BALTIMORE — Perhaps you suspected Tuesday’s home plate umpire — Jeff Nelson — would chart a character arc in the game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles.
You may remember him from such films as the late-April Blue Jays loss to the Oakland Athletics, when he oversaw one of the five worst strike zones in the over 2,000 MLB games played this season — and one that significantly favoured Oakland — as judged by Umpire Scorecards.
And from Monday afternoon, when he ruled Kevin Gausman balked upon delivering his very first pitch with a runner on base. Gausman was incensed; a commotion ensued. There was little perceptibly different about Gausman’s delivery a pitch later with the runner on second, which wasn’t ruled a balk. In the words of the Blue Jays starter, “it felt premeditated.”
Cut to the top of Tuesday’s seventh inning and Nelson was letting the Blue Jays dugout have it, saying, “I’m not listening to it, all right? And I heard you — and that’s it.”
Two batters later, the benches cleared.
It’s tough to say exactly what instigated that hostility. It could have been Teoscar Hernandez taking his time walking off the field after grounding into a double play on a full-count Bryan Baker pitch moments earlier. It could have been something the Blue Jays dugout said to Baker — who spent a week on Toronto’s roster last September — during his ensuing strikeout of Matt Chapman. It could have been the motion Baker made towards his former teammates as he walked off the mound:
Whatever it was, it set the Blue Jays off. And as Nelson issued warnings to Yimi Garcia and each dugout prior to the bottom of the seventh, Schneider took the field for a word with him. It wasn’t his last.
Seven pitches later, as a Garcia slider near the bottom of the zone was ruled a ball, Nelson heard something form the Blue Jays dugout he didn’t like and ejected Schneider from the game. Which instigated the most heated moment we’ve seen from the Blue Jays interim manager since he took the job eight weeks ago:
Schneider got his money’s worth. Nelson stood there and took it. And a series between two American League East rivals battling for a wild card spot delivered the fireworks everyone was expecting when it began.
The Blue Jays ultimately lost the game, 9-6, despite out-hitting the Orioles, 13-9. Bo Bichette stayed surface-level-of-the-sun hot, going 4-for-5 with a double and a homer, giving him hits in 16 of 28 plate appearances this month. Alejandro Kirk had four hits himself, while George Springer and Matt Chapman had two apiece.
But Mitch White pitched his worst outing since being acquired at the trade deadline, getting only seven outs while coughing up five runs on three hits and three walks. Orioles starter Kyle Bradish wasn’t much better, allowing three runs over his three innings. But his bullpen kept Toronto’s offence contained, while Orioles hitters piled on against Toronto’s, particularly Trevor Richards, who gave up three runs in the bottom of the eighth.
White’s trouble came in his third inning, which began with a seven-pitch walk of the No. 8 hitter, followed by a five-pitch walk of No. 9. He fell behind the next batter, fought his way back to two strikes, then plunked him, loading the bases with none out.
It’s not what you want. Neither is the 1-1 back-up slider White threw three pitches later, which Adley Rutschman rifled up the third base line to plate two of those runners. Nor the nine-pitch battle White found himself in with the next man up, Anthony Santander.
White eventually got Santander to make an out. But then Ryan Mountcastle laced a 106.5-m.p.h. single through a drawn-in infield. Anfter a four-pitch walk of Ramon Urias, White’s evening was done. He ultimately threw 36 pitches in that third inning, giving up five runs while retiring only two.
White biggest issue was an inability to generate swing-and-miss. He earned only one whiff on 63 pitches, a season-low, and the third time in his six starts with Toronto he’s generated fewer than seven.
White’s slider has been a reliable bat-missing weapon for him over the course of his career and as recently as last Wednesday, when he earned nine swinging strikes with it against the Chicago Cubs. But he threw the pitch 16 times Tuesday and missed only that lone bat, as Orioles hitters either laid off the pitch (10 times), fouled it off (three times), or put it in play (two times).
The right-hander’s sequencing and location likely had something to do with that, as far too many of his sliders were thrown early in counts and landed too far off the plate. Meanwhile, his control fluctuated throughout his start — particularly against the five Orioles batting left-handed — as he missed either well off the plate or right over the heart of it.
White’s best pitch on the night was his four-seam fastball glove-side to right-handed hitters, which he landed for five called strikes, including one that rung up Mountcastle in the second inning. But that was about all White had working Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Toronto’s offence had its chances but went 4-for-16 with runners in scoring position, stranding eight. The most critical missed opportunity came in the fourth, when Cavan Biggio drew a lead-off walk against Bradish and advanced to third on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. single.
That’s the same place Biggio finished the inning, as Whit Merrifield flew out at a depth too shallow for him to score, George Springer struck out looking at a 1-2 pitch at the knees, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounded out on an elevated slider.
Situations like those, in which the Blue Jays strand a runner at third with less than two outs, are all too familiar. Entering Tuesday’s play, Toronto hitters had made plate appearances with less than two out and a runner on third 231 times this season and cashed that run in only 114 of them — a 49.4-per-cent rate. That ranked 22nd among the 30 MLB teams and only a tenth of a percentage point ahead of the 23rd place Atlanta Braves.
