Palacios takes a dive, Jays take a fall
The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 2-1 loss to the Tigers on Friday at Comerica Park:
DETROIT—It was an odd way to lose a game, but it feels as though the Blue Jays have found more than a few odd ways to lose games over the past couple of weeks.
There’s been a walk-off walk, a game literally thrown away on a wild pitch and now, a tiebreaking inside-the-park home run.
Speedy Tigers outfielder Victor Reyes came in to pinchhit for light-hitting shortstop Zack Short to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning, and Jays manager Charlie Montoyo immediately went to left-hander Tim Mayza to turn the switch-hitter around.
Batting right, Reyes hit a sinking liner to centre and rookie Josh Palacios, making just his second big-league appearance in centre field, came charging in, dove, and missed it by a foot or two.
By the time Corey Dickerson picked up the ball on the warning track, Reyes was heading for third, and Marcus Semien’s rushed relay throw home was up and over everything.
There’s no question, it wasn’t the right play by Palacios. Late in a tie game, you let that ball fall in front of you and hold the runner to a single. But it’s not so simple when you put yourself in the shoes of the kid. Here’s a rookie just back in the big leagues, on a team that is trying to stay in the wild-card race and isn’t hitting at all, trying to make a big play to help his team. It was an error of aggression that he most definitely won’t make again.
Lesson learned, but what an awful time for that lesson.
Matz the way you do it: The bottom of the fourth inning started with some dazzling defence. Jonathan Schoop hit a ball 102 miles per hour up the middle, drilling Jays starter Steven Matz just above the right ankle as he tried to leap out of the way.
The ball ricocheted toward the infield dirt, between first and second, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went to his right and bare-handed it, flipping in one motion to Matz, who had somehow stayed on his feet and went racing to cover first.
It wasn’t a great throw, and Matz had to reach across his body and down to his knee to get it, but he did, and then seeing that he wasn’t going to beat Schoop to first base, reached out the other way and tagged the runner before either one of them got there.
I’ve mentioned in this space before what an incredible athlete Matz is — he’s one of the Jays’ fastest baserunners, for example — but he put it on display with that one play. Just being able to get to first base alone was an incredible feat, never mind executing a difficult catch-and-tag flawlessly.
The great play did appear to take something out of him, though.
The big lefty got a breather when the trainer came out to check on him, but he stayed in the game and gave up back-toback rockets to Jeimer Candelario (double) and Miguel Cabrera (RBI single) to score the only run the Tigers would get off him.
He wuz robbed: While Palacios will have a hard time forgetting Friday night, the other rookie in the Jays’ lineup almost had a night to remember for all the right reasons.
Kevin Smith, starting at third base for just the second time in the majors — perhaps because Santiago Espinal left his contact lenses in Toronto and wasn’t comfortable wearing glasses — came to bat in the fourth inning and belted a Matt Manning slider 412 feet to deep left-centre field. That’s where the wall is, though, in cavernous Comerica Park, and Tigers’ centre-fielder Derek Hill went up and over the padded green fence to pull the ball back for nothing more than a loud out.
It was a shot that would have been out of 24 of the 30 ballparks in the big leagues, but Smith hit it to the wrong place, in the wrong place. With Cavan Biggio not due back anytime soon, if at all this year, the kid will get plenty more chances.