TORONTO – Props to the Toronto Blue Jays’ starting staff, and not just for serving as a stability post for a team still trying to find itself.
Pitching in a four-man rotation, as they have over the past three weeks and will continue to do indefinitely moving forward until Alek Manoah gets right, is a grind. Already they’ve sacrificed the benefits of bonus recovery time offered by a pair of recent off-days, with another pair going by the wayside the next two Mondays. Insufficient organizational depth forced them into this spot. Low-key, it’s turned into a real substantial ask.
In the short-term, the Blue Jays are surviving it. Meriting some debate is whether Chris Bassitt’s struggles over his past three starts, or a slight dip in Jose Berrios’ velocity during his past two outings, including Saturday’s 7-3 win over the Oakland Athletics, is tied to the heavier workload.
Consider that Berrios and Bassitt have both made six of their past eight starts on four days of rest, Yusei Kikuchi will match them when he starts Sunday’s series finale while for Kevin Gausman the number is six of seven without the benefit of extra rest.
That’s already a lot of extra work with more to come ahead of the most difficult portions of the season. Reading too much into minor outing-to-outing variances in velocity is never a good idea but Berrios sat at 93 mph with his sinker while giving up five runs in four innings at Miami on Monday while he was down to 92.7 mph over his six innings against the Athletics, even further away from his average of 93.5 mph.
To that end, Berrios was more good than great against a lineup stacked with six lefties, allowing three runs, two earned, on six hits and two walks. While he struck out eight before a Rogers Centre crowd of 41,720, he also allowed seven hard-hit balls to a lineup that’s produced the lowest slugging percentage in the majors.
His changeup was his main weapon Saturday, thrown 33 times in 96 pitches and generating six whiffs in 16 swings, his sinker didn’t get one swing and miss and each of his offerings was put into play at 101 mph or harder.
Berrios still found ways to avoid major damage – Seth Brown opened the second with a solo shot, Ryan Noda doubled home a run in the third and Tyler Wade added an RBI single in the sixth after a Bo Bichette error extended the inning – which Bassitt hasn’t managed of late.
He’s allowed 17 runs, 15 earned, in 11.2 innings over his last three starts and when asked if the four-man rotation was a factor, manager John Schneider said, “at this point I don’t think it’s really catching up to him. I think it’s just been a couple of starts where he’s been scuffling against a lot of left-handed hitting lineups.”
Still, extra rest is “always beneficial,” he added. “I know numbers kind of back that up when guys get extra days rest. Definitely something we’re talking about and trying to see what the benefits are, both short and long term.”
Big days from the offence certainly provide a benefit, the way they did Saturday when the Blue Jays eked out a pair of runs in the first off opener Shintaro Fujinami, who averaged 100.3 mph on his fastball, and then answered each Athletics run with some of their own.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the second to make it a 3-1 game, Danny Jansen hit a two-run shot in the third to make it 5-2 and Guerrero went deep for the second straight home game in the sixth, a two-run drive that made it 7-3.
Guerrero homered in consecutive games for the third time this season and first since May 3-4 at Boston.
The offence made it a comfortable victory on the scoreboard, even if it didn’t feel quite as one-sided while the contest played out.
One blip for the Blue Jays came in the ninth when Yimi Garcia, on to mop things up, left the mound after inducing a Tony Kemp pop up for the second out. Schneider came out with head trainer Jose Ministral and after a brief conversation, Jordan Romano was called in to close things out.
