TORONTO – Doubleheaders are a grind, especially amid an extended stretch of games like the one the Toronto Blue Jays are working through right now. That’s what made the COVID-19-related introduction of seven-inning twin-bills appreciated Thursday.
“I’ll tell you right now that the guys came to the yard a lot happier remembering that,” centre-fielder Randal Grichuk said before a 3-2 walk-off win over the Philadelphia Phillies in the opener. “Knowing we have 28 games in 27 days, knowing it’s seven and not nine is definitely a lot easier on the body. We understand, but it does feel weird, right? Major League Baseball is nine innings going back forever. It definitely doesn’t feel right but our bodies appreciate it, that’s for sure.”
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s base hit chopping over third baseman Alec Bohm in the seventh gave them all the more reason to appreciate things. His bouncer over a drawn-in infield completed a comeback from a 2-0 deficit and brought them to .500 at 11-11.
Still, covering 14 innings rather than 18 was going to be a challenge for a Blue Jays team that’s really ridden its oft-used bullpen hard. Chase Anderson took another step in his buildup after starting the season on the injured list with 78 pitches over 3.2 innings, but with uncertainty about what Trent Thornton, himself coming off the IL, can deliver in the back end, every inning mattered.
Julian Merryweather, with 1.1 crisp innings in his big-league debut, and Wilmer Font, with a clean sixth, kept things on lockdown as the Blue Jays erased a 2-0 deficit on a Santiago Espinal sacrifice fly in the fourth and Cavan Biggio’s two-out RBI double in the sixth.
The Blue Jays were set up well for leverage from there, with Canadian Jordan Romano striking out the side in the top half of the seventh, and the heart of the order up in the bottom.
Facing Deolis Guerra in the bottom half, Teoscar Hernandez singled with one out and then narrowly took third when Quinn bobbled Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s bloop to centre before Gurriel won it.
Merryweather, the return from Cleveland in the Josh Donaldson trade two years ago, is an intriguing piece for the Blue Jays, among their bevy of young power arms bubbling up. Despite a lengthy return from Tommy John surgery, the team still saw him as a starter, although an oblique injury at summer camp may have cut him off from that this year.
Given that he’s pitched a total of 12 competitive innings since logging 128.2 frames between double-A Akron and triple-A Columbus in 2017, it’s going to be difficult for him to make that leap now.
“The thing that’s working against him mostly is just workload and then this year just magnified that,” said GM Ross Atkins. “The odds of him starting for us this year are slim. But we’ll see how this year goes before we ultimately decide that.”
Anderson allowed a solo shot to Bryce Harper in the first inning and then surrendered an RBI single to Andrew McCutchen in the third, cashing in Roman Quinn, who singled and stole second beforehand.
The right-hander struck out three in his longest outing thus far, allowing four hits and a walk.
