A hole the size of Texas
They lost their second straight game and they lost their reliever to injury. The Jays are now up against the odds
They’ve got a great team there. They outplayed us both games
For the Blue Jays and their fans, Chris Colabello owned the first two innings. Then Marcus Stroman shooed everyone else out of the spotlight — that is, until John Gibbons grabbed it with a couple of contentious decisions that sparked a flood of scorn from the jurists in the media, social and otherwise.
The manager’s moves backfired. His critics say he let both Stroman and reliever Brett Cecil face one batter too many. He offered a calm rationale for each decision. But the Texas Rangers foiled his strategy, tying the game at 4-4 in that crucial eighth inning, then winning it 6-4 in the 14th on RBI singles by a substitute third baseman and the son of a former Montreal Expo.
The sub was Hanser Alberto, who started in place of injured icon Adrian Beltre, and much earlier had made an error that led to two Toronto runs. Alberto’s two-out single was the third in a row off LaTroy Hawkins. Then Delino DeShields Jr. beat out an infield single, just as his dad used to do, to bring home another run.
As well as leaving Toronto in a 2-0 hole in the best-of-five American League Division Series, the game took another toll. Cecil, one of baseball’s elite relievers, twisted his left leg while making a tag in a rundown – yes, also in that eighth inning – and suffered “a significant tear” in his calf muscle, Gibbons said. Cecil is finished for the season, however long it lasts.
To stay alive and move on, the Jays now must win two games in Texas and the finale next Wednesday at the Rogers Centre.
“It won’t be easy,” Gibbons understated. “They’ve got a great team over there. They outplayed us both games. Today was a great ball game and they came out on top. They outlasted us.”
For purists (and Rangers fans), this was wonderful game of baseball, an exhausting struggle of stretched nerves and gnawed fingernails, featuring splendid pitching from starters Stroman and Cole Hamels and their bullpens, and crescendos of cheers, moans, chants and groans from 49,716 fans, most of whom tried everything in their power, mainly sheer force of will, to coax the Blue Jays to rebound from a Game 1 loss.
It also included a dugout-clearing congregation in the 13th inning, which followed an inhospitable chat between Josh Donaldson and reliever Keone Kela. Donaldson hit a towering drive that hooked foul, a verbal exchange ensued and everybody came running onstage for the customary posturing.
“We made eye contact and exchanged a few words, and he didn’t back down and I didn’t back down,” Donaldson said. The problem? “It was a couple things, but we’ll just leave it at that.”
In the early going, Colabello dazzled on defence and delivered a big double. Stroman settled down after a slippery start and completed seven innings, allowing three runs, all in the first two frames.
Then came Gibbons to the fore, followed by the polemic.
Clinging to a 4-3 lead, Gibbons sent Stroman, who had thrown 89 pitches, back out for the eighth inning. Critics took great umbrage before and after Stroman gave up a leadoff single to DeShields.
Gibbons said he stayed with Stroman to get a righty-on-righty matchup with DeShields. Looking ahead, he hoped to squeeze more than one inning out of Cecil, his best reliever.
“I didn’t want to burn one more reliever for that righthander at the plate so we sent Stro out there,” Gibbons said. “It’s only the tying run … He was still strong. We just didn’t want him to face lefties in a one-run game.”
Then Gibbons summoned lefty Cecil, who retired two lef t-handed batters. But Gibbons let him face pinchhitter Mike Napoli, who bats right-handed and who, in his career vs. Cecil, had two hits in 17 at-bats. Napoli also has hit lefties significantly better than right-handers in his career. He singled home the tying run.
“Cece has been facing Napoli for years now and he’s really held him in check,” Gibbons said.
Then Cecil picked Napoli off first and, in the ensuing rundown, tore his calf muscle making the tag for the third out.
Before the game, Gibbons mused again about Stroman, his precocious starter and figured the kid would be just fine.
“He might be great today and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least bit,” Gibbons said.
In the beginning, Stroman was not great. By the end of the second inning, however, he was. From the second and into the sixth, he retired 14 batters in a row. Over his seven-inning session, he recorded 13 outs on ground balls.
He threw 27 pitches in the first inning. Over the next six, he averaged a tick over 10 pitches.
For the Blue Jays and their anxious fans, Colabello dominated the early innings. Before he took his first turn at the plate, he had polished off two defensive gems, one of which was a curious unassisted double play that saw him roam from his first-base position to a heavily populated neighbourhood around third base. Then, having put close to 50,000 fans in his back pocket with that shrewd manoeuvre, he hit a double to ignite a game-tying two-run rally in the second.
The fans turned fidgety fast. Texas struck for two quick runs in the first and had runners on second and third with one out. Then Josh Hamilton hit a grounder to Colabello, who charged and deftly tagged the passing batter. At that, Colabello spotted Prince Fielder drifting off third, and made a beeline toward the lumbering runner. Marooned, Fielder had no choice but to await Colabello’s tag, which ended the inning and triggered a massive waving of the towels.
Donaldson, who took a scary and punishing blow to the head in Game 1, erased any questions about his acuity in his first at-bat. After resounding cheers celebrating his return, Donaldson sparked another stadium-shaking ovation when he drilled a Hamels changeup over the centre-field wall to pull the Jays within a run.
In the fifth, Pillar started the rally that produced Toronto’s first lead of the series. He dumped a soft liner into no-man’s land along the rightfield line for a double, moved up on Ryan Goins’ sac-bunt and scored when Ben Revere, with the infield in, slipped a ground ball past second baseman Rougned Odor, whose dive was in vain.
The lead lasted until the eighth, when Gibbons began pressing buttons.
Texas relievers held Toronto’s powerful offence to one hit over the final seven innings.
“Obviously, we have a little bit less margin for error now,” Colabello said afterward. “But it’s still the same series. You’ve got to win three games.”
In a row — and two of them in Texas.