At the end of my last post, after the Blue Jays were swept in the Big Apple, I posed the question, “Can they regroup?”
After tonight’s shambolic and embarrassing loss to the surging Boston Red Sox in the TV Dome, the answer is “not any time soon”. All we can hope for after tonight is that the clock runs out on “any time” tomorrow afternoon at 1:07 p.m.
The smart guys who get paid to talk and write about these things have been full of comments about how this year’s Red Sox resemble in so many ways the Toronto team of 2015, getting by as they are on better-than-average starting pitching, good defense, adequate relief pitching, an awesome offensive array and the killer instinct to pounce on any openings they are given. Well, I beg to differ. Those attributes certainly define pretty accurately the successful playoff formula for the Blue Jays last year.
These Red Sox are a different hue of hose, however. Though they can certainly sting you with the long ball from almost anywhere in the batting order, they hit for much higher average than last year’s Jays. They can put up a big inning without the long ball, and they have batters all up and down the order who can confidently spray line drives all over the field. I find it hard to imagine what it’s like for a Red Sox fan, not having to go into pessimist mode every time one of their hitters has runners in scoring position with two outs. They’re also a much faster team than the 2015 Jays, and they employ their speed very aggressively on the bases. In short, think the 2015 Kansas City Royals, with much better numbers one and one-A starting pitchers (Price and Porcello) and a hell of a lot more muscle.
Being a control and finesse pitcher, Marco Estrada has had considerable success in the past against the typically free-swinging Red Sox. But the Marco Estrada who faced Boston tonight, is not, for whatever reason, the same Marco Estrada that made the All-Star team this year, and became the rotation’s go-to guy in the playoffs last year. And the Sox offence that lined up against Estrada is most assuredly not the same offence he had faced in the past.
Since Toronto was just flat out beaten in every aspect of the game last night, let’s give the devil his due and look at what Boston brings to the table, at the moment, to borrow the term from English football, what they bring to the top of the table. With the revival of David Price, the emergence of Rick Porcello as a legitimate front-line pitcher, the apparent recovery of Eduardo Rodriguez from his recent ailments, and the occasional appearance of the Clay Buchholz of old, the Boston rotation is good, probably good enough to pitch over the loss of knuckle baller Stephen Wright, apparently for the season. The Boston bullpen might be a weak spot. Batwing-Man Craig Kimbrel was untouchable earlier in the year, but after some time on the DL he’s shown himself considerably more mortal than before.
Porcello did his job efficiently tonight. As the Sox scrambled into a lead over the first couple of innings, he kept Toronto off the base paths and unable to mount an immediate counter-attack. When they did strike to get a couple of runs back in the third inning, he was effective in limiting the damage. After that, he went into cruise control, as the Sox’ lead mounted toward the end of his outing. There’s hardly any point in mentioning Boston relievers Brad Ziegler and Koji Uehara. By the time Ziegler came in in the eighth it was 11-2, and relievers could hardly make a difference.
We saw a typically solid, if not awesome offensive display from the Red Sox tonight. They did manage a few lucky bloopers and were able to take advantage of two Toronto errors and other miscues (we’ll get back to those), but they also wasted little time letting Estrada and his successors know who was boss. In the first it was Dustin Pedroia, who led off with a single, the baseball equivalent of the crack of doom descending on the TV Dome. Pedroia is a great hitter and a fine, old-style hustler who plays a nifty second base without earning any style points. Any team that can keep him off the bases has a big step up on beating this Boston team.
But I’m ashamed to say that watching the swaggering Pedroia dig in at the plate arouses something visceral in me. I find myself pining for the old days, not so far back, really, when a Jack Morris or a Randy Jackson would have used the first pitch of every at-bat to knock him on his kiester until he stopped digging in like he does. Nothing dangerous, mind you, just a little token reminder that all good hitters need a little dust on their uniforms, just like the oregano in a nice Italian sauce. I’m not talking about going all Yordano Ventura here. I’m just talking about pitching tight, the inner half and beyond, standing him up a bit. Ventura’s another story altogether. If his career had been set in the pre-DH era, when he would have had to hit, Ventura would have been a very different pitcher—and person—indeed.
Xander Bogaerts is a bit of a free swinger, a good shortstop, though given to the odd lapse of attention, with good power, but he’s not matured quite to the point that Mookie Betts has. He’s still susceptible to the big-swing punchout from time to time.
David Ortiz is David Ortiz, and we have to hope that he sticks to his retirement plans, so that the seats in the TV Dome can get a break from the battering that he has given them over the years. But I’m not really sold on the value of his work in terms of career stats, or in terms of his actual value to the Red Sox this year. I have some ideas about that that may take shape in a supplementary article some time soon. For now, just thinking about tonight’s game, it’s important to note that with an average of just under .320, he can hurt you big time with singles and doubles, as well as homers, though I’m sure Manager John Farrell would rather not see him gum up the works by hitting a single, unless, of course, he cashes in a couple of runs with it.
Hanley Ramirez is a guy that I want not to like, somehow, but there’s no good reason for it. Maybe it’s the floppy dreads. They just don’t look terribly good flowing out from under a baseball cap. I thought at the beginning of the season that moving him to first to accommodate Pablo Sandoval (who?) was going to weaken the Sox at two positions, but he’s turned into a pretty good first baseman besides being a reliable power guy who drives in runs, especially in clutch situations. Turns out that his move to first only leaves them a hole at third, since Sandoval is AWOL, but when Travis Shaw is hitting he’s an upgrade on the Panda, whose time, irrespective of injuries, seems to have passed.
There’s not much to say about Mookie Betts that hasn’t already been said this year. He’s played like a bona-fide superstar, and he’s only twenty-three. It says all you need to know about Betts that he’s now batting cleanup, to protect David Ortiz. In fact, at two full years younger than Mike Trout, a comparison of their 2016 seasons to date is instructive. Betts has over 100 more at bats, has scored 3 runs less, has 32 more hits, 3 more homers, and 12 more RBIs. Trout has 2 more stolen bases, and is hitting .324 to Betts’ .315, albeit with 112 fewer at bats. Interesting.
Jackie Bradley Jr. is an outstanding centre fielder and a real asset on the bases, but I’m not convinced he’s the real deal at the plate, incredible hot streak earlier this year aside. I’m not sure in the long haul that he’s going to differentiate himself significantly from the two Kevins, Kiermaier and Pillar, the other young centre fielders in the AL East. (I know Kiermaier is barely hitting over .200 at the moment, but he’s also recovering from a serious injury and a long stint on the DL. If he played against the rest of the league the way he plays against us . . . )
Sandy Leon doesn’t have enough of a track record to support whether or not he’s a flash in the pan, but on both sides of the ball he has certainly answered Boston’s questionable catching status for the moment. One sign of encouragement for Boston fans is that his numbers this year are unprecedentedly high, but this is also the first time that he has been basically a full-time catcher.
The other players with regular roles for Boston, Travis Shaw, Brock Holt, and the veteran former Jay Aaron Hill, while each may have his partisans among the Boston fanatics, are basically interchangeable journeymen at this point in their careers, though both Shaw and Holt have shown considerable promise in the past.
When you combine better than average starting pitching with a lineup that includes in any order Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, Betts, Ramirez, and Leon, you are going to win some games, especially when your home is friendly Fenway. That’s what the Sox have done. They’re a formidable foe, and the last twenty games of the season are going to be a pretty rocky ride for the Jays if they hope to take the division.
If it was a rocky ride tonight (If??), it wasn’t so much the Red Sox that were making the waves, as it was that the Jays were swamping themselves. Estrada has been struggling since the All-Star break, and since his recovery, if it has been a recovery, from his mid-season back problems. Tonight there was no great mystery to his lack of effectiveness: he couldn’t throw strikes (he also couldn’t get a call from plate umpire Chad Fairchild on anything that wasn’t three inches in from the black—all the way around the plate, which didn’t help). Without overpowering stuff, if Estrada has to steer the ball to get a call, he’s in big trouble, especially against a hitting team like Boston.
None of this is to say that tonight’s game wasn’t close until the Sox blew it open in the seventh inning. For all his struggles, Estrada left in the third down only 4-0, and then watched as his team picked up two right after he left. And Aaron Loup, Danny Barnes, Brett Cecil, and Scott Feldman, who followed him through to the end of the sixth, did what they could to keep it close, and they were only down 5-2 going to the seventh.
The Sox had taken a two-run lead on sloppy Jays’ play, one run in each of the first two innings, but that hardly put the game out of reach. In the first, Pedroia scored from first on Betts’ “double” that embarrasingly hopped over Saunders’ head in right. In the second, Bradley led off with a walk, benefitting from some of the most egregious squeezing of the zone that Fairchild exhibited all night. He advanced to second on a passed ball by Dioner Navarro, and scored on Pedroia’s single under Travis’ glove. More craziness ensued when Pedroia hit first base, but luckily it ended up with two outs and the bases empty. In an effort to get Bradley at the plate, Pillar threw wildly off line to the plate, allowing Pedroia to take second. Pedroia got greedy and wanted third, too, but he didn’t get it as Navarro tracked the ball down and threw him out.
All sloppiness aside, this game was still an open book, if Estrada and the Jays could settle down, and if the offence could start to solve Porcello.
If you asked what the turning point was in tonight’s game some might repeat that old joke that it came when the umpire hollered “Play ball”, but that’s a stretch. If there was a turning point in the game before Scott Feldman threw a gopher ball to Bogaerts leading off the seventh, extending the Sox’ lead to 6-2, there are several possibilities.
One would be the embarrassing error committed by Melvin Upton in the third that permitted the third Sox run to score, and greased the skids for Estrada’s departure. With one out, truly soft base hits by Betts and Ramirez had put runners on first and third. Betts hit a looping sort-of-line-drive that fell in front of Upton for a single. Ramirez then launched a teasing popup to right field that fell between Travis, Saunders, and Encarnacion just inside the foul line. It should have been Travis’ ball all the way, but the aggressive Sox had started Betts on the pitch, and with Ramirez’ right-handed power at the plate, the second-base coverage was the responsibility of Travis, so he started the play headed in the wrong direction.
Then came the Upton faux pas that set the tone, really, for the rest of the game : Travis Shaw lofted a short fly to left, not very deep, on which it was questionable whether Betts would even try to challenge Upton’s strong arm. But he didn’t have to worry, because to Upton’s and everyone else’s horror, the left fielder muffed the catch, which also gave away the Shaw out, besides allowing the run. When Ramirez scored on Leon’s single, that was the night for Estrada. Manager John Gibbons wasn’t about to let the bleeding go on. Aaron Loup came in and got a double-play ball from Bradley to end the inning. Finally, a left-left matchup that worked. Mark that one down in red.
Rick Porcello had breezed through the first two innings, retiring six in a row with two strikeouts, and ordinarily, with the fine season he’s had thus far, you could have closed the book on the game, but despite having been set back on their heels, Toronto wasn’t quite ready to roll over and play dead.
The first four Jays’ hitters reached base, scoring two runs, and it looked pretty good for a swift recovery from a terrible start. Would this be another one of those Toronto-Boston 10-8 affairs? Michael Saunders beat the shift and singled to right. Upton walked. Pillar lofted a loop single to right. Saunders had to hold up on the ball, and only checked in at third. Travis bounced one hard through the left side, scoring two runs. You can take your pick as to whether it was Josh Donaldson looking at a fast ball in the zone on an 0-2 pitch, or Edwin Encarnacion grounding into a double play to end the inning that was a possible turning point. Either one will do.
Danny Barnes took over from Loup in the fourth and gave up a highly-tainted run to extend the Red Sox lead. Following immediately after the killed rally, this one pretty well nailed the coffin shut, with over half the game to go. Leading off, Brock Holt was generously awarded a double when Upton misplayed his single in left. He then went to third on a passed ball, the second allowed by Dioner Navarro, both of which contributed to Boston runs. Pedroia hit a deep fly to right that easily scored Holt.
Still, the Jays held them at 5-2 until the awful Boston seventh, as Barnes, Cecil, and Feldman for the last out of the sixth showed that you could keep the Red Sox off the scoreboard at least some of the time.
But not for the rest of tonight. In the top of the seventh, not only the wheels, but the doors, the mirrors, the steering wheel, and the roof rack fell off the Toronto bus, and what had been a messy but not unwinnable game turned into farce. Anything resembling a major league baseball game came to an end when Feldman returned to the hill after closing out the sixth.
Bogaerts homered down the line, barely inside the foul pole. Ortiz doubled to right centre. Betts hit an easy grounder to Travis, which he booted, yet another painful error on a must-make play. Ramirez homered to right centre, finishing Feldman’s night. The only out he recorded was the one that ended the sixth. He faced four batters in the seventh. They all scored. Ryan Tepera came in to pitch, and it started all over again. Shaw singled. Bradley doubled, Shaw to third. Pedroia knocked them both in with his third hit, counting his third and fourth RBIs. When it was all over, the score was Boston 11, Toronto 2, and the fans in the park started to relax and have fun. What else could you do but knock back a couple more beers at a time like this?
In keeping with the kind of game it was, the Blue Jays did score another run in the bottom of the eighth, on an error by second baseman Deven Marrero, in for Pedroia, on a ground ball from Dioner Navarro. The Sox added two more in the ninth, just to make sure, off rookie call-up Matt Dermody, making his second major-league appearance. Dermody should be glad that he managed to limit Boston to two runs, because I don’t think Gibbie was about to burn another pitcher to finish up this dog.
At the end of the night, Baltimore had lost and the Yankees had won, so the Red Sox were up by two over the Jays, three over the Orioles, and four over the Yankees, in the tightest division in baseball.
It may not be time for drastic measures, but soon . . .
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