Blue Jays: Ailing club recharges with Estrada-Saltalamacchia battery
While everyone was looking at Marco Estrada on Saturday, desperate for the starter to come up with a big outing and help end the Blue Jays’ seven-game skid, the pitcher was looking at Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
The backup catcher started for the second time this season in the Blue Jays’ 2-1 walk-off win over the Baltimore Orioles, a game the home team hopes will mark the start of a turnaround.
Manager John Gibbons calls the steady Estrada the easiest of the Jays’ starting staff to catch, no matter who’s behind the plate, but added that Saltalamacchia’s appearance was simply a matter of giving regular catcher Russell Martin a break after playing Friday night.
Estrada, who struggled his last time out (allowing five earned runs in five innings in a loss to the Tampa Bay Rays last Sunday), pointed to Saltalamacchia’s influence as a key to his seven scoreless innings.
“It was the way Salty called the game. I was just trying to follow him, elevated a lot of fastballs and had them swinging at it,” said Estrada, who allowed just four hits, walked three and struck out eight.
Gibbons liked what he saw from the tandem: “When a guy’s easier to catch it doesn’t mean it’s easy, but they looked like they were on the same page. They were in flow, I guess you could say.”
In 2015, Estrada pitched to Dioner Navarro 20 times, five more games than he worked to Martin. Last year, when Josh Thole was the backup, Estrada worked almost exclusively with Martin.
“We have two great catchers, so I don’t really care who’s back there,” Estrada said. “I trust both of them. They’re both really good at their jobs, so my job’s just to hit the glove.” That’s exactly what he did Saturday. “I just put a number down, he threw it and located everything,” Saltalamacchia said.
There was a lot riding on Estrada heading in, with the Jays winless at home and an ugly 1-9 overall.
“He knew that he had to step up and that’s what big-game pitchers do. They step up.” Saltalamacchia said. “He was huge for us today and thankfully we had one more run than they did.”
Getting to know the rotation has been “a lot of fun,” said the 31-yearold catcher, who signed as a free agent in January — joining his seventh major league organization. He was 0-for-3 at the plate Saturday.
“Obviously these guys have got so many weapons, but you’ve got to kind of just remember to get back to square one. Location’s key, and our pitchers have been great,” he said of getting to know the pitching staff.
Saltalamacchia adds that he understands what’s expected of him, and welcomes the chance to play whenever it arrives.
“Russ, obviously, if he wanted to and had his way, he would be in there every day. Just giving him some rest is my job,” he said.
“The more I catch everybody, the better off I think we are as a collective group, because you never know what’s going to happen. I may have to catch two, three days in a row for some reason and being familiar with the guys is going to help.”