Price plays stopper to Jays’ slide
Ace left-hander holds Atlanta to one run over seven innings
ATLANTA— This is the stage of the season where the Blue Jays can’t be scoreboard-watching, can’t afford to be satisfied if the Yankees lose, to rationalize their own loss. As a team looking to break a 21-year playoff drought, the Jays have to take care of their own business, especially as the division pacesetter, with a magic number to clinch a post-season berth that is in their own hands.
With that in mind, the Jays on Wednesday at Turn- er Field sent their ace, David Price to the mound looking to end a two-game losing streak, the first time they had dropped back-to-back decisions in exactly a month. Price did his job, pitching seven innings and earning a 9-1 victory over the Braves.
“We’ve just got to win games, it’s in our own hands,” manager John Gibbons said. “We played some good baseball for the last couple of months. Whatever it is, we’ve been hot. First time we had lost two in a row in a month. That’s hard to do in the big leagues.”
Price, in nine Jays starts, is now 7-1 and has won decisions following a team loss four times, making him a clear and present stopper. For the season, including his time with the Tigers, the 30-year-old left-hander is 16-5, with a 2.42 ERA. He must be included in any Cy Young con- versation.
The Jays have been making it comfortable for Price, handing him a lead early in each of his last two road starts. After scoring five runs in the first inning on Sept. 11 at Yankee Stadium, the Jays scored four times before Price threw a pitch Wedneday. Ben Revere led off the game with the first of his two hits on the night. With one out, Jose Bautista then doubled Revere home.
Edwin Encarnacion was back in the cleanup spot after missing two games due to a sore left middle finger.
Encarnacion finished with three hits and two walks, but admitted the finger is not healed.
“If I rest that’s when it’s going to get better,” Encarnacion said. “So right now, I’ve got to deal (with it). I have to try to keep doing my treatment, my therapy with the trainers and hope to continue all season . . . After we win the World Series, it’s going to be better.”
Russell Martin doubled home a pair and Ryan Goins lifted a sacrifice fly to right to close the scoring in the first. On Encarnacion’s slide at the plate, the relay throw hit him in the helmet and he stayed on the ground.
“It scared me,” Encarnacion said. “At first I got a little dizzy, but then I got normal again. When you get something that you’re never waiting for, it’s very difficult.”
The Jays added five more runs against a variety of Braves relievers. Starter Shelby Miller was only able to last 32⁄ in
3 nings, running his consecutive winless starts streak to 22, a franchise record.
Gibbons, with a six-run lead in the eighth, went to the bullpen. It marked the seventh time in 10 starts Price has gone at least seven innings for the Jays. The Jays were able to get some rare action for some of their secondary relievers — Aaron Loup, Liam Hendriks and Ryan Tepera.
Gibbons was asked the reason he had resorted to a short bullpen on Tuesday in the series-opening loss to the Braves. He sent Aaron Sanchez back out to pitch the ninth inning after he had tossed a shutout eighth. Sanchez had followed shutout innings by Brett Cecil and Mark Lowe. The Braves put together three hits off Sanchez to score the winning run.
The question of a short pen arose because the Jays are carrying 13 relievers, including reliable right-handers Roberto Osuna, LaTroy Hawkins and Hendriks.
“LaTroy’s been a little banged up,” Gibbons revealed prior to the game. “His forearm has been tight, tender. That’s why you haven’t seen him in four days (since Friday at Yankee Stadium).”
Hawkins threw before Wednesday’s game and declared himself ready to go. The Jays are going to need him down the stretch, especially with starting pitchers like Marco Estrada, Mark Buehrle and Marcus Stroman who could have short outings for various reasons.
Of course Hawkins has value beyond the mound. As a 42-year-old mentor for the young relievers, he can contribute in other ways, like talking to them about the playoffs and the upcoming thrill-ride upon which they are likely set to embark.
“I just tell the guys, don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Hawkins explained. “Pitch by pitch, at-bat by at-bat, appearance by appearance. You try to get too far ahead of yourself, that’s when everything, and the moment, start to crumble down.
“I also told them that being in the playoffs, it’s the same game. There’s just so much more . . . everything is magnified. Slow the game down, make your pitches and you’ll be fine.”