TORONTO — Kevin Pillar heard the crack off the bat, turned to his right, and started to sprint. Stride after stride the ball closed in. Tracking it over his left shoulder, Pillar angled his run slightly left as the 101.5-m.p.h. rocket screamed. Suddenly, the ball was right on top of him, above him, and past him, dropping quick.
Pillar jumped, reached, crashed, rolled, and was back up on his feet before you could even register what just happened. The Superman theme played.
It was yet another for the canon of unbelievable, flat-out, holy-four-letter-word-did-he-actually-just-do-that catches in the decorated history of the Toronto Blue Jays centre-fielder who gets to everything. You’ll see it on your television, you’ll see it above this story, you’ll see it for some time to come. While his oeuvre of ludicrous catches is extensive, this one may have been Pillar’s finest. Top three at least.
Excuse us for not setting the stage. The catch came in the sixth inning of a 4-2 Blue Jays victory over Cleveland Monday evening. Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman was confidently carrying a four-run lead, but nearing the end of his night as his pitch count climbed and Cleveland threatened.
The inning had begun rather regrettably as Steve Pearce badly misplayed a Carlos Santana fly ball in left field, overrunning the ball and letting it drop in for what was scored a double. The ball was decently struck but still had a hit probability of only eight per cent according to MLB’s StatCast, which means 92 per cent of the time it is caught. Poor luck for a pitcher. On the mound, Stroman gathered.
He got the next batter to fly out, but with his pitch count nearing 90, the Blue Jays bullpen began to stir. Stroman got a second out with a ground ball, but when he walked old friend Edwin Encarnacion to put runners on the corners, Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker came jogging out of the Blue Jays dugout for a quick chat. Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez was coming up and no matter what happened during the ensuing plate appearance it was likely to be Stroman’s last.
Stroman started Ramirez with a ball well outside and came back with a fastball on the plate. Ramirez was all over it, scorching the ball to deep left-centre field. But Pillar was out there, and he was hearing the crack off the bat, turning to his right, and starting to sprint.
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As the catch was completed, Stroman stood halfway between the mound and the plate, his arms held straight above his head in awe, before he bent over at the waist and took a moment to process it all. Pillar stood out there for a moment before jogging back to dugout where nearly his entire team waited for him on the field.
Pillar’s ludicrous catch saved at least two runs, which the Blue Jays would need later on when Cleveland briefly rallied. It also meant the difference between a disappointing end to Stroman’s night and the scoreless outing he wound up with as he and Pillar celebrated in front of the Blue Jays dugout.
Making his first appearance since leaving his last start with tightness in his right armpit, Stroman lived dangerously in the early going, allowing plenty of hard contact and putting two runners on with less than two out in the second, fourth and fifth innings. But he escaped all three of those jams with double-play ground balls, the trickiest coming in the fifth when Stroman snared a Roberto Perez comebacker and started the double-play himself, sending a high throw to second base that Ryan Goins did well to corral and expeditiously send on its way to first.
Stroman relied plenty on his defence on this night, getting Pillar’s catch, the three double-plays, and seven ground-ball outs total, while striking out only one over his six innings. Stroman was living on the plate more than he’d probably like to, but he did an effective job of mixing and matching his many pitches to help keep Cleveland hitters off balance.
Meanwhile, Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer had his own struggles with location, pitching almost entirely out of the zone or up in it, something the Blue Jays aggressively looked to take advantage of.
The Blue Jays got to Bauer in the second inning when, with two outs, two strikes, and Devon Travis on second base, Goins crushed an elevated fastball 439 feet into the second deck of right-field seats for an early two-run lead. And they got two more in the third, when a Pillar walk (an event that is happening with more frequency this year than last, it’s worth noting) and a well-struck Kendrys Morales double put two in scoring position for Justin Smoak, who served a soft single into right field to plate both runners.
The Blue Jays ran Bauer’s pitch count up to 68 through three innings, and 90 through four, as they worked deep counts against the right-hander with notoriously spotty command. Toronto looked primed to add on to its four-run lead against Bauer in the fifth, when Jose Bautista led off with a walk and Morales smoked a breaking ball into left field that could have gone for a hit if it were driven a few feet to the right or left and not directly at Cleveland outfielder Yandy Diaz.
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But with his 108th pitch of the night, Bauer got Smoak to bounce a breaking ball directly into the shift for an inning-ending double-play. To his credit, Bauer returned for a sixth inning and retired three Blue Jays in order, finishing his night at 125 pitches.
That four-run Blue Jays lead held until the eighth, when Cleveland got two back on a bizarre, controversial play. It started when reliever Danny Barnes put two runners in scoring position with none out thanks to a Perez walk and a Santana double. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons then brought in Joe Smith to face Francisco Lindor, who lined an 0-2 slider on the plate into right field to score a run.
Lindor took an aggressive turn around first and got himself caught in a rundown, urging Santana to score from third as he danced around in no man’s land trying to elude Blue Jays infielders. Santana eventually made his break for the plate, which is about when Travis made what can only be described as the most marginal of contact with Lindor as he tried to help execute the rundown.
Santana was safe at home and Lindor was awarded second base due to interference by umpire Vic Carapazza who has what one might call a decorated history of questionable judgment during games involving the Toronto Blue Jays. That brought Gibbons charging out of the dugout to protest the decision and, ultimately, get ejected. Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale then took up the argument with home plate umpire Mark Ripperger after Gibbons was tossed.
Undeterred, Smith rallied against the heart of Cleveland’s order with Lindor in scoring position, getting Jason Kipnis to ground out weakly before striking out Encarnacion and Ramirez, both at the end of pesky, eight-pitch at-bats.
In the ninth, Roberto Osuna made his third appearance in the last four days, notching his fifth save of the season and protecting the two runs Pillar ran down in left-centre field.