come in and try for his twenty-first save in twenty-four opportunities, and his twentieth in a row, I might add. Osuna quickly disposed of the bottom of the New York order, Austin Romine and Wade, but gave up a base knock to the leadoff hitter, Gardner, fittingly bringing Aaron Judge to the plate, for One of Those Moments.
Judge fouled off the first pitch he saw, the only decent one he saw, a cutter up in the zone. Then he swung over a maybe strike down and away, and never saw another strike from Osuna, who went ball in the dirt, ball in his eyes, and a slider in the dirt that Judge tried to check on, but failed.
Dramatic finish to a strange game, but in the end a 7-6 win for Toronto, and a series win in Yankee stadium. The boys in blue ain’t dead yet.
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