The incredibly long grind of 162 games that makes up the regular season of major league baseball can be a source of joy but also great frustration for both the fan and the player. Every one of the 162 games offers the opportunity for either the joy that comes with a win, or the sadness and reflection that comes with a loss.
The goal of a team that hopes to make the playoffs, where anything can happen, is to win around 100 games in the regular season. More would be great, of course, but 100 wins will guarantee a spot in the playoffs, and pretty much assure a division title, so that the team doesn’t have to play in the dreaded sudden-death wild card game.
But winning 100 games, for those of us, including me, who are math-challenged, also means losing 62, or thereabouts. That’s a lot of losses, and a lot of ways to lose, from blow-outs to nail-biters, from pitching duels to slugfests, from wire-to-wire affairs to excruciating comebacks, from sloppy hot messes to crisp clean baseball. But still, 62 losses. Which means that it’s best to be philosophical about an individual loss, at least to the point in the season where they start to pile up and threaten the possibility of achieving the end goal. The fan, as I’m sure do the players, must resist the temptation to go into “but . . ., but . . .,” mode, because there are more cases of losses that were destined to be than losses which could have been wins.
Tonight’s opener of the four-game Jays-Indians series at the TV Dome on Canada Day weekend was one of those losses where the response has to be “oh well, let’s move on”.
Both teams came into the series with a head of steam, though the Indians’ was several hat sizes larger than the Jays, who were returning from a tough six-game road trip during which they had salvaged a split by taking two of three from the Colorado Rockies in the tough environs of the Beer Barrel. With a day’s rest and the exciting Canada Day festivities, which always draw big, enthusiastic crowds, ahead of them, the home team had much to be optimistic about.
How much more upbeat, though, should the Indians have been coming in? After all, they arrived leading the American League Central Division by six full games over the World Series champs, the Kansas City Royals, their record of 47-30 was tied for second best in the American League with the Baltimore Orioles, behind only the very hot Texas Rangers, and they were riding the crest of a twelve-game winning streak.
The pitching matchup contributed to the sense of modest optimism for the Jays versus serious swagger for the Indians. R. A. Dickey, whose numbers have improved dramatically since his usual slow April start, would take the hill for the Jays, who would be expecting him, as always, to yield a couple of homers but all in all provide a quality start, which would normally be enough for a Jays team that is clearly starting to right its early-season offensive dithers. On the other hand, Cleveland would start Carlos Carrasco, who, after a stint on the DL in May, had come back strong, with his record standing at 3-2, with an ERA of 2.73, going into tonight’s game. What’s more, he was coming off a complete-game, four-hit shutout on the road in Detroit, in his last outing.
Today’s game closely followed the script that could have been written for it. Dickey was effective again, walking only one and striking out four, while throwing no wild pitches and not contributing to Josh Thole’s entirely understandable but very high passed ball total. It was absolutely a quality start, as he exited after seven innings, having given up three runs on eight hits. In typical Dickey fashion, two of the three runs scored against him came on solo homers, from Rajai Davis in the second, and Jason Kipnis in the third. The third came in when Jose Ramirez’ base hit to centre cashed a Mike Napoli double leading off the sixth. After the third run, Dickey quickly regained command and retired the last six batters he faced.
Dickey’s season stats, of course, are deceiving. His ERA of 4.23 coming in derives from the terrible April record, and shows every prospect of ending the season in the mid to high threes if he stays healthy. His won-loss record of 5-8 before tonight’s game is to be to totally disregarded, because of the Jays’ well-known tragic propensity not to score runs for him.
And this was the last night that we might have hoped for some runs being put on the board behind the knuckle baller. Carlos Carrasco was mesmerizing and dominant, and the three runs given up by Dickey were one more than he needed. Aided by a double play in the first that erased Devon Travis, who had reached on a base hit, Carrasco had faced the minimum number of hitters until Josh Donaldson took him deep to centre with two out in the fourth for the Jays’ only run. He exited in the eighth after the third hit by the Jays, a ground rule double to right by Darwin Barney, and left with this sparkling line: seven and a third innings, one run, three hits, one walk, and fourteen strikeouts.
Cleveland relievers Brian Shaw and Cody Allen added three more strikeouts to the total for the Jays, who fanned 17 times on the night. It hardly mattered that Carrasco was out of the game; he had put the home team bats down to sleep for the night, and they never even woke up for a late-night cookie-and-milk after he left.
So Carlos Carrasco pitched a terrific game, the Indians dented Dickey enough to give him a lead, and he and the Tribe’s bullpen were good enough to breeze home. Oh well, let’s move on.
A word about the title of today’s piece: I know the game really wasn’t a fiasco either from the perspective of Carrasco or of the Jays, but I just kind of liked the way “Carrasco Fiasco” sounded, okay?
Another word about the word “fiasco”: I’m often amazed by the inappropriate names that are often chosen by the proprietors of businesses, particularly restaurants. There was once a restaurant in Bloor West Village called Fiasco. It wasn’t, really, having an okay run of a couple or three years or so, more or less typical of restaurants in Toronto, but I always wondered about the name. What were they thinking?
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