TORONTO — A weekend without Jordan Romano was far from an ideal scenario coming out of the all-star break for the Toronto Blue Jays. The left-lower-back tightness that cut short his inning at the Midsummer Classic is “way better,” said the Canadian closer, but it lingered enough to shelve him throughout a weekend sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
All weekend, “we were weighing, is it smart to maybe pitch through it and maybe have a setback or what’s the best action?” Romano said before a 7-5 win Sunday, in which Danny Jansen’s three-run double in the eighth opened up a tight game, although Mitch White’s messy ninth still forced Erik Swanson in to close out the contest. “Maybe just take a couple of days and then we’re good to go for the rest of the year. And it’s pretty much based on how I’m feeling day-to-day.”
The club’s hope is that Monday’s day off will essentially make it a week of recovery, and Romano will be ready for Tuesday’s series opener against the San Diego Padres. The last couple of days “have been trending upward,” he said, “so I’m pretty happy with the progress and today was the best day so far.”
Making the downtime less painful for Romano and the Blue Jays is the way his fellow leverage relievers — in particular Yimi Garcia, who saved Saturday’s 5-2 win and rolled through the heart of the Arizona order to preserve a 3-2 lead in the eighth Sunday, and Swanson — got key outs when needed.
A goal for the Blue Jays is to have enough leverage depth to cover in tight spots when the primary options are at risk of overwork.
They managed this weekend as Nate Pearson pitched both Friday and Saturday, Swanson got three key outs in the eighth Saturday and took over when White left two on with two out in the ninth Sunday, Tim Mayza got Corbin Carroll to end the sixth in the finale, Trevor Richards logged 1.2 innings Friday and another Sunday, while Jay Jackson mopped up in Friday’s 7-2 win and threw a pivotal bridge inning in relief of Yusei Kikuchi, beginning with the final out of the fifth. But Romano’s absence was felt, forcing relievers into higher leverage points and thinning manager John Schneider’s options.
The offence padded things out in all three games, a five-spot in the seventh inning Friday breaking open a 2-2 contest, two runs in the eighth Saturday fleshing out a one-run lead and Jansen’s blow, plus Daulton Varsho’s RBI single in the eighth Sunday, before a Rogers Centre crowd of 41,794, coming in handy during the ninth.
Kikuchi, who lasted 4.2 innings, gifted the Diamondbacks a pair of runs early, one on an errant pickoff throw in the first and another on a wild pitch in the second, but the Blue Jays dug out of that on Santiago Espinal’s RBI double and Kevin Kiermaier’s run-scoring single.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s sacrifice fly in the fifth made it 3-2.
