BACK IN FLIGHT
Toronto greets the dawn of a new season with win over Rays.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Chris Archer brought the wow factor to the season opener, but his good friend Marcus Stroman made off with the W.
Archer, the Tampa Bay Rays ace, struck out 12 Toronto Blue Jays in five innings but he was long gone when Roberto Osuna came out of the pen to put the finishing touches on Toronto’s 5-3 victory.
Stroman was not nearly as spectacular as Archer, but he was far more controlled and efficient, working into the ninth inning and needing just 97 pitches to get there. Through eight innings, Stroman gave up three singles and a double, but when the Rays got to him for a Corey Dickerson homer and a Desmond Jennings single to start the ninth, Osuna was summoned to get his first save of the season.
Edwin Encarnacion, who didn’t appear in even one spring training game because of injuries, drove in Toronto’s first two runs with a first-inning single. He went two for four and also scored a run, crossing the plate when Troy Tulowitzki belted his first home run of the season in the top of the eighth to account for what turned out to be the winning runs.
It was a nice start for Tulowitzki’s first opener as a Blue Jay, but he was more interested in what Stroman adds to the mix.
“He brings energy,” Tulowitzki said. “He competes as well as anybody I’ve ever seen. He keeps me busy. It’s really fun. When Stro takes the mound, it’s different. He raises the bar and makes you want to match his energy. Just the swag that he has is second to none.”
In separate innings, Ryan Goins and Jose Bautista made errors that extended the Rays’ at-bat. Both times Stroman got the extra out without allowing a run.
“These guys are unbelievable,” Stroman said. “I know how many times they are going to pick me up over the course of the year. Any opportunity I get to pick them up, I have to do that. These guys are the best defence I’ve ever played behind.”
That attitude was duly noted by manager John Gibbons, who has seen many a pitcher react badly when a teammate muffs an easy play. “A lot of pitchers in this game, those kinds of things disrupt them,” Gibbons said. “They mope or they lose their focus. Not Stro.
“He thrives on that, but he focuses. A lot of high-energy guys can’t focus like that. What it comes down to is that he has a great feel for pitching. He can spin the ball as good as anybody, and that’s what makes him good.”
Stroman trailed Archer by a mile in strikeouts with only five, but he wore the Rays down with 15 ground-ball outs, relying largely on his nasty sinker to get the job done.
“That’s my new pitch,” he said. “If I’m throwing it where I want to, I’m getting weak contact and keeping the ball on the ground. That’s my pitch that I kind of feed off of and when that pitch is working, I feel like I’m able to incorporate other things that keep hitters off balance. It’s an early contact pitch. Today they were swinging early in the count and I was throwing it in a good spot.”
Archer, as good as he is, fell victim to Toronto’s grinding offence. The way they approached the first inning Sunday was textbook.
With one out in the top of the first, Josh Donaldson worked the count full, then got enough of an Archer slider to dump it into right field for a single. Bautista followed with a seven-pitch walk. After a wild pitch moved the runners up, Encarnacion stroked a 2-2 slider into the right-centre gap for a two-run single. Tulowitzki then walked before Archer rallied to strike out Chris Colabello and Michael Saunders.
But when the inning was over, Archer had thrown 34 pitches to get the first three outs, putting him on a path to an early exit. That in itself was every bit as valuable as that 2-0 lead.
“Our guys know how to work pitchers, and that plays a huge part in getting the starter out of the game and getting into that bullpen,” Stroman said. “Working counts like that early on and building Archer’s pitch count gave us success later in the game.
“Those guys at the top, (Kevin) Pillar, Donaldson right down to Tulo and Colabello and Saunders, every one of them is locked in. They have a plan and tonight it worked just the same way it worked so many times last year.”