It’s the bottom of the eighth, tied 2-2, your team’s still in an incredible hitting slump, you’ve got your super-utility infielder, right-handed hitting Darwin Barney leading off against righty reliever Brad Boxberger for the Tampa Bay Rays, and you want a left-handed batter off the bench to try to inject a little life in the game. Who ya gonna call?
You’ve got three switch-hitters on the bench, two with serious pop and one with electrifying speed, who can be on third base in a New York minute if he beats out a little nubber at the plate. By the way, must google “New York minute”: what does that even mean? You’ve got an earnest but weak-hitting designated catcher. And, oh, yeah, there’s always good ol’ Ezequiel Carrera.
So, who ya gonna call? (Insert Batman theme) Zeke-man!
Going into tonight’s game one of a three-game set between Toronto and Tampa Bay at the TV Dome in Toronto, the Jays were mired in a serious offensive slump that coincides exactly with the start of the stretch-run month of September. Just to recall the tawdry details, in nine games the Jays had scored 8, 6, and 5 runs in losing causes, and 5 runs in one win. In the other five games, they scored only 3 runs four times, and were shut out once.
Tonight they were up against tough right-hander Jake Odorizzi, and things weren’t going much better for them, as he shut them out for five innings, giving up one hit and one walk, facing only two batters over the minimum. Amazingly, though Francisco Liriano, dropped back into the rotation tonight in place of R.A. Dickey, was having his best outing of the year since before mid-season with the Pirates, and was matching Odorizzi pitch for pitch, also having allowed just a hit and a walk over six innings.
Then, in the bottom of the sixth, Jose Bautista jolted the crowd out of its worried stupor by stroking a two-out homer to left field, which scored Devon Travis, on second with a leadoff double, just the second hit allowed by Odorizzi, the third being the home run by Bautista, of course.
Suddenly a new prospect opened up: going into the seventh, with the entire BenGriNa combo primed and ready to go, was it possible that our heroes might be able to offset the continuing batting struggle by winning a shutout, or a 2-1 squeaker?
Oh, sorry about that. We forgot it was the Rays we were playing. Nothing’s ever easy with the Rays. Only 67 pitches under his belt, Liriano must have felt great coming back out for the seventh with a brand spanking new two-run lead over the Rays. But in just three pitches, the game was tied, as Evan Longoria and Brad Miller hit back-to-back homers to lead off the inning. Two pitches later, after Edwin Encarnacion had made a nice back-to-the-infield grab of a foul popup by Nick Franklin, Liriano was out of the game, having given up only three hits and a walk over seven innings. Joaquin Benoit came in and allowed two more base-runners before extracting himself from the inning.
Liriano had no chance for a victory he richly deserved, and the Jays were yet again back at square one, all thoughts of winning a squeaker jettisoned. They would need to manufacture another run somehow from their largely dormant bats, off either Odorizzi or his successor(s).
It wouldn’t be off Odorizzi, though He finished his night’s work by breezing through Troy Tulowitzki, Kevin Pillar, and Melvin Upton in the seventh on only seven pitches to finish his night’s work.
After Jason Grilli made short work of the Rays in the top of the eighth, on two fly balls and a groundout, it was time for Gibbie’s momentous decision. Like many of Gibbie’s decisions, the reasoning for this one was a bit murky at the time, and he certainly didn’t say anything to clarify it in his post-game scrum. (Does he ever?) All he did after the game was ramble through a list of all the ways that Carrera could contribute offensively to the team, even though some of them, like laying down a sacrifice bunt, don’t exactly conform to the position of leading off an inning.
Whatever his reasoning, whether his decision was tinged with brilliance or madness, Zeke Carrera it was, digging in to the plate to lead off the bottom of the eighth against Brad Boxberger. And there he was, swinging a bit late on an outside first pitch, and sending a classic slice toward left field. Though it started out not heading for the foul line, you could tell right off the bat that it had a lot of spin on it, and it was heading for the corner. The big questions were, would it be caught? Would it be fair or foul? I don’t think anyone in the park, save, perhaps, for Carrera who seems an eternal optimist, gave any thought to it going out. But it carried and sliced, sliced and carried, until left fielder Corey Dickinson ran out of room and had to watch it barely clear the fence, barely fair, for the improbable home run that would decide the game. He slumped against the wall in dejection, an abject image.
After Carrera’s heroics, Boxberger gave up an infield single to Travis, and watched him advance to third during the subsequent ground ball out and fly ball out to right, but stranded him there by fanning Jose Bautista on a 1-2 pitch. Not to denigrate Zeke Carrera, who has shown clutch power more than once since he’s been with the Blue Jays, but I imagine Brad Boxberger going into the visiting clubhouse and dunking his head in the toilet a few times.
Roberto Osuna came on in the top of the ninth to try to secure his 32nd save, and managed to do it, but not before strangeness and some serious drama had taken place.
But of course two outs had to be recorded before things could get nail-bitey. Brad Miller bounced the first pitch right back to Osuna for the first out. Nick Franklin fouled one off on a strike-two count, and then flied out to Upton in left. Then Corey Dickinson hit a grounder up the middle for a base hit, bringing Stephen Sousa to the plate.
Sousa took the first two pitches, blazing four-seamers, and was down 0-2. Then he took a cutter that fell out of the strike zone for ball one. Then Osuna stopped messing with breaking balls and threw four more four-seamers to Sousa. He fouled the first one off. He swung mightily at the second one, and seemed to have tipped it into Martin’s glove for the strikeout. Osuna turned around to say his thank-you prayer too soon, and was the only person in the ball park who didn’t know that the ball had popped out of Martin’s glove, and Sousa was still alive.
Finally Osuna realized something wasn’t quite right, looked around, and realized that the game wasn’t over. After much embarrassed grinning and tapping himself on the chest in the “my bad” gesture, he had to settle in and try once more to retire Sousa, who took the third four-seamer for a ball. On the next one, he went for the downs, and the crack of the bat and jump of the ball gave you this sick feeling, that it was gone. And it almost was. But Kevin Pillar went all the way back to the wall, reached up, and pulled it down for the third out.
The stats geeks later reported that there have been ten similar balls hit to centre field in Toronto this year with the same range of exit velocity and angle of elevation off the bat, and all the others left the park. They can’t explain why this one didn’t, which suggests that their analyses can’t answer everything. But what do I know? I’m just an old guy who sure as hell thought he hit it out, and was just as glad that he didn’t.
The weirdness didn’t end with the end of the game. Both benches cleared as the Jays were coming off the field in celebration mode, apparently because of a misunderstanding that turned nothing into something. There was some kind of apparently comradely exchange between Souza and Russell Martin after the ball was caught, so they both said later, something to the effect of “Geez, I thought that was out!” “Geez, So did I!” Pretty profound stuff for cerebral ball players. But then Troy Tulowitzki, who I think is a bit tightly wound in his quiet way, came in and confronted Souza, about what he thought was a verbal attack on Martin. It was all clarified afterward, although comments by Souza suggested that he felt Tulo was being overly aggressive. What a bunch of kids in the sandbox, eh? What would Ty Cobb make of it all?
So Zeke Carrera was the unlikely hero, delivering a big W for his team and for Jason Grilli, Liriano and Odorizzi pitched very well but neither of them figured in the decision, and Roberto Osuna got to celebrate his 32nd save in 35 opportunities twice, once by way of rehearsal, once for real.
Whatever will they think of next?
Leave a Reply