HOUSTON — Moments after Bowden Francis threw his first pitch as a big-league starting pitcher, left fielder Daulton Varsho was scrambling to retrieve it from the grass at Minute Maid Park. Two batters later, Houston Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker had homered to the opposite field. And before the inning ended, Astros catcher Yainer Diaz had added a home run of his own.
Once Jeremy Pena added a third home run in the bottom of the second, it was clear Monday wouldn’t go the way Francis or the Toronto Blue Jays had planned. As it turned out, pitching wasn’t their only problem as 30-year-old right-hander Ronel Blanco no-hit the Blue Jays with a dominant pitching performance on the way to a 10-0 Astros win.
Credit Blanco for his performance, but the loss doesn’t reflect well on a Blue Jays offence that’s still trying to find its way. Bo Bichette (neck spasms) was out of the starting lineup as the Blue Jays were held without a hit for the first time since last July in Detroit.
As for the Blue Jays’ pitching, it’s a results business. Francis is here to help now, not just to learn on the job in the hopes that lessons learned now will pay off later. So with that in mind to allow seven runs on nine hits just isn’t good enough, even for a No. 5 starter.
It got worse once Francis left, as Genesis Cabrera walked Yordan Alvarez to begin the bottom of the seventh then allowed home runs to Tucker and Diaz moments later. Considering Cabrera’s on this team specifically to retire left-handed hitters like Alvarez and Tucker, his performance was a lowlight, and that’s saying something considering how poorly the series opener went for the Blue Jays.
Cabrera appealed his three-game suspension Monday afternoon, with a verdict from MLB possible as soon as Tuesday. But where Cabrera’s performance was entirely without positives, it’s worth considering the full picture with Francis. Nothing changes the fundamental facts of Monday’s game, but there was plenty of nuance to be found in the right-hander’s season debut.
First, Francis consistently challenged the Astros. Of his 79 pitches, 61 were strikes. Of the 26 hitters he faced, just one walked. That conviction in his pitches is something Francis can work with ahead of his next start, Sunday in New York.
That aggressive approach also allowed the 27-year-old to pitch relatively deep into the game, as he completed 5.1 innings in his first game action in 12 days.
And even from a stuff standpoint, Francis had some flashes of excellence with a fastball that topped out at 96.1 m.p.h. and a slow curveball that induced some off-balance swings from Houston’s hitters, especially Alex Bregman, who whiffed on it three times.
Now, those two pitches accounted for 62 of the 79 pitches Francis threw, which may have allowed Houston’s hitters to get a little too comfortable. That’s where his slider and splitter are so important, but he has to execute those pitches for them to work. The middle-middle slider he hung to Pena will not be enough.
All told, then, there were a few positives on a night very little went the Blue Jays’ way, but ultimately that’s little consolation on a night the Blue Jays lost 10-0.
It’s too early in the season to see where this leads for Francis, but one way or another the Blue Jays need contributions from emerging young starters as well as their veterans. Last year, Toronto was the only team without at least one start by a rookie pitcher, and their last rookie pitcher to make a significant contribution was Alek Manoah (2021), who’s slated to pitch a three-inning simulated game Tuesday with Danny Jansen catching.
By contrast, the Astros have had a pipeline of rookie pitchers join their rotation from Framber Valdez (2019) and Cristian Javier (2020) to Luis Garcia (2021) and Hunter Brown (2023). It’s an impressive group that’s allowed the Astros to sustain success despite many free-agent departures.
