Morales boost only fun in A’s sweep
> A’S 9 > BLUE JAYS 2 NEXT: TUESDAY VS. ANGELS
The designated hitter has his right arm swaddled in ice. Melt-water drips from his fingertips, pooling at one foot. What is wrong with this picture? It’s not a trick question. Kendrys Morales pitched the ninth inning in Toronto’s 9-2 loss to Oakland on Sunday afternoon, his Major League Baseball mound debut. Hadn’t been on the bump since 2002, back in the days before he escaped Cuba on a raft. But there’s the rub. While the 34-year-old acquitted himself well, allowing no hits and just one walk while inducing three fly-ball outs, the mere fact that he was out there, albeit in a blowout defeat, illustrated how dire the situation had become for the Blue Jays in the concluding chapter of a four-game sweep by the Athletics.
Hadn’t been swept in a four-game series at the Rogers Centre since May 2001.
Have now lost six consecutive home games for the first time since 2013.
Have dropped 12 of their last 15 games at home.
Have slipped to three games below .500.
The starting rotation has been mostly horrendous, the bullpen is gassed.
Hence Morales — who went 2 for 3 at the plate with a pair of singles, his first multi-hit game since May 1 — emerging from the dugout with his pitching face on. It could have been an even shorter stroll to the hill since Morales had been stranded on third at the end of the eighth inning.
In another thumping earlier in this crummy May, manager John Gibbons said he’d flirted with the idea of deploying Morales — who’d offered -— as a pitcher, to spare the bullpen further pointless labours. The ’pen’s sterling ERA has taken a licking over the past fortnight and sat at 3.37 at game time Sunday. So Gibbons determined the time had come for a strawman moundsman to take one for the team and, with a day off Monday for everybody to recuperate, gave Morales the heads-up before the eighth frame — unless the Jays suddenly went hit-crazy and plated three, four, five runs.
Which they didn’t. Which had Morales warming up in the indoor cage.
“It was a lopsided game,” said the skipper, Toronto trailing 9-zip at that point. “Throw him out there. Maybe we’ll do it again if we have to. Hopefully not. But at least give the fans a little bit of entertainment.’’
Hopefully not, because it would mean the Jays are yet again in the hopeless nub of a match.
Was thinking in that ghastly situation, said the skipper, “the same thing you were thinking, all the fans were thinking. It was ugly.”
It could have stood on its hind legs and barked.
Morales was the mensch on the bench. “It’s been a long time, but they needed me for an inning. Hopefully it doesn’t happen.”
Tossed 16 pitches, seven for strikes, mostly fastballs in the mid-80s range, couple of changeups, even a curve. Threw harder for the Havana Industriales — “I’m a little bit older now,” he said.
“I was just trying to throw strikes, but at the same time it’s too bad that you got to go out there and pitch in a losing cause.”
And the crowd — at least those who remained through a hugely disappointing afternoon — showed their appreciation for Morales’ gut-check effort, giving him a standing ovation when he left the mound.
It’s been ages since the struggling Morales has heard cheers.
“It’s always nice to hear when your fans have your back,” he said through an interpreter. “I know there’s been a lot of negative talk. A lot of people out there don’t play baseball, they don’t know how it is. So it’s just nice to have some support.’’
Except they do know, acutely aware of the .150 average Morales dragged into Sunday and the career-worst 0-for-29 drought through early May, with escalating speculation the Jays might release him outright and damn the financial hit. He’s been booed loudly at home.
“Like I said, I just try not to pay attention to it. I just go out there every day and keep my confidence up. I worked a lot during the off-season so I knew it was going to get better.”
The thing is, these Jays are unravelling fast, falling behind Tampa now in the AL East, a wild-card berth perhaps disappearing in the rearview mirror, even though it’s early. Still, five games back of both the Yankees and the Red Sox.
Sunday was a particularly godawful episode with Toronto committing four errors. And that hadn’t happened since May 18, 2014 at Texas.
Josh Donaldson was first on the bobble when he misplayed a ball off the bat of Stephen Piscotty in the second inning — this after a Matt Chapman double off Toronto starter Joe Biagini and a wild pitch which put Chapman on third. Donaldson went down on one knee to corral it, but the ball nicked off the webbing of his glove, skittering into left field. He hung his head, then looked up to the heavens in dismay, A’s on the board with an unearned run.
In the fifth, Donaldson was victimized again — no error, though — on a high chopper that appeared to handcuff him on what should have been a double play, Jonathan Lucroy credited with an infield hit. Oakland racked up four runs in that frame, with the bottom of the order doing much of the damage before Danny Barnes, making his 19th appearance, replaced Biagini and Marcus Semien promptly smacking a 1-and-0 pitch to deep centre, scoring a deuce. Four runs charged to Biagini, three earned.
“I got a bad read,” explained Donaldson of the error, only his second on the season. “I kind of got stuck flat-footed. Once I did that, I tried to make a play with my hands and the ball didn’t take the hop that I was looking for. But I’ve got to do better, plain and simple.”
Of the second incident, Donaldson said he’d been looking to throw to second to get Piscotty out, before firing to first instead. “Out of the corner of my eye, I realized that I really didn’t have much of a play. So then I went to first.
“I’ve got to be better and I’ve got to make better decisions. And that’s all there is to it.”
Toronto got only two hits through seven innings off Oakland starter Daniel Mengden.
Hard-luck Biagini lasted four innings-plus in his eighth consecutive loss, dating back to last season, but was probably just good enough to merit at least another start. Frankly, the Jays don’t have many options.
Yangervis Solarte went yard in the ninth, scoring two and extending his team-leading home run total to 10.