MIAMI — As wild as it would’ve been to suggest only 12 weeks ago as spring training broke, Jose Berrios entered Monday’s start against the Miami Marlins as the Toronto Blue Jays’ most reliable source of length from its rotation.
He’d pitched into the sixth inning in each of his last 11 outings. He’d gone at least five innings in 13 of his 14 starts. Kevin Gausman’s done that 12 of his 15 times out; Chris Bassitt in 11 of 15.
But facing a plucky, contact-oriented Marlins team that’s been quietly piling up wins while playing one of MLB’s softest schedules, Berrios couldn’t make it 14 of 15. He bled base hits from the jump, got dragged deep into counts, and threw 30 pitches in two of his four innings as the Marlins wore on Berrios throughout his worst start in over two months and blitzed the Blue Jays 11-0.
After back-to-back games that saw Toronto’s starter depart in the fourth inning — one by design in Saturday’s bullpen game; the other by necessity as Bassitt struggled to contain hard contact Sunday — this was the last thing the Blue Jays needed. They’ve now essentially thrown three consecutive bullpen days, asking relievers and position players to record 40 of 72 outs over that span.
Here’s a sentence: Good thing the Blue Jays recalled Trent Thornton Monday as an insurance policy, optioning Bowden Francis to create a roster spot. He followed Berrios and threw 24 pitches over two clean innings, buying Blue Jays manager John Schneider some much-needed breathing room in the middle of Monday’s debacle.
But Schneider was still forced to use Nate Pearson on back-to-back days for only the third time this season — he threw 22 pitches while giving up three runs on Sunday — which did not go well. The Marlins shortened up and put wood on the big right-hander’s big velocity, fouling off seven upper-90’s-to-low-100’s fastballs while putting two others in play.
After allowing five of the six batters he faced to reach, Pearson gave way to Mitch White, who also worked the day prior, throwing 31 pitches. He surrendered Luis Arraez’s fifth single of the night — the contact king’s third five-hit performance of the season and second in three days raised his batting average to .400 — before allowing the rest of the runners Pearson left behind to score as the snowball barrelled downhill.
Utility infielder Ernie Clement took the mound in the eighth, chucking an inning of batting practice at 50-80 mph, and earned three outs on 18 pitches.
Yusei Kikuchi — effectively wild at the best of times — starts Tuesday, which is no given for a deep outing. The Blue Jays have been reticent to allow Kikuchi, who began the season as the club’s fifth starter, to journey too far into a third trip through the order, routinely pulling him after five innings even with pitch counts in the 80’s.
But given how things have gone lately — plus the looming reality of a 12:10 p.m. ET start Wednesday — Schneider may not enjoy that luxury if Kikuchi is anything close to pitch efficient.
Rolling a four-man rotation and routinely sending pitching coach Pete Walker to the bullpen phone early in games, Schneider’s in-game decision-making over the last week has been less about putting pitchers in optimal matchups and more about deciphering who can get his team its requisite 27 — often 24 on this losing road trip — outs.
Berrios was able to contain the Marlins attack early Monday, casually working his way out of a two-on, none-out jam in the first and stranding a one-out double in the second. But after Arraez led off the third with a single, as he does, Jorge Soler punished a 2-0 Berrios breaking ball 411-feet over the left-centre field wall for a two-run shot.
And the loud contact didn’t end there, as it took a tremendous diving effort by Kevin Kiermaier to rob Bryan De La Cruz of a hit in right-centre before Jesus Sanchez rocketed a full-count slurve to the base of the left field wall for a double. Sanchez ultimately scored on a Garrett Cooper single to shallow left-centre.
After a mound visit from Walker, Berrios got himself out of it with a pair of strikeouts. But not before throwing 34 pitches in the inning. Considering his ballooning pitch count, Berrios beginning the fourth by loading the bases with a walk, hit batter, and Arraez’s third single of the night — also his 100th hit of the season in only his 67th game — was less than ideal.
And so, Thornton began to warm in the Blue Jays bullpen as the runs began to cross home plate. The first on a sacrifice fly; the next on a groundout to first. By the time he got out of it, Berrios had thrown 100 pitches and allowed five runs on eight hits. Which is where his night ended as the Blue Jays got less than five innings from a starter for the fourth time in five games.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays offence couldn’t sustain any of the momentum it generated Sunday during a mini, six-run breakout in Texas. Toronto hitters went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and squandered what few opportunities they generated, scoring fewer than four runs for the fifth time in six games. It was Toronto’s first shutout of the season.
Danny Jansen led off the third with an opposite field double off the end of his bat and advanced on a Cavan Biggio grounder to the right side. But neither Kiermaier (soft groundout) nor George Springer (strikeout chasing a slider) could cash him.
Similar refrain in the fourth, as Daulton Varsho and Bo Bichette singles put runners on first and second with none out for Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who promptly grounded into a double play on the first pitch he saw.
Spencer Horwitz — elevated to the five hole in only his second MLB game as the club sought to space out its left-handed hitters and optimize matchups on a Marlins bullpen day — worked a long plate appearance with Varsho on third, but went down looking at a called third strike at the letters.
Base hits by Kiermaier, Horwitz, Springer, and Bichette were stranded in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, respectively.
