MIAMI — Coming off a three-game losing streak in which Toronto Blue Jays relievers — and utility infielder slash knuckleballer Ernie Clement — were asked to record 40 of the team’s 72 outs, there was a certain degree of pressure on Yusei Kikuchi to give his team some innings and pitch deep into a ballgame Tuesday.
One problem: the Blue Jays don’t often trust him to do that. Kikuchi had been lifted after five innings or less in 11 of his 14 starts entering Tuesday. And in seven of them, he’d yet to throw 90 pitches. The Blue Jays had allowed Kikuchi to pitch past the second hitter of his third trip through the order only twice. They’d shown you pretty plainly how they feel Kikuchi is best deployed.
And even on a night when the Blue Jays needed innings and Kikuchi was borderline brilliant, the club stuck to its process. After he’d allowed only a pair of singles over six scoreless innings, striking out six and walking none, Toronto’s coaching staff cashed out while they were ahead, removing Kikuchi one batter into his third trip through the lineup at 87 pitches.
That says something about how committed the Blue Jays are to their process in spite of unsatisfying results over the last 12 days and, some could argue, the season as a whole. The ultimate outcome, a much-needed 2-0 victory over the Miami Marlins, says something else about the club’s continued difficulties generating runs.
The Blue Jays entered Tuesday’s game having been held to three runs or fewer 16 times in their last 25 games, good for a 3.68 runs-per-game average that ranked fourth-last in the majors. And the only teams scoring fewer runs per game than the Blue Jays — Kansas City (3.5), St. Louis (3.43), and Oakland (3.42) — aren’t exactly clubs you want to be mentioned in the same breath as.
Tuesday was a similar refrain, as the Blue Jays struggled to get anything going against Marlins rookie Eury Perez and blew a pair of opportunities with runners in scoring position and less than two out.
Santiago Espinal and Clement finally broke through with some timely hitting from the bottom of the order in the eighth, before George Springer ran into a bit of luck with a broken-bat single to help produce Toronto’s fourth multi-run inning in its last seven games.
All of that is why it took some tense bullpen’ing to get things to the finish line, as Yimi Garcia worked around loud contact in the seventh, Tim Mayza bailed Erik Swanson out of a runners-on-the-corners-with-one-out jam in the eighth thanks to a timely double play ball, and Jordan Romano relied on a pair of fine Daulton Varsho catches on rockets to the centre field in earning his 21st save of the season.
But it started with Kikuchi, who lived in the zone with a fastball ranging from 94-97 m.p.h. that he earned nine called strikes with and used to finish three of his half-dozen strikeouts. While leaning on his heater, the left-hander located his slider in the zone 70 per cent of the time and used his slower curveball to steal a few early strikes and generate a pair of softly-struck balls in play.
Facing a lineup stacked with eight righties behind a guy hitting .400, Kikuchi threw 17 pitches in a clean first and 15 in an untroubled second. Kevin Kiermaier took a hit away from Nick Fortes at the wall to begin the third, before Kikuchi struck out the final hitters of the frame, hopping back from his high-kick follow-through toward his dugout for emphasis.
MLB’s hits leader Luis Arraez led off the fourth with lunch pail in hand, fouling off three well-located two-strike pitches before fileting a 97-m.p.h. Kikuchi heater up the left field line for a single on the eighth pitch of his at-bat. But Kikuchi bounced back well, getting Jorge Soler to ground into a double play and Bryan De La Cruz to bounce out to short.
And after briskly retiring the side on only 13 pitches in the fifth, Kikuchi came sprinting back out for the bottom of the sixth, taking the mound before many Marlins defenders had gotten anywhere near their dugout. He’ll do that, to be fair. But this time he looked like a guy who didn’t want to give his coaches a second opportunity to pull him back.
Naturally, Kikuchi allowed a leadoff single on the third pitch he threw. But after the runner was moved to second with a sacrifice bunt, Kikuchi left him right there, getting Garrett Hampson to fly out before doing the near-impossible and retiring Arraez on a groundball to second.
Kikuchi’s night ended right there, the six innings without a run or walk allowed representing his finest start in the 35 he’s made since joining the Blue Jays. But he didn’t factor into the decision as Toronto’s offence was completely overwhelmed by Perez.
Perez is a problem, commanding the top of the strike zone with one of MLB’s highest-spinning fastballs at 97-m.p.h. from a six-foot-eight frame that he leverages to get exceptional extension down the mound. He lands both his 87-m.p.h. slider and spike curveball for strikes, while keeping a changeup in his back pocket that he’ll sink and fade away from left-handed hitters.
Entering Tuesday’s outing, Perez held MLB’s lowest opposition batting average on non-fastballs at .103. He’d allowed only seven hits combined off his slider, curveball, and changeup — a triple, two doubles, and four singles. Dude’s nasty.
And he was showing it off his first trip through, striking out five around Matt Chapman’s second-inning single and three outs on softly-hit balls in play. Bo Bichette took an 0-2 slider off his shoelaces into right field with one out in the fourth, because those are the kinds of things he does. But Perez promptly got Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to ground into a 4-3 double play with a 98-m.p.h. heater on the hands four pitches later.
Perez didn’t allow a runner to reach scoring position until his fifth inning, when Chapman clapped a fastball into the right-centre field gap for a double and took third as Hampson bobbled the ball in centre. But — and stop us if you’ve heard this one before — the Blue Jays couldn’t cash him.
Danny Jansen struck out on three pitches before Spencer Horwitz grounded out on four, making it the 76th time in 145 opportunities this season that the Blue Jays have failed to score a runner on third with less than two out. The club’s 47.6 per cent success rate in those situations ranks 20th across the majors.
And that wasn’t all. The Blue Jays blew another opportunity in the seventh, when Guerrero shot a one-out double into the right-centre field gap off Marlins reliever Dylan Floro, recording his first extra-base hit in two weeks. Guerrero moved no further, as Varsho followed with a four-pitch strikeout before Chapman went down on five.
But finally, at long last, a flicker of offensive light in the eighth. Espinal, pinch-hitting for Horwitz, drove the first pitch he saw from Marlins left-hander Tanner Scott sharply up the left field line for a double before Clement, pinch-hitting for Kiermaier and making his fourth plate appearance of the month, flared one into shallow centre for an RBI single.
Clement keenly reached second on a throw home by Hampson in a bid to nab Espinal, which put him in position to make another heady base-running read and score a — gasp — second run of the inning as Springer lifted a broken-bat single off Scott into left.
