It’s up to Stroman to get Jays rolling
Toronto has not had consecutive wins since Aug. 29 and is in big need of a streak
TORONTO — Marcus Stroman wants to be an ace.
In his head, the 25-year-old probably already is.
This is a moment where an ace steps up and does ace-like things.
On the heels of a solid, maybe even surprising, pitching performance by Blue Jays lefty Francisco Liriano, a 6 1/3-inning, three-hit, two-run, six-strikeout performance to keep the Tampa Bay Rays bats at bay long enough Monday night at Rogers Centre for the home side to slither away with a late 3-2 victory, the ball will be in the hands of the fiery Blue Devil from Duke on Tuesday with a chance to string together a pair of wins for the first time this month.
“He’s a big-time player in those big-time games,” said Jays second baseman Devon Travis, who kept up his torrid second-half pace in the series opener with two more hits. “He really uses that energy from the crowd and that extra motivation to build him up.”
Coming into the night, the Blue Jays’ rotation had been sliced and diced to the tune of a 6.91 ERA in the month of September, a troubling stretch that made a league-best ERA through the first five months of the season look like smoke and mirrors.
Sandwiched around a solid outing from J.A. Happ on Saturday, Marco Estrada and Aaron Sanchez were both battered by the Boston Red Sox bats over the weekend.
With the out-of-contention Rays coming to town for a three-game set, no one really knew what to expect from the rotation — or a supposedly powerful offence that’s making nor’easter blackouts look bright.
Liriano, prone to bouts of wildness and inefficiency throughout his career, was the exact opposite, effectively cruising through six innings until Evan Longoria and Brad Miller got to him for back-toback jacks in the seventh, ending his night.
“I mean, he was dominating, he really was,” Jays manager John Gibbons said of Liriano, who will get another start this weekend in California against the Los Angeles Angels.
“We were a little bit concerned going into the game that he’s had issues with walks in the past earlier this year ... he was on from the getgo. Everything he threw was in the strike zone with a really good slider, keeping that down, and he was getting a lot of swings and misses.
“He was outstanding, and, really, under tough circumstances because he hadn’t pitched a whole heck of a lot.”
At the same time the Red Sox (8162) were pounding on the Baltimore Orioles in Massachusetts, the Blue Jays (79-64) were simply hoping to find enough offence to survive and avoid falling three games back in the AL East race for the first time since July 25.
Thanks to Jose Bautista’s first September home run and an out-ofnowhere pinch-hit solo shot in the bottom of the eighth from Ezequiel Carrera, they squeezed out enough offence to get by.
Which brings us back to Stroman and the importance of stringing together strong starts and finding some offensive consistency, something that isn’t lost on Travis.
“Yeah, 100 per cent,” Travis said. “I think it’s been a while since we had a little streak, so honestly, taking it day by day, game by game, inning by inning, pitch by pitch. We know we’re capable of putting up runs earlier and, hopefully, we can get that going here shortly.”
Stroman’s 4.55 ERA this season isn’t the prettiest of things, but the underlying numbers say he’s been better.
The last time out, the 5-foot8 righty struck out eight in five innings, but was eventually saddled with a loss to the Yankees, one of three devastating defeats for the Blue Jays at an inopportune time.
If there was ever a time for an acelike outing, it’s now.
An emotional man on the bump, Stroman could draw inspiration from an odd final pitch scenario at the end of Monday’s win that saw both benches clear after Jays catcher Russell Martin exchanged words with Rays outfielder Steven Souza Jr.
“He’ll be the first to tell you he’s underachieved this year from his standards and he’s going to build off of what happened at the end of that game, and he’s the type of guy that can be very emotional and he knows how to harness it,” outfielder Kevin Pillar said. “We expect him to come out and do his thing.”
The bats are slumping. Josh Donaldson, who sat out Monday, is hurting, and the tone around the city is starting to change from “Can’t wait for another playoff run” to “Oh man, is there even going to be one?”
The last time the Jays strung together wins was Aug. 26-29, when they reeled off four in a row before nosediving completely.
“Wins like that tonight are ones that can really get you on a roll so, yeah, we’re hoping to use this energy tonight and roll it over to tomorrow,” Travis said.