STREAK SNAPPED
Shelby Miller of the Cards cools Blue Jay bats and outduels Mark Buehrle, Blue Jays-Cardinals series finale updates starting at 1 p.m. at thestar.com
What has been so encouraging for the Blue Jays during their recent hot stretch is how their league-leading offence has held up even against the game’s elite starting pitchers. Yu Darvish, Jon Lester and Justin Verlander have all been dispatched over the last three weeks, as it seemed there was no hurler who could stand in their way.
On Saturday, however, the Jays hit a wall in St. Louis Cardinals’ righthander Shelby Miller, who threw a complete-game three-hitter to lead the Cardinals to a 5-0 victory in front of an announced crowd of 42,981. The loss, just the fifth of the last 25 for the Jays, snapped a six-game winning streak for the home side. It was also just the second time this season the Jays have been shut out and only the second time they have been held to fewer than four hits.
“The way we’ve been swinging the bats for him to go out there and shut us out like that, it’s one of those things: you tip your hat to that guy,” said Mark Buehrle, the Jays’ starter. “He had it going today and kept us off the board.”
Buehrle, who leads the majors with 10 wins this year, was uncharacteristically erratic on Saturday, matching his season high with five walks. But none of them came around to score and he hung in to last seven solid innings. His only blemish came on a solo home run to Randal Grichuk in the fifth.
“I threw a changeup away, maybe a tad up,” Buehrle said.
It was just the third home run Buehle has allowed this season — a major reason he has had so much success. Last year he had given up a dozen at this point in the season.
Despite his lack of command, Buehrle still gave the Jays a chance to win, as he has been all season. Those waiting for a regression to the mean for the 35-year-old lefty will have to continue to hold out. He lowered his ERA to 2.05 on Saturday — second only to Masahiro Tanaka’s 2.03 for lowest in the American League.
In 15 years, Buehrle has never missed a start, never thrown less than 200 innings or had fewer than 10 wins. But he’s also never had an ERA below 3.00. “His command was off a little bit but he gutted it out for seven innings, did what he does,” said manager John Gibbons. The real trouble came once Buehrle was gone. Normally reliable Aaron Loup had his streak of 151⁄ scoreless
3 innings snapped when he walked in a run with the bases loaded before giving up a two-run single. Then Steve Delabar, who has walked seven of his last 23 batters, walked his first two to allow another run.
Jays relievers have walked more than10 per cent of the batters they’ve faced this season and own the fourth-highest mark in the AL. With Marcus Stroman providing some stability to the Jays’ starting rotation, the inconsistency of the club’s bullpen may become the biggest question mark heading into the final 100 games of the season. It was the second career shutout for the 23-yearold Miller, who took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and allowed just four baserunners. “He was the story of the game,” Gibbons said.
After the Jays’ nine-game winning streak ended last month, Buehrle said the most important thing for the club was how they bounced back. Last season, after their spirited — but ultimately unsustainable — 11-game win streak, they lost 19 of their next 26, blowing any ground they made up.
After last month’s streak, the Jays bounced back with another six-win stretch, pulling away from the pack in the AL East. Two-thirds of the season still remains, but they have already put themselves in a much better position. “We can’t scoreboard watch or look at what other teams are doing,” Buehrle said. “Just go out there and try to take care of ourselves and hopefully we’re in first place by the end of the year. But we’ve got a long way to go.”