Hard-luck Borucki still looking for win
Neither offence nor defence provides support for rookie left-hander
For the struggling Blue Jays to win in the face of rock-solid pitching by an opposing starter, they must provide their own pitcher with rock-solid defence at big moments. On Tuesday night, one misplay on defence betrayed rookie left-hander Ryan Borucki in a 5-0 Twins victory, running the club’s postall-star game record to 3-2 with an afternoon game left on the current homestand.
“Oh, it’s a must,” Jays manager John Gibbons said. “(Jose) Berrios is one of the top young pitchers in baseball, he’s not going to give up much.”
Starting off the sixth inning in a scoreless tie, the Jays’ erratic left fielder, Teoscar Hernandez, chased back to the warning track, turned to face the infield awkwardly while reaching in front of him with two hands, and batted a Joe Mauer line drive to his feet onto the warning track for a two-base error. The Twins turned the miscue into two runs against Borucki, on a sacrifice fly by Eddie Rosario and back-to-back doubles by Eduardo Escobar and Robbie Grossman.
“It’s just baseball stuff,” Borucki shrugged. “Errors happen. Things like that happen. You just kind of have to work your way through it. I made a couple bad pitches, hung a couple curveballs and they took advantage of it.”
Berrios was dominant in posting his 10th win of the year. The all-star pitched seven shutout innings, allowing four hits with a walk and nine strikeouts.
Borucki spent the previous 10 days on a minor-league option to the Bisons. It was strictly a phantom move designed to clear a roster spot for a reliever. But with his demotion wrapping around the all-star break, Borucki missed just six games.
“After having 10 days off, I just filled the zone up with strikes and got a lot of groundballs and weak contact,” Borucki said. “Whenever you get that, you give your team a chance to stay in the game. That’s all the posi- tives you really need.”
The six-foot-four, 205-pound left-hander retired the first 10 Twins he faced before leftyswinging Eddie Rosario broke the spell, poking an outside pitch to left field. Brian Dozier singled him to third, but Borucki escaped. He allowed two Twins to reach in the fifth, but escaped again, this time via a double-play grounder to catcher Bobby Wilson. The young lefty allowed just the two unearned runs on six hits in six innings, as his ERA fell to 2.79. Still, he’s 0-2 in his five starts.
“I just try to make pitches,” Borucki said. “I’m a sinkerball guy. I try to keep the ball down and get groundballs. I let my defence work. They’ve been great behind me and that’s all I’ve ever done. Never try to do too much than what I’m capable of.”
Meanwhile, Marco Estrada was dispatched to start a game for Triple-A Buffalo before rejoining the Jays rotation. The good news was his original strained glute seemed fine. The bad news is that he left the game in Louisville in the fourth inning with a blister to his right middle finger.