TORONTO – There was less pomp and circumstance at Rogers Centre on Wednesday evening.
Yes, the roof was open and Hall-of-Famer Pedro Martinez threw the ceremonial first pitch to godson Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on the latter’s bobblehead day. However, as is always the case in the second home game of the season, this had more of a normal baseball feel than the home opener.
In a way, then, it was emblematic that right-hander Kevin Gausman was on the mound for the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s been a consistent presence in the rotation since he signed with the club and that’s certainly continued to be the case this season.
The Blue Jays’ starting staff has been shaky the first few turns through the rotation. Outside of Gausman, the four other Blue Jays starters — Alek Manoah, Chris Bassitt, Jose Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi — have combined to post a 7.95 ERA across 43 innings. The right-hander has been that guy for the Blue Jays this season.
“He’s just been steady,” said outfielder George Springer, whose walk-off single in the 10th inning lifted the Blue Jays to a 4-3 win over the Detroit Tigers.
“He understands who he is.”
Gausman entered Wednesday having allowed no earned runs over his first two starts and extended the streak to 15.1 innings — a new Blue Jays’ franchise record — before Nick Maton’s solo home run to straightaway centre in the fourth inning. In the seventh frame, Kerry Carpenter smashed a two-run homer to right-centre field to break a tie and give the Tigers a 3-2 lead.
However, that represented the only damage against the right-hander. He allowed three runs on five hits over eight innings, striking out 11 and walking none.
“I can’t say enough about Kevin tonight,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “He was nasty…The couple of bad pitches that he didn’t make got hit out. [But] it’s just onto the next thing. You trust that dude in any situation and you know he’s not going to get rattled.”
“Tonight was a perfect example of him just bearing down pitch by pitch.”
Gausman allowed three runs on five hits over eight innings, striking out 11 and walking none.
It was a classic Gausman game, of sorts, in that he relied on fastballs up in the zone and devastating splitters down. His fastball topped out at 97.6 mph and averaged 95, while his trademark splitter was devasting, generating 14 whiffs.
“Today was definitely the best it felt [this season],” Gausman said. “I just felt like I could throw it down and away when I needed to and down and in where I needed to on righties. When I have a good feel for that, it makes things a lot easier for sure.”
He was helped by strong defence from the likes of Bo Bichette, Whit Merrifield and Santiago Espinal, who made a nice pick on Tigers third baseman Ryan Kreidler‘s 97.1 m.p.h. grounder in the sixth inning. Later in the frame, Danny Jansen recorded the third out by throwing out Matt Vierling at second base.
Meanwhile, Blue Jays hitters couldn’t do much against Tigers left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez and when they did manage to gather some momentum, it was halted by baserunning miscues.
In the first inning, Matt Chapman lashed a ball to the right-centre field gap. Guerrero Jr. tried to score from first base on the play but was gunned out by a wide distance.
In the fourth inning, Guerrero Jr. was at the centre of another base-running play that could have been just as ugly. Merrifield smoked a ball to shortstop that was kept in the infield by a diving Javier Baez. Guerrero Jr. rounded third base and looked like he was going to be out by a mile once Baez delivered the throw home.
However, third base umpire Erich Bacchus ruled that Kreidler obstructed Guerrero Jr. as he rounded third, thus allowing him to score and tie the game at one.
In the sixth inning, Chapman recorded the third out when he tried to go from first to third on Daulton Varsho’s single to left field and was thrown out by Kerry Carpenter.
“There’s a time to force the issue a little bit and make things happen, but within that, you got to understand who may come in from the bullpen and what matchup we may have at the plate,” said Schneider. “So, yeah, maybe a little bit too aggressive at times. But I love the thought of it. I love the thought of guys trying to take the extra base.”
The sting of those mistakes were somewhat diminished in the ninth, though. Tigers reliever Trey Wingenter allowed a single to Guerrero Jr. and walked Chapman before hitting Daulton Varsho to load the bases. He was then replaced by left-hander Chasen Shreve, who surrendered back-to-back sacrifice flies to Merrifield and Alejandro Kirk that evened the game at three.
The small-ball approach was certainly different than the five-home-run barrage from the Blue Jays on Tuesday night. Springer said knowing that type of diversity resides within the club’s offensive portfolio can breed confidence.
“It’s huge to know that,” he said. “Obviously, the home runs are in there. It’s cool to hit a home run, but to manufacture runs … is huge for us. This is a hard league. So, the more you’re able to do that, the better.”
The Guerrero Jr. bobble head that was handed out to fans ahead of Wednesday’s contest celebrated his 2022 Gold Glove and features him doing the splits at first base. Fittingly, in the 10th inning, he almost re-enacted the pose.
With the go-ahead run on third base, Eric Haase grounded the ball to Bichette, who fielded the it and threw on the run. The errant toss nearly brought Guerrero Jr. off first base, but he managed to fully extend his arm and catch the ball before falling on his stomach. All while keeping his right foot barely in touch with the bag.
Guerrero Jr. let out a roar after the play, which nicely set up the bottom half of the inning and Springer’s walk-off single up the middle, which helped the Blue Jays nab their sixth comeback win of the season.
“It’s just such a good group of baseball guys,” said Gausman. “There’s a lot of guys who really enjoy getting dirty and being in those big situations and they kind of feed off of that.
“They never give up,” he continued. “As a pitching staff, we know we just got to kind of keep it going and eventually it’s going to turn around. You always feel like you have a chance to win every day.”
