Smoaking bat leads Blue Jays to win in extra innings
It was the first time the Blue Jays had won a game all season in which a reliever had earned the decision. The 3-1 victory on Tuesday over the Rangers may not seem like much, but the pen had been a combined 0-9 with five blown saves and the Jays had been 0-6 when handing the ball to the bullpen when trailing. The beneficiary of the rare late rally was Rule 5 reliever Joe Biagini, with his first win.
The winning runs in the 10th scored on Justin Smoak’s second home run of the game, a two-run blast off right-hander Phil Klein.
Smoak had not homered all season and drew the start against a left-handed starter because of the suspension to Chris Colabello. The Jays had entered the bottom of the ninth trailing 1-0 against closer Shawn Tolleson, looking for his 10th save. On a night of firsts, Smoak drilled a leadoff homer to deep left-centre field to tie the game.
Prior to the second meeting of a fourgame series vs. the Rangers, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons admitted that his starting pitcher, Marco Estrada, was “a little stiff” after his previous assignment six days earlier. But on this night, Estrada was solid.
He gave up a leadoff home run to Rougned Odor in the first inning, then settled down, pitching six innings before handing the ball to a beleaguered bullpen, trailing by a run. That has been like signing off on a loss.
Bottom line is the Jays can’t afford to lose the services of any of their current five starters.
That is precisely what has kept them from drowning in the first month. Estrada was solid, allowing just one more Rangers hit after the leadoff blast. It was the fifth leadoff homer allowed in his career. He threw 88 pitches, his fewest of the season and has allowed just five hits and five walks in his last 12 2/3 innings, over two starts, but has been shut out in both. The Jays have scored six runs in his five starts.
Therein lies another problem. The offence has not come close to duplicating the looming threat of last year’s group, even with much the same cast of characters.
Consider that combined in 28 games, catcher, first base, second base and shortstop are batting well below .200, with a total of 38 RBIs from those four positions. The Jays are second to the free-swinging Astros in strikeouts in the AL with 259. One of the worst of the Jays slow starters at the plate has been Martin, who has endured tough opening months in five of his last six seasons, but this one is lasting a little longer than most. He still has not homered in 67 at-bats, his longest homerless streak at the start of any season since 2009. But he did show signs of life on Tuesday with a long fly ball to the right of centre field, a line-drive single up the middle and a base-on-balls. He fanned in the ninth. He has just five walks and 32 strikeouts.
“He’s a little overaggressive right now,” Gibbons said. “A lot of times the tendency is to hit your way out of slumps. That’s what most guys do. But his neck’s feeling better. That’s going to help him.”
And the relief pitching? When Gibbons handed the ball to his bullpen, trailing by a run in Tuesday’s game, the outcome seemed pretty much decided — if recent history was being considered.
The Jays in 2016 had yet to come back and win a game when trailing with a reliever on the mound. In fact, when any starter has left a game trailing, the Jays were 0-6. In the 21 games in which the bullpen has been handed the lead or inherits a tie score, the Jays are only 12-9.
This series was promoted as a continuation of the animosity generated in the AL Division Series last October.
One of the only indicators in the first two games came in the top of the eighth inning.
After Brett Cecil had allowed backto-back singles with one out, Roberto Osuna came on and Adrian Beltre skied a ball into no man’s land towards the foul line in right field. Darwin Barney raced full speed to catch the ball over his right shoulder, spun and fired a one hop strike to third base. Donaldson slammed his glove into Odor’s chest knocking him off the baseline for the third out. As Donaldson walked to the dugout, Odor glared and stayed at the base. Osuna, who had come over to back up third base, wrapped his arm around Odor and walked him towards the Rangers dugout.
Barney, according to Gibbons, will have a chance for the next little while, to platoon with Ryan Goins at second base.
Goins, a left-handed hitter, has been a disappointment offensively. Worth watching on Wednesday, in the top of the ninth inning with Rule 5 reliever Joe Biagini on the mound for the Jays, Ian Desmond lined a ball to right field. Bautista raced in and dove for it.
The out call was made but the ball clearly bounced into his glove.
The play was reviewed, but all the while that was going on, Bautista was holding and rubbing his right, throwing shoulder.