There’s time, but . . .
Jays’ pitching has to improve sooner rather than later
There is lots of time left, it’s true. There are 20 games, including three in Boston to end the year, and if nothing else changed between now and then, that would be enough, or at least could be.
The Toronto Blue Jays have time, and talent. They are two games out of the division lead after dropping two of three to the Red Sox, and sitting atop a crowded pile of would-be wild cards. It could have been worse.
But after all the slow-motion silliness, after all the goof-ups, after all the mashing and the dashing and the smashing in Sunday’s cartoon 11-8 loss to Boston, the same undercurrent keeps pulling at this team.
All year, they’ve gotten pitching. Right now, simple as it sounds, they’re not getting enough. Like travelling without your luggage, it makes life harder.
“I like our pitching,” said Jays manager John Gibbons. “Got a good one (Saturday) out of (J.A.) Happ, we need to get (Marco) Estrada going, no doubt about it, and (Francisco) Liriano is going (Monday), we need a good one out of him.
“Really, this weekend we ran into a team that hits . . . but we’ve got the guys who are capable of that, no doubt in my mind.
“We’ve hit a little bump as far as the starters go, but we really haven’t had that all year. I think that’ll correct.”
Maybe, but what else could he say? In nine games in September, seven losses, Toronto’s team ERA is 6.16. Estrada’s back may still be a problem; R.A. Dickey is as reliable as a butterfly in the wind, and about as predictable; Marcus Stroman is coming on, but not yet himself. Happ is worth counting on, most days. Aaron Sanchez, for his part, is deep into the unknown of his evermore-hypothetical innings limit. And Liriano, in a perfect world, wouldn’t be someone you count on, but here we are.
Sunday, Sanchez’s explanation for his imprecise, fastball-heavy 3.2 innings was a recurrence of the blister-slash-hotspot on the middle finger of his throwing hand that kills his curveball. Boston teed off; Jackie Bradley Jr., their No. 9 hitter, smacked his 24th home run the other way off a 95-m.p.h. fastball. Sanchez says the blister has been happening all year in the same place and that he’s gotten this far, but the result on this day was one way to reduce his innings, at least. He’s expected to get some rest on the upcoming West Coast road trip.
“Sanchez wasn’t himself today,” said shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who clubbed a grand slam in the third inning for one of the leads that didn’t last. “He probably feels bad about that. But he’s still our guy. I can’t wait until his next start.”
Whenever that is, sure. This game was nearly four hours long and featured 18 pitchers, and it was Toronto that didn’t score again after the fourth inning. At one point the Red Sox tried to steal home with two outs because life is precious and you should live every moment, or something, and Toronto got two more home runs from Edwin Encarnacion and the slam from Tulowitzki, and they still lost.
Sure, there was a little mystery strangeness in the bottom of the ninth when a Russell Martin liner down the right-field line was called fair and then overruled from home plate. But that would have only given Toronto a better chance, not the game, and if your pitching holds up against the best offence in baseball for a second straight day, that play doesn’t matter anyway. This game brought to mind the old line from The Simpsons with Mark McGwire when he asked “Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to see me sock a few dingers?” Everyone always chooses dingers, it seems.
Toronto’s offence, though, isn’t the behemoth it was last season, and the pitching is suddenly putting the pressure on, if they allow them to feel it. As Encarnacion says, “We try not to think about that, because if you think about that, then you put pressure on yourself.”
“No, (our pitchers) will respond,” Tulowitzki said. “They’ve been great all year. The last I checked, they were leading the league in ERA. They’ve done some good things. They’ve picked us up offensively plenty of times in the year. Today they weren’t themselves, but they’re real good. They’ll respond.”
But if they don’t — well, maybe the offence just catches fire, maybe Josh Donaldson breaks out of his 3-for-31 slump, maybe Jose Bautista starts catching those fly balls square, maybe it’s there. They have time.
Not endless time, though. The strange half-commitment of this organization to truly going for it this year has been best shown in Sanchez, who had an innings limit until he didn’t, and was moving to the bullpen until he wasn’t, and was down in the minors for a spell, just to save on mileage. He has been, as the year’s gone on, a weather vane of sorts for the whole blessed thing.
Well, here we are: the days that matter. Coming into this year everybody worried about the starting pitching, and all they did was carry this team for five solid months. Now something else will have to, until they do again.