PHOENIX – Small-sample sizes can get weird, especially early in a new season, which is why Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider doesn’t look at his hitters’ individual numbers out of the gate. Instead, he focuses on a pair of underlying measures, their pitch selection and quality of contact, to assess their early performance.
“We’ve run into some games, even going back to Chicago (two weeks ago), where there were a lot of hard-hit balls, some at people, some not, and you’ve got to just stick with that,” said Schneider. “You can’t direct it once it leaves your bat, but you can definitely dictate what you swing at and how you swing at it. That’s what we’re looking at.”
That’s also what the Blue Jays preached all weekend in Phoenix, with some payoff at long last arriving Sunday when an eight-run first – highlighted by bases-loaded doubles from Kazuma Okamoto that plated two runs and Nathan Lukes that scored three – propelled them to a 10-4 beatdown of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The long-awaited outburst was unlike any other so far this year, as they opened the game with seven straight hits followed by a Myles Straw walk, and collected their first two extra-base hits with the bases loaded in their most productive inning so far, surpassing a five-run fourth versus Minnesota on April 10.
They’d scored only seven runs in their previous four games, all losses, which put undue pressure on other parts of their game, which have endured other issues. Debate over Jeff Hoffman’s role resurfaced Saturday when he gave up a decisive eighth-inning grand slam to Corbin Carroll, but the bullpen has pitched with precious little margin for error all season long, while a rotation thrown into flux when Cody Ponce blew out his knee in the fourth game of the season has stabilized.
On this current road trip, which continues Monday against the Los Angeles Angels, each starter has thrown at least five innings, including six innings Sunday from Kevin Gausman, finally able to pitch with some run-support.
Getting some offence from their depleted lineup has been the missing piece and it finally arrived in the desert finale, the Blue Jays at long last finding a way to “take it to some teams and find a way to punch through, as Max Scherzer urged Saturday.
They ambushed Ryne Nelson immediately, with Nathan Lukes, continuing to overcome his vertigo issues, dropping the first of his three hits. Ernie Clement followed with a double before Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s RBI single opened the scoring. Jesus Sanchez and Eloy Jimenez followed with run-scoring singles before Okamoto smashed a double to the wall in left to make it 5-0.
The Blue Jays, who had been 1-for-20 with the bases loaded entering the game, then filled them again for Lukes, who crushed a double that pushed the lead to 8-0.
Okamoto, seemingly emerging from an extended dry-spell, hit his third homer of the season in the third inning while an Andres Gimenez sacrifice fly in the fourth allowed the Blue Jays to match their season high for runs.
Signs such production might be coming began to show Saturday, when they collected 12 hits, but were undone by a 2-for-9 showing with runners in scoring position.
That gave Gausman a rare low-stress outing, and he weaved through his six innings of two-run ball on seven hits and a walk with four strikeouts on an afternoon when his velocity was down around two m.p.h. across the board.
