Offence awakens to bail out Gausman
What started with a flicker, a glint, turned into sky-beam searchlight brightness.
And maybe — sure, just one game, but maybe — the Blue Jays can flip their inner shine-on back on, some of the baseball aura that has been missing pretty much since the start of the season. Last place in the division and all.
Some rapid-fire bullet points from a Saturday matinee where Toronto stacked up a season-high 10 runs on a season-high 16 hits, switch-blading from 7-1 down to knock off the muscle-flexing Twins, sticking a 10-8 win between Minnesota’s ribs.
■ A 3-for-5 day for Davis Schneider that included his fourth home run, a double, a single and a sac fly with a pair of RBIs, contributing mightily to the rally his team constructed, whilst erasing the cringe of a firstinning error that sprung the Twins into a three-run lead. Over his last 16 games, Schneider — who’s been batting leadoff this weekend, with George Springer in sick bay — is hitting .348 (16-for-48) with six doubles, two dingers, seven RBIs, 10 walks and a 1.074 on-base plus slugging mark. This is the guy manager John Schneider had inexplicably elected to sit out here and there and there and there.“We have the mindset of, no matter how many runs we’re down we’re capable of coming back,” Davis Schneider said afterward. Well, capable perhaps but a rarity these days, when falling
behind by just a run or two has felt like an impossible hurdle. “Put together good at-bats and good things will happen.”
Though it began for Schneider with a bit of the bad, starting in left field and butchering a ball off the bat of Alex Kirilloff. Ultimately three runs crossed in that inning. Things were looking grim for Toronto starter Kevin Gausman, rosy for Minnesota starter Simeon Woods Richardson, former Blue Jays prospect.
“I was definitely saying a lot of curse words in my hand,” a by-then chilled out Schneider admitted later. “I was trying to be a little bit too quick, trying to get the guy out coming around third.”
It ate at him later in the dugout, but teammate Chris Bassitt advised him to shake it off: “Said to me, good players have short memories.”
■ Say hey Vladdy, who has started — over the past week or so — to look like the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of yore with confident at-bats, patient for the pitch he’s seeking. He singled in the first, third, fifth and sixth innings for his first game of the season with three or more hits, raising his batting average over the past 12 games from .206 to .272. It was that sixth-frame stroke to left that brought Schneider and Cavan Biggio across the plate, levelling the game 8-8. When he got to first base and looked up at the scoreboard, his face split in a grin — the kind of beaming smile that hasn’t been seen much circa ’24.
“Obviously a rough start for the team,” said Guerrero, meaning both this game and the season. “Suddenly you have this big game, coming from behind. The emotions kind of explode. And it feels good.”
As Guerrero explained it, he’s made adjustments at the plate. Of course, that’s what they always do, but these latest ones seem to have found traction in his bat: “Just stay under control. And if I get my pitch, try to put a good hard contact on the ball.”
But why has it taken so long to do with familiar ease what once came with relative ease — though it started coming into view in the past fortnight, when he’s been hitting the ball hard.
“There’s this phrase that we have: The ball is round and it comes in a square box.”
Honestly, don’t have a clue what that means.
■ Second home run on the season for Bo Bichette, and maybe he’s coming out of his hitting doldrums lately, too. Fourth four-bagger for Danny Jansen: a two-run shot in the fifth. He went 3 for 5. In fact, every Jay except DH Justin Turner recorded a hit.
■ Yeoman work out of the bullpen in relief of Gausman, who was gone after three innings having surrendered seven runs on 10 hits. After Ryan Jeffers teed off on Zach Pop to lead off the fourth, the relief cadre locked it in: six up, six down for Trevor Richards; a clean inning for Erik Swanson (huge sigh of relief there for everyone) who got the W; Yimi García, just returned from a back issue, resuming his position as ace in the ’pen; and save No. 6 for Jordan Romano. All of which let Gausman off the hook. The Twins are his career nemesis.
“It was incredible to watch,” he said. “The team, the bullpen and offence really just picked me up completely. I mean, from when I left the game to where it ended was a big difference. Nobody quit, nobody gave in, great at-bats from the get-go. Every arm that came in was lights out.”
Adding wryly: “I pitched plenty bad enough to get a loss today.”