Donaldson turns in all-star performance
Perhaps about two minutes after it was announced on TV that Manny Machado had been named the American League’s starting third baseman for the all-star game, Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson turned hard on a Chris Young offering and drove it deep over the centre field wall.
Just about two minutes after it was later announced that Donaldson, himself, had made the AL squad as a reserve, voted in by his fellow players, the defending MVP crushed another home run, even deeper to centre field, leading the Jays to a 8-3 win on Tuesday at the Rogers Centre. Was the Bringer of Rain making a point about his place in the baseball universe?
“I don’t go in there and vote,” Donaldson smiled. “I’m not a big guy who’s going to go and try to throw my name out there to get people to vote for me. Making the all-star team, that’s nice. I’m happy for the guys that are the starters and I’m happy to be a part of the whole scene that’s there.
The Jays had three players named to represent the AL in Tuesday’s allstar game in San Diego — Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion and starter Marco Estrada. For the Jays, since Jose Bautista was moved into the leadoff spot prior to his injury, it’s been Donaldson and Encarnacion back-to-back in the batting order. Manager John Gibbons believes he’s been blessed with the best RBI duo in the league.
“We saw it firsthand last year,” Gibbons said. “That punch comes at you back-to-back. There can’t be anyone better and there are some good ones.”
On this night it was not just the all-star third baseman swinging a hot bat. In addition to Donaldson’s two blasts, Ezequiel Carrera and Troy Tulowitzki each homered in the third inning against the towering Young. The six-foot-10 right-hander had been tough on the Jays over four starts, despite less than overpowering stuff.
“He’s a big guy, he’s right on top of you,” manager John Gibbons said of Young’s abilities. “He doesn’t light it up with the velocity, but because he’s that much closer it seems like. He’s like Marco (Estrada), he throws that high fastball by guys. The high fastball looks so good coming in, it’s tough for guys to lay off it.”
Dickey quite often has drawn his starts against other team’s top pitchers. His run support over 17 starts entering the assignment versus the World Series champions was just 3.5 runs per game. On this night, not facing any of the Royals’ potential aces, the Jays doubled that average.
“You know if you just do your job, it’s eventually going to come,” Dickey said, downplaying the lack of run support. “Most of the time it’s about movement. When the knuckleball’s moving, especially the last 18 inches before the plate, you’re going to see a lot of foul balls, a lot of swings and misses.”
On Tuesday, Dickey went seven innings, allowing two unearned runs on four hits and improving to 6-9 with a 3.94 ERA.
“When I saw a lot of swings and misses early, I figured the knuckleball was moving,” he said. “It was a nice night for it, too. There was a lot of humidity, a little bit of wind . . . But I had a good release point for it, I was changing speed with it. I was filling up the strike zone the first few innings.”
Amazingly, the victory over the Royals was Dickey’s first win at the Rogers Centre in 2016.