Heartbreaker
Texas scores two in 14th to take 2-0 series lead
Texas Hold ’Em — cut the cards.
It’s a tall hat order, rebounding from two-in-the-hole in a five-game series. But be reminded of this: The Blue Jays are not a team that folds.
And eight times before, the club that has lost the opening two games has rallied to win the best of a quintet.
Only two of those teams, however, have done so after dropping two games at home.
Further challenge: They’ll have to do it without the crucial shut-down mojo of Brett Cecil, merely Toronto’s most reliable reliever these past two months. Cecil tore a calf muscle in what looked like an otherwise innocuous run-down play that erased Mike Napoli trying to steal second in the eighth inning.
When last seen, a despondent Cecil was hobbling out of the clubhouse, his left leg encased in a walking cast.
“He got a tear where?” a stunned LaTroy Hawkins asked reporters afterwards. “Torn a calf? Oh that hurts. Geezus. Wow. That’s not good, that’s not good at all.
“He’s been our best pitcher since I’ve been here.” So there’s that. Adversity and attrition, jagged little pills. Still and yet, not a killer combination for so gaudily a gifted team. This is a
“We have a bunch of guys who are unbelievably confident and we’re just going to . . . focus on one game at a time, focus on the next one.” MARCUS STROMAN BLUE JAYS STARTER
club that absorbed the near-year injury absence of Marcus Stroman and the freak cracked scapula of Troy Tulowitzki down the stretch, some wobbly closeouts by Roberto Osuna of late, and a starting ace who came undone in the first encounter of this series, to cite but a few of the bummers which have unfolded.
These are the cards you’ve been dealt, gentlemen. Move on.
But the Jays cannot continue to execute as poorly as they did against the Rangers in two contests at the Rogers Centre – 0-for-home with Friday’s extrainnings 6-4 defeat, the lengthiest playoff game in Toronto baseball history at an exhausting four hours and 57 minutes. (Felt longer.)
They have been, frankly, unrecognizable, a mewling version of the prodigious outfit we’ve seen since the all-star break and, particularly, post trade deadline.
Yes, the officiating was scandalous yesterday, with a lazy eye strike zone from the home plate umpire.
Yes, probably, Troy Tulowitzki did tag out Toronto nemesis Rougned Odor — scrambling back to second — in the top of the 14th frame. Odor, the bane of Toronto’s existence in this series, came ’round to score what proved to be the winning run, though Chris Gimenez added another for good measure. That was three consecutive hits off the 40year-old Hawkins, with the bullpen almost completely depleted and a soldout crowd suddenly silenced.
Why manager John Gibbons didn’t call earlier for the only relief arm he had left in Liam Hendriks — both Hawkins and Hendriks are right-handers, and the right-hitting Gimenez was at the dish — can be debated until the cows come home.
In what seemed a game without end, Gibbons likely wanted to keep one reliever in reserve should the innings just keep piling up.
But none of that explains why the Jays might not pass this way again in 2015.
Two measly hits off seven innings of Texas relief pitching tells the woeful tale.
Two measly hits from a club that led the majors in runs and extra base hits.
And one measly hit in extra innings, by Chris Colabello in the 12th frame, a leadoff single, with Dalton Pompey brought in to pinch-run. Pompey, utilizing his marvelous speed, stole second, stole third. But Russell Martin popped up, Kevin Pillar was whiffed looking and Ryan Goins hit a weak grounder.
“What did our bullpen give up — two hits, three hits?” countered Pillar.
Six, actually. The first, from Cecil, scored Stroman’s runner, tying the game 4-4. Then Osuna, Mark Lowe, Aaron Loup and Aaron Sanchez all went clean.
“Their bullpen’s really good,” Pillar continued.
“Our bullpen is outstanding too. We just seemed unable to string together the hits or get that leadoff walk. C.C. had that big hit — I don’t even know what inning, it all seems one long game. But we just didn’t capitalize with that leadoff single. That was probably our best opportunity to score runs.
“Then, on the flip side, you see what they’re able to do. They get a two-out base-hit, an infield base hit, and end up scoring two runs in the (14th) inning.”
Bats gone weirdly quiet — save for Josh Donaldson’s first-inning homer — could be blamed and the stingy pitching by the Texas ’pen can take a bow. But maybe if the Toronto hitters weren’t all swinging for the fences — and Edwin Encarnacion did come within an eyelash of jacking a homer over the centre field wall in the 13th — perhaps the outcome would have been different.
No point autopsying what might have been.
In the event, Toronto has burned through its two strongest starters — Price, nowhere near his best on Thursday, and Stroman yesterday.
“We’re good,” Stroman assured afterwards. “We’re not worried about it. We have a bunch of guys in this clubhouse who are unbelievably confident and we’re just going to put this one behind and . . . focus on one game at a time, focus on the next one.”
Well, that’s the endlessly buoyant Stro’ talking. But he’d looked just as glum in the dugout as every other Jay half an hour earlier, as the Rangers celebrated.
Reality bites hard, if not fatally, not yet.
“Back against the wall, obviously,” said Tulowitzki.
“To lose two at home is not the way you want to start out a series. But since I’ve been around teams that make a run, they always have to answer something.
“So hopefully this will be ours — down two-zero, come back and win the series.
“It’s not over.”