Biagini’s Houdini act comes up short
Blue Jays starter chased after Twins load bases twice
Back to School Day at the ballpark unfortunately meant going back to the drawing board for Joe Biagini and the Toronto Blue Jays.
After nurturing Biagini in tripleA Buffalo this month for an audition as starter, the club saw him get knocked around in 3 2/3 innings Sunday as Byron Buxton’s three home runs punctuated a 7-2 win for the Minnesota Twins. The visitors twice loaded the bases against Biagini, who couldn’t escape that much trouble.
“Tough day for him, obviously,” manager John Gibbons said as the Jays dropped the rubber match of the series. “I thought maybe he was over-throwing a little bit too much, because his ball was definitely up in the zone and they barrelled pretty good. But he put in a lot of hard work to get back here and his last outing (with the Bisons) was really, really good.
“He’s better than (Sunday), but you know when he’s on that everything is working the right way (and) he’s getting ground balls. That certainly didn’t happen today. That starter’s role is new to him. He’s going to take his lumps along the way until he gains confidence and figures it out all over again.”
The introspective Biagini, 3-9 this year with a 5.40 ERA — 2-8 with a 6.02 ERA as a starter — had his own take on finding the right bridge between the physics of starting and relieving.
“The process for me is trying to marry the stretch and windup,” he said. “Going back and forth, it’s hard to maintain the consistency of those. I thought I made progress in Buffalo (1-1 in four starts with a 3.12 ERA) but I think I have to use the experience of today.
“It’s fun to get the chances from an organization that believes I can develop into something good. The jury is still out, I guess.”
Defence and run support didn’t factor in his favour. Shortstop Ryan Goins’s great throw to Miguel Montero at the plate gunned down Joe Mauer in the first inning, but Josh Donaldson’s throwing error helped put Biagini into his first full-bases loaded scenario. Biagini escaped with a strikeout, the first of a season-best 17 by the Blue Jays staff that was overlooked in defeat.
Another run was prevented in a third-inning rundown, but six Twins reached base that inning and two scored.
With Jays outfielders Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista resting, Nori Aoki miscalculated the bounce on a Mauer hit that went over his head in right field for a triple. Two batters later, Buxton walloped the first of his home run hat trick.
Aaron Loup and Matt Dermody came in and silenced the Twins’ bats until Buxton touched Dermody for his second homer in the seventh. Tim Mayza gave up the third.
Toronto’s offence could not keep pace, after 10 runs the day before in a bizarre one-run win over the Twins. The first five in the Jays order didn’t get past first base.
Toronto missed a chance to win its fourth straight series at home and sustain hope of reaching .500 before the end of the season. Now 61-69, they’ll be hard pressed to take the next set, against the division-leading Boston Red Sox starting Monday night.