TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays have many problems. You’re probably familiar with them. A .261 winning percentage; a batting order full of hitters performing well below their career norms; a disabled list featuring four players who combined for 17.5 wins above replacement last year. Throughout this seemingly damned 2017 season, the club has alternatively not hit well enough, not pitched well enough, or not defended well enough. Whenever they plug one leak, another springs.
Friday brought another loss, this time 7-4 to the Tampa Bay Rays, and another leak. Now it’s the Blue Jays bullpen, which picked up a strong Marcus Stroman outing and promptly spilled it all over themselves. It was the group’s fifth blown save in the last week, and eighth of the season, which, you guessed it, leads the majors.
“When you’re in a spot to win, you’ve got to win those games,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “Losing’s always tough. Especially the close ones where you’re in the driver’s seat.”
Stroman was terrific, holding the Rays to only two runs on five hits while striking out 10 before handing a one-run lead to Jason Grilli with one out in the eighth inning. The Blue Jays starter then watched from the dugout as Grilli immediately surrendered a game-tying solo shot to Evan Longoria. It was the third long ball Grilli’s allowed in 8.2 innings, and it raised the set-up man’s ERA to 7.27.
Two batters later, with two outs and a runner on first, Dominic Leone took over, threw a ball in the dirt, then laid a fastball over the heart of the plate, which Logan Morrison hit 430-feet to dead centre field for a two-run shot. In the span of minutes, that one-run lead became a two-run deficit.
Leone got out of the eighth two batters later, but came back out for the ninth and promptly surrendered another home run, this time to no. 9 hitter Derek Norris, who had not hit one since September of last year. It was the sixth home run the Blue Jays bullpen has allowed in the last week, and the second time this season they’ve given up three or more in a single game.
“We’re in a little bit of a rut with some guys right now, that’s obvious,” Gibbons said of his bullpen. “But these are our guys. We’ll keep running them out there. They’re all capable. They’re all good. It’s like any other part of the game. You get in some certain spots and you struggle.”
The Blue Jays did not rally back. Rather, they lost for the 17th time in their first 23 games. That’s a shame for Stroman, who made his fourth excellent start in five 2017 outings, lowering his ERA to 2.97 on the back of a terrific 60 per cent groundball rate.
Stroman’s been everything the Blue Jays could have hoped for this season, and he’s on pace to throw more than 230 innings, something that has happened on only four occasions in Toronto since the turn of the century – each time by likely hall-of-famer Roy Halladay, who knows a thing or two about putting up terrific numbers in lost seasons.
“I’m Just being aggressive,” Stroman said. “Locating with my sinker, mixing in some four-seamers, and keeping them off balance with the slider.”
Stroman didn’t have his greatest of beginnings Friday, allowing a run in the second before facing trouble in the third by walking Brad Miller and giving up a hard single to Steven Souza Jr. to put two runners on with two out for Morrison. But the Rays first baseman couldn’t hold back on a sharp breaking ball, as Stroman escaped the jam with his fifth strikeout in his first three innings.
Morrison’s whiff began a stretch of four consecutive strikeouts as Stroman settled in, needing just 36 pitches to get his next 12 outs. He faced the minimum from the beginning of the fourth right through to the first batter of the eighth, cakewalking the oft-challenging third time through the order.
But Stroman began his fourth foray through the Rays lineup with a fastball over the heart of the plate that Corey Dickerson drove 398 feet beyond the left-centre field wall. Stroman came back to strike out Kevin Kiermaier, but then Gibbons lifted him for Grilli. And we all know what happened after that.
“It’s just frustrating. We kill ourselves to be at our best when we’re out there. So, when things don’t go our way, it’s tough,” Stroman said. “But everyone’s doing what they need to be doing in between each start to make sure that they’re prepared and ready to go out there. It’s just a matter of things turning around for us.”
Stroman was throwing to new Blue Jays backup catcher Luke Maile, who had never caught him before outside of a brief bullpen session in the Arizona Fall League years ago. Maile leaned on the expertise of Russell Martin between innings, picking the starting catcher’s brain about what works best for Stroman. And in between the lines, Maile was sure to give Stroman the final say on pitch selection.
“For me, my job there is just to read swings and see which [pitch] plays best in my opinion,” Maile said. “There were countless times tonight where I put down a finger that I think is right and he throws the one that he feels is right and he gets somebody to punch out. Because he knows his stuff better than I know his stuff right now. It’s a challenge and it’s exciting. It’s really fun to be back there for a guy who’s that talented.”
Meanwhile, Toronto likely deserved better against Rays starter Blake Snell, who mixed and matched with his four pitches but left some very hittable balls up in the zone. The Blue Jays made outs on four separate balls in play that had a hit probability of 65 per cent or higher according to MLB’s StatCast, as they smoked Snell pitches directly at well-positioned fielders.
“They made some great plays,” Gibbons said. “That can turn a game. They played great defence.”
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Toronto looked to be getting something started in the third, when Kevin Pillar led off with a walk before Darwin Barney dropped a single in front of Souza in right field. That brought up Jose Bautista, who hammered an elevated slider 384 feet to the right-centre field wall, where Souza made an outstanding running catch to haul it in.
Behind Bautista was Kendrys Morales, who smoked a centre-cut fastball on a rope to centre field at 101.4 mph, where it hung up just long enough for Kiermaier to run it down. Justin Smoak then bounced out weakly to end a half inning when good fortune did not shine on the Blue Jays.
There was a familiar tune in the fourth, as Steve Pearce’s leadoff single was stranded, but the hits finally started to drop in the fifth, when Pillar led off with a double and scored on Barney’s two-strike single up the right field line after a pair of failed attempts to bunt Pillar over.
Bautista then stayed with a 3-1 fastball and served it into right field, pushing Barney to third. The Blue Jays second baseman scored three pitches later on a Morales double play ball.
Pillar added another run to lead off the seventh, driving a hanging breaking ball from Rays reliever Austin Pruitt over the left field wall for his fourth home run of the season. The Blue Jays centre fielder did what he could again in the ninth, leading off with a double – his fourth hit of the night – before moving to third on a Chris Coghlan single and scoring on a Bautista sacrifice fly.
But that was all the Blue Jays would get on another night with another sprung leak.