Yankees’ big bats light up Jays’ reliever
With bullpen ‘running on fumes,’ Grilli sets dubious mark by surrendering four homers in eighth inning
TORONTO — Blue Jays reliever Jason Grilli sat in front of his locker inside the Rogers Centre clubhouse on Saturday afternoon staring straight ahead.
Generally speaking, Grilli loves speaking. But on this day, Jay Stenhouse, the Jays’ VP of Baseball Media, approached the big right-hander and asked if he would speak to the media.
Grilli declined. And you couldn’t really blame him.
The usually loquacious relief pitcher made history on Saturday, but not in a good way. Grilli gave up four home runs in the eighth inning, the most in team history by a reliever in an outing as the New York Yankees crushed the Jays 7-0.
After talking over from starter Joe Biagini to start the eighth with New York already ahead 3-0, Grilli gave up solo home runs to Brett Gardner, Matt Holliday, Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorius, until finally, mercifully, being pulled for lefty J.P. Howell.
Grilli has now given up nine home runs in 17.2 innings of work. When Howell got Chase Headley to ground out to end the eighth, the Rogers Centre faithful let out a sarcastic cheer. Not a great day at the ballpark.
Afterward, Toronto manager John Gibbons said he really had no choice but to leave the 40-year-old pitcher in because the Jays bullpen is “running on fumes.”
“It’s hard, simply because I like the guy so much,” said Gibbons. “Everybody does. He’s had a tremendous career. Grilli’s had some great moments here, had some big games for us and he had been pitching pretty good for us lately. It was just one of those days. The ball was flying and they got some pretty swings off him. But that’s never easy for a manager or coach to sit there (when something like that happens) because you know what’s inside the guy.”
Gibbons took exception to the suggestion that he hung Grilli out to dry.
“I don’t hang anybody out to dry,” said the manager.
The last big league pitcher to allow four home runs in one inning was Masahiro Tanaka on Sept. 21, 2016, at Tampa Bay.
For his part, Biagini received little in the way of offence or defence and deserved a better fate than being issued the loss. The three runs scored off Biagini early were largely the result of poor fielding by the home side, starting in the third inning when New York first baseman Rob Refsnyder got on as a result of a fielding error by shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and then stole second. Refsnyder was later hit home when Aaron Hicks hit a Texas Leaguer to right that Jose Bautista couldn’t run down. Aaron Judge smacked a line drive to centre that Kevin Pillar got his glove on, but couldn’t pull in, scoring Hicks.
The Yankees added a run in the seventh after Castro hit a duck snort to left for two bases and then the next hitter, Gregorius, placed the ball almost to the same spot, scoring Castro. Biagini actually limited the hard-hitting Yankees to four hits over seven innings, most of them of the soft variety. Of the three runs Biagini gave up, only one was earned.
“He was great, he really was,” said Gibbons. “An error in the game (Tulowitzki) might have cost him 10-15 pitches, too. But he’s got to feel good about that. He had it all working, had a good curve ball today, good fastball. He’s just slowly turned into a pretty good looking starter.”
Biagini was pressed into service as a starter this season when three in Toronto’s rotation went down with injuries — J.A. Happ, Aaron Sanchez and Francisco Liriano. With all but Sanchez now activated, it seems Biagini’s days as a starter — at least this season — are numbered, though it’s almost certain he’ll start all of next season. He threw a career-high 100 pitches.
The Jays, meanwhile, couldn’t muster much offence off of New York starter Jordan Montgomery. The rookie left-hander went six innings, allowing just three hits while walking three and striking out five. Toronto left eight runners on base. Montgomery did not allow a run for the first time in his career as he tossed a career-high 103 pitches in his 10th career start.
Judge, who leads the majors with 18 homers, extended his hit streak to seven games (hitting .385 in those games). His double in the third inning was clocked at 116.2 m.p.h. by Statcast, marking his 11th hit this year of 115 plus m.p.h. Hicks is on a seven-game hitting streak.