Rebuilt bullpen blows it in the Bronx
NEW YORK— The first true test of the Blue Jays rebuilt bullpen produced disappointing results in a 4-3 loss to the Yankees at the Stadium. Brett Cecil, the freshly anointed closer entered in the eighth inning to replace Aaron Loup, who has moved up to the role filled by Cecil a year ago. The end result was a loss for Loup and a blown save for Cecil. Despite no Plan B, there may be readjustment.
“We just imploded,” manager John Gibbons said. “We’ll figure some things out — roles, who can do what. You’re still guessing on some guys. The better they pitch the more opportunities there will be to pitch. Tonight, we wanted to get Cecil in no matter what, anyway. Loup really struggled.”
Gibbons called on Loup to start the eighth and face left-handed hitting Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner. The other left-handed option was Colt Hynes, who may have next. Loup was pitching in his second straight game, despite six relievers awaiting a first appearance. Pinchhitter Chris Young blooped a double onto the right field line among three frantic Jays. Ellsbury then lined a single to centre and Loup hit Brett Gardner to load the bases, ending his night and bringing on Cecil.
A Cecil pitch in the dirt got away from Russell Martin scoring the Yankees second run of the game. But yet still they led. Cecil fanned Carlos Beltran and walked Mark Teixeira intentionally to reload the bases. Then an inside fastball hit Brian McCann to force in the tying run and a grounder off his right wrist scored the winner. Cecil was asked if he was surprised to be called upon in the eighth inning.
“I was told there might be situations like that,” Cecil said of conversations with Gibbons. “Tough situations that I pitched in the last two years. He told me if a situation occurs like that, he told me just to be ready. It might be in the eighth. I was ready. I knew there was a chance.”
The temperature at game time was 6 C, and just as the Yankees came to bat in the eighth, the mist became rain and the rain became sideways as winds picked up. It was like the storm hitting 10 minutes into the Wizard of Oz, only the house landed on Jays relievers. But Loup was unwilling to take the easy way out with the weather as an excuse for hitting Gardner.
“I wouldn’t say (weather) made it more difficult,” Loup demurred. “It’s definitely not the optimal conditions to pitch in — mist and rain and cold — but no, I don’t think it had anything to do with what happened. Just one of those pitches that got away from me and ran up and in, that’s all.”
When 40-year-old R.A. Dickey found himself needing help in the seventh inning, he handed the ball to a man half his age. Twenty-year-old rookie Miguel Castro came in to face Alex Rodriguez with the tying run at first base. Castro popped him up to left field on a 96 m.p.h. fastball, then struck out Stephen Drew to end the inning.
Then, after the Yankees took the lead, Gibbons brought the other 20year-old, Roberto Osuna in for his major league debut with one out and the Jays trailing by a run. He struck out A-Rod, then got the final out on a fly ball to right. Gibbons said Osuna would have pitched the ninth if Cecil held the lead.
The very first inning of the Blue Jays loss could have been a disaster, ruining a burgeoning relationship between Dickey and catcher Russell Martin. But a pickoff on a quick spin move that froze Ellsbury for the first out turned the game around and Dickey settled in 7 1/3 innings.
“I was happy with the overall result,” said Dickey, who left with a 3-1 lead. “It was tough to get a feel for (the knuckleball) consistently, just because it was cold and the balls were very, very slick.”
It was the bottom four hitters in the Jays order that once again provided the bulk of the offence. Leading off the third, Kevin Pillar topped a grounder to third and beat it out for a hit. First baseman Justin Smoak laced a double off the middle of the short fence in right field.
Then it was rookie Devon Travis with a hard grounder up the middle to drive in Pillar. Travis reached on an infield hit after Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius dove to his left almost behind the bag at second, jackknifed to his feet and threw high to Mark Teixeira.
In the fifth, Travis went from first to third on a high Jose Reyes bounder that never left the infield and scored on a Martin sacrifice fly.