Nate’s not great, but big bats bail him out
BUFFALO— Everything about Nate Pearson is BIG. I’m tempted to tag him NATORIOUS B.I.G., although maybe nicknaming the rookie for a murdered rap star is bad joss. But NOTORIOUS B.I.G. was the biggest rap bad-ass ever.
Pearson, of course, is the six-foot-six, 250-pound shiniest object of them all for the Blue Jays, a rotation ace of the not distant future. His character — his personality — appears to be a match for his dimensions and that 100-m.p.h. fastball.
He was out-huged, stunningly, by his teammates on Wednesday, a night of big bopping bats, Toronto rallying from an 8-0 deficit to the Marlins on onetwo-three-four-five-six-seven jacks — including career No. 100 and No. 101 for Travis Shaw — catching up 11-11 in the bottom of the eighth framing. Bo Bichette went 5-for-5, the fifth hit a homer. Balls flying out of the park every which way.
Let’s just say clutch pitching wasn’t at a premium. So Pearson almost disappeared in the bombardment of a crazy up-down-and-around encounter, with Miami flipping off Toronto 14-11 in 10 innings after all that comeback labour.
Fortunately, young Pearson — exit stage left before the zig-zag onslaught — doesn’t want for self-confidence.
Pearson had the brass to say, after a no-decision in Atlanta last week that included a two-run blast surrendered, but just one of two hits allowed in five innings: “My stuff plays here and I belong here. I know my stuff plays and that’s all I’m focused on.”
God bless any pro athlete who speaks frankly and unapologetically, certainly without false modesty, which is so tiresome.
But the 23-year-old right-hander has yet to record his first major league win in three starts. In fact, the right-hander was a slab o’ balls with AWOL command on Wednesday against the Marlins, at one point delivering seven balls in a row on back-to-back walks — one of them to a short-track speedskating Olympic medallist corralled as a pandemic-induced roster ringer by COVID-positive-afflicted Miami — and walking in the 4-0 run.
That was far as the fledgling big-leaguer got before manager Charlie Montoyo either took pity or recognized his alleged stud’s futility on this summer’s eve, lifting Pearson for Jacob Waguespack with one out in the third and the bases loaded.
Pearson verily looked to have shrunk as his clown feet clopped off the mound and straight to the corner of the dugout.
It was the first time the flash out of Florida failed to go five innings — albeit small sample size. Trailing a careerhigh four runs and a career-high four walks.
But wait. It would get even uglierworse. With Pearson watching, Waguespack struck out the first hitter he faced before channelling a bit of, well, Pearson — albeit aided and abetted by a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. error at first, a passed ball by Danny Jansen, and another run handed to the Marlins fielder’s choice, Eddy Alvarez — the speedskater — trotting home practically unnoticed.
In any event, it was 8-0 Marlins as the inning staggered to a close, closing the books on Pearson with a grand total of seven runs on five hits in the plugpulled start.
What does not kill you makes you stronger, they say. Pearson will doubtless remember this horror for a long time. But it will not, I suspect, damage him. The young man is made of stronger stuff.
He had so been looking forward to taking the ball at Sahlen Field, the Jays’ substitute home yard. Pearson was briefly a Bison last season, a year in which he streaked through three tiers of minor-league ball. He had even put out images of him test-throwing from the bump earlier in the week on social media.
Ahead of his start, in a Zoomie with reporters, Pearson expressed his appreciation for the field — since glitzed up in a three-week sprint makeover before the Jays finally pulled into the Queen City — and revealed the pitchers he adored as a young’un (Nolan Ryan, Chris Archer, Noah Syndergaard, David Price) and disclosed his own adolescent dream of playing for Tampa Bay, the team he once lived and died with.
“I’ve grown up just envisioning myself on that mound at the Tropicana,” he said. (Seriously, he said that, as if anybody has ever claimed to have a soft spot for that scab of a ballpark.) “I may have envisioned it in a Rays jersey. As I got older I realized maybe I won’t be on the Rays. But I’ll be on that mound eventually.” (The Jays host Tampa on the weekend, following a day off Thursday.)
Thing about Pearson is, this arse-overteakettle start ought not to cause a crisis of confidence from within and certainly not a loss of faith from without, from his manager and teammates, who’ve all been in awe since Pearson began strutting his hardball stuff way back in spring training. Even though his previous start was wayward — three runs, two-run homer — he’d actually been pleased, as was his skipper. Indeed, Montoyo had said: “He never had it and he still gave us a chance.”
Pearson: “I just looked back to all the different outings where I didn’t have my best stuff at all and it comes down to the pure fact of competing. Wanting to get outs and striving to be great even if you don’t have your best stud. When you don’t have your stuff, you have to dig deep. Those are the games you learn about yourself.”
So, he must have learned a great deal from the Wednesday stinker, no?
Just to backtrack for a minute, and some insight into why the young pitcher can take this aberration in stride. Because he’s in it for the long haul, not for the short dazzle, thus far unrealized. The talk he’d had with himself, after the Braves start, relating that to his maidenhead versus the defending World Series champion Nationals on July 29.
“OK, this is the competition I face now. It’s not just one time, debuting. You want to pitch here and stay here. This is the type of team that you’re going to be facing every five days. You’ve got to get comfortable with it and that’s just what I’m doing.”
It went all pear-shaped lickety-split on Wednesday, however, after a thrifty start by Pearson, who dispatched the first two Marlins he faced on a mere five pitches, touching 97 and 99 m.p.h. Not a hint of command issues there. Then walk, single, and two-out threerun blast by Brian Anderson.
The Marlins reamed out that hole in the big nasty third, with Pearson’s fastball losing its velocity and Miami pouncing on the slider.
This was Pearson unravelling. Every MLB rookie will have his crucible. It’s not fatal. The stuff hasn’t vanished into thin air, maybe just the warm and muggy air of this ballpark on a night of preposterous shape-shifting baseball.
His mates got him off the loss hook, though, homering in six straight innings to pull even with the Marlins and turning their starter into a big-footfootnote.
They did the big boy a big solid on a big-hitting night.