FROM BAD TO HURTS
Jays blown out by O’s as injuries to Happ and Sanchez take a bite out of rotation.
The whisper of an anxiety in his brain, J.A. Happ mentioned it to nobody between the fourth and fifth innings.
Sat quietly in the dugout, same as always, looking inward and outward.
Back to the mound, the Blue Jays having failed to do anything with the opportunities they’d scrabbled off Baltimore starter Dylan Bundy, including a reversed out call at first base and Kevin Pillar standing 90 feet from home in the opening frame with none out.
But that’s been the perplexing tenor of these Jays through a dozen games now come and gone.
On the bump again, Happ gave up a leadoff double to J.J. Hardy that a horizontally leaping Pillar couldn’t corral at the wall, down in a worrisome heap for a few alarming seconds, then an easy out of Craig Gentry.
Something was seriously wrong, however.
Happ hopped off the hill, pitching arm held close to his torso. Russell Martin was already halfway to the mound as manager John Gibbons strode onto the field. And before anyone understood what had happened, Toronto’s lanky lefty was departing the game.
Within a span of 24 hours, the Jays had lost two-fifths of their gaudy starting rotation, the one virtue which had remained to provide succour for the club in a hideous start to the 2017 campaign.
“Roll with the pitches,” a downcast skipper would say after the Orioles had thumped Toronto 11-4, taking the series, fourth in a row the Jays have lost. “Roll with the pain.”
A whole lot of pain at the moment, most worrisomely in Happ’s arm, their steadfast 20-game winner from a year ago. He sensed the pang on the last pitch of the fourth inning, a 92-mile-an-hour two-seam fastball.
“I felt kind of a pull, a tug, in my elbow. Then I went back out there for the fifth and it just got kind of progressively worse. My last pitch, a fastball, I tried to throw that and it just grabbed me enough, kind of involuntary type of reaction.’’ With no explanation for the episode. “Maybe I tried to manipulate it a little bit (the pitch), to try to make it move a little more, I don’t know. But nothing that I haven’t done before. Just — out of nowhere. So I thought that was a little strange. Let’s see how it feels going back out there. It went the wrong way after that.”
No pop that he could hear, so at least there’s that.
The sensible course was to remove himself pending medical investigation — an MRI to be undergone Monday, a day off for the team.
So, on the shelf: Happ (who took the loss, now 0-3), Aaron Sanchez (recurring blister, off to Kansas City to see a specialist, 10-day DL), Josh Donaldson with his sore-again calf, J.P. Howell and his stiff shoulder.
“It was enough to where I was starting to lose effectiveness,’’ said Happ of his effort to hang in. “Which is disappointing because I felt like the game was going well. I was kind of establishing myself again, bouncing back from that game before a little bit.
“A little concerning and definitely frustrating.”
While Happ had not at first shared his twinge sensation with manager or catcher, they must have spotted that something was amiss. “I think they may have just seen a few pitches before,” he suggested. “I was trying to give myself a little extra time in between pitches, to see if it would subside. Maybe they noticed that. I think they just kind of saw some signs.”
Gibbons confirmed that much. “Something looked a little odd when he threw the pitch (before) and that’s when he called Russell out. I thought he was rolling, you know. I was sitting there thinking, ‘He’s got at least seven innings in him tonight.’ I thought he was on, everything looked good to me.’’
With no Happ and no Sanchez, the Jays will have to summon pitching help from Buffalo, likely two from a trio that includes Casey Lawrence, who’s already on the 40-man roster, Mat Latos and T.J. House. Gibbons does not plan to tap reliever Joe Biagini as an emergency spot-starter, though the club had flirted with the idea at spring training. And Biagini would need time to be stretched out, in any event.
Calamities are piling up for Toronto.
“There’s no question we were pretty fortunate the last couple of years with the injury bug,” said Gibbons.
Sunday’s ugly loss, however, had a distinctive odour to it. Despite entering the game with a 2-9 record, the Jays could take some comfort from knowing they’d managed to stay in most of the encounters, even with the puny offence, four games lost by one run. And that enviable starting rotation, plus yeoman work out of the ’pen, always gave them a chance.
Now they’ve got precious little to be catching up with before the season gets entirely out of hand. In April.
“Really, today was kind of the first time all year it really felt like a sloppy game,” said Gibbons. “We weren’t real good and we didn’t get off to a good start, first and third, no outs and came up empty. After that nice tight (2-1) win (Saturday).’’
The gap between unease and panic is narrowing.
“I’m concerned, we’re all concerned,” Gibbons allowed. “We expected, no doubt, to play better. The thing I’m holding hope in, you can bury yourself early and we’ve been struggling. But other than, like I said, today, we’ve been in every game. They’ve been one-run, tworun games. Big hit or big pitch, get out and maybe you win those. So that’s the feeling — you’re close.’’
They’re not close, nowhere near, 61⁄ games back of American
2 League-leading Baltimore.
On this afternoon, Toronto got away with three errors that had no impact and made decent contact for a change, racking up 12 hits. But they failed to exploit the early openings for a run — like that man on first and third in the opening frame, none out — and couldn’t feast greedily off a rookie reliever in Stefan Crichton, making his major league debut, although they did plate a couple.
Instead, it was the Orioles who double-broke the Jays, putting up a five-spot in both the seventh and eighth innings.
A day of horrors, in particular, for reliever Matt Dermody, making his season debut after arriving from Buffalo Saturday night. Hammered for three homers in a third of an inning.
“I got in early. I was ready to go. There’s no excuse for what happened.’’
He’s had nightmare outings in the minors before. “This is probably the worst one up here.” Behold the wreckage. And, oh yeah, the Red Sox coming into town next.