Jays bullish on new-look bullpen
Chavez, Cecil, Storen, Osuna combine for four shutout innings in second straight win
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.— There are a handful of reasons to believe the Blue Jays may be even better this season, with full years out of Troy Tulowitzki and Marcus Stroman chief among them. But a couple other upgrades were on display in Monday night’s second straight win over the Tampa Bay Rays.
First, Michael Saunders, who stands to be an important part of the Jays’ lineup this season after missing almost all of last year with a knee injury, followed up on his strong spring with his first home run for the club.
Second, the team’s new-look bullpen passed its first test, as Jesse Chavez, Brett Cecil, Drew Storen and Roberto Osuna combined to throw four scoreless innings to preserve a two-run lead.
That will be manager John Gibbons’ preferred quartet in close games and he has talked of his relief in not having to mix and match his bullpen arms to find a steady hand this year like he was forced to do through most of the first half of last.
“Those guys are pros,” said R.A. Dickey, who handed the ball to the bullpen with none out in the sixth inning. “That’s one of the things we have this year: from the start, guys you can trust down there and Gibby went to ’em.”
“It makes it a hell of a lot easier on a manager to give a guy an inning, you know?” Gibbons said. “Doesn’t mean it’s always going to work. But you can plan better. We were scrambling last year with a bunch of young kids and we didn’t really know what to expect and we went through our ups and downs.”
But in Monday’s 5-3 victory over the Rays, there was also more of the same from the Jays, whose offence continues to roll in the early going. They scored the bulk of their runs on the back of three homers — including the first by backup catcher Josh Thole in nearly three years — and Kevin Pillar nearly killed himself to make a highlight-reel catch.
“I gotta be honest with you, I’ve seen it before,” Gibbons said of Pillar’s seventhinning grab when he smashed his face into the centre-field wall to rob Logan Morrison of extra bases.
That will be Gibbons’ preferred quartet in close games and he has talked of his relief in not having to mix and match his bullpen arms to find a steady hand as he was forced to do through most of the first half of last year.
It also explains why he wasn’t as patient with Dickey in the sixth inning after Desmond Jennings worked himself aboard with an infield single.
At that point in the game, with the Rays once again threatening, he wanted to nip the threat in the bud, so he went to the bullpen.
But it was a more than serviceable outing from Dickey, who underwent off-season knee surgery to repair an issue that had dogged him all of last season and arrived at camp lighter this year in an effort, he said, to go easier on his joints.
But he admits he was motivated by something else, too.
“There’s a piece of me that doesn’t want to get undone by a bunch of younger kids,” the 41-year-old knuckleballer recently told the Star. “There’s a competitive piece to it.” Dickey said that as he’s gotten older, he’s realized he needs to be more “intentional” about his preparation going into the season.
“I can’t just roll out of bed and have it happen, like it might have been a little bit easier for that to happen when I was younger. Now I have to be very deliberate about it.”
While he is constantly fine-tuning his craft, at this point in Dickey’s career he’s not making any dramatic changes or adjustments.
“It’s much more about cultivation,” he said.
“You’re trying to cultivate what you have. It’s not necessarily about becoming something new or different; it’s more about honing.”
It’s all in an effort to become more consistent, he said, which is the biggest obstacle for any knuckleballer.
While it was hairy at times, if Dickey can consistently do what he did on Monday, it should be enough to aid the Jays this season.