TORONTO — Bullpen days are what they are – a last resort that’s great when it works, awful when it doesn’t, and it sure was awful Friday night when the Toronto Blue Jays ran through seven pitchers during a 7-1 drubbing from the Chicago White Sox.
Spencer Turnbull, starting for the first time, provided only two frames while digging his team an early hole. Mason Fluharty, taking over in the third with a runner aboard and a 3-0 deficit already on the board, grinded through a 35-pitch inning that both allowed the game to unravel and will take him out of the mix for the rest of the weekend. Every reliever save for Paxton Schultz, who logged 2.2 innings of mop-up duty Thursday, and Yariel Rodriguez, was pressed into duty, making a deep Jose Berrios start Saturday essential.
Add in only seven hits – three by Bo Bichette – and a first-pitch double-play ball by Tyler Heineman the one time they threatened a big rally, loading the bases with one out in the fifth, all against a team that had lost eight straight, and it was a good outing to immediately flush.
That being said, some bigger through lines passing through an otherwise forgettable night remain, primarily, how the Blue Jays intend to piece together their rotation, and what exactly they have in Turnbull.
On the first front, this game reinforced the notion that the Blue Jays should simply let Eric Lauer, a crucial stabilizer for them, continue to start in one of the club’s uncertain rotation slots, while awaiting for Max Scherzer, tentatively set to start Tuesday at Cleveland, to take hold at the other.
-
-
MLB on Sportsnet
Watch the Toronto Blue Jays, Blue Jays Central pre-game, marquee MLB matchups, Jays in 30, original documentaries, the wild card, divisional series, championship series and entire World Series on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.
Scherzer is scheduled to throw a side Saturday and a final determination on that outing versus the Guardians is expected Sunday. While one possibility is that Lauer starts on turn Tuesday with Scherzer pushed to Thursday, as the Blue Jays want to keep Kevin Gausman between those two spots, one way or another, some clarity on Scherzer’s viability as a starter appears to be coming soon.
As that plays out on one thread, Turnbull looms on another.
The 32-year-old signed May 5, and the Blue Jays planned to build him up into a starter within a 35-day option period included in his contract, but the process went slower than expected, the length hasn’t been there and his stuff has been down to boot.
Against the White Sox, his fastball averaged 90.3 m.p.h. and topped out at 91.3, while the hardest pitch he threw was a sinker at 92.3.
Andrew Benintendi opened the scoring in the first by sending an 89.4 m.p.h. four-seamer over the wall in right. While in a messy second – partly fuelled by Lenyn Sosa’s one-out triple that had a 90 per cent catch probability but clanked off Jonatan Clase’s glove in centre – an inability to close out the inning led to two-out RBI singles from Austin Slater and Benintendi.
The damage might have been worse, too, had Addison Barger not thrown out Jose Rojas at home to end the frame.
The Blue Jays already in a hole, manager John Schneider shortened the leash in the third, pulling Turnbull after a leadoff walk to Miguel Vargas, even though the right-hander was only at 45 pitches.
That didn’t matter in the end as Fluharty surrendered a 441-foot, two-run homer to Luis Robert Jr. and a two-run double to Josh Rojas later in an inning that unravelled.
The game did as well, an unusual outcome for the Blue Jays on the bullpen days they’ve been running regularly since Scherzer hit the injured list on the season’s opening weekend.
Before this outing, Schneider said the primary challenge of carrying an open spot in the rotation “is holding guys out certain days before to kind of cover innings that you may need to and really just trying to find the sweet spot of pitches and spots to bring guys in based on the score.”
“We’ve done a good job of scoring in those games,” he added. “I feel like scoring is always important, it gives the leash a little bit more length for each guy. But it’s the days before and after that get a little tricky.”
Sometimes the day of does, too.
