TORONTO — So, how’d the opening weekend of the 2020 season go for the Toronto Blue Jays?
Well, they lost two of three games (both of which they led or had tied in the eighth inning), dropping a series to a team they nearly lapped in hits, 30-18. They ran out of leverage relievers on the second day of the season and blew two late leads on the third, losing a game in which they had a win expectancy of 98.5 per cent with two outs in the ninth inning.
They lost their closer, too, who at first tried to pitch through some very obvious discomfort — each well-below-standard-velocity fastball looking more painful and ending up further from the plate than the last — before mercifully being lifted from the game, going for an MRI, and ending up on the injured list with a foreboding and recurring elbow issue. Not to mention their centre fielder, who came out of the series finale with a back ailment.
The fanbase is, at best, growing wary of, and at worst, in open revolt against the manager. The best prospect the club has had in a generation is poorly conditioned, making defensive miscues while playing an unfamiliar position he was forced into partially due to said conditioning, and can’t stop hitting ground balls. The team’s starting shortstop, emerging clubhouse leader, and possibly best hitter, was a late scratch before Monday’s game with a hamstring issue.
Cool. Cool cool cool. So good to have baseball back. What happens now? Well, since the minor-league ballpark the club is using for most of its home schedule isn’t yet up to major-league standards, the Blue Jays play four straight in Washington against the defending World Series champions, before going to Philadelphia to take up residence in the same visitor’s clubhouse where the Miami Marlins just spent three days passing COVID-19 particles back and forth among each other.
Mind you, at the conclusion of their stay in Philadelphia, the Blue Jays will be only 10 games into the 16-game road trip they’re beginning the season on, and headed for Atlanta as they travel from hotspot to hotspot around the raging epicentre of a global pandemic, playing more than a quarter of their schedule before they even see a home ballpark that will feel like anything but home.
Ah, yes. Nevertheless. It’s not all bad news — the Blue Jays topped the Nationals on Monday night, 4-1, moving to .500 on the season. Solo shots came off the bats of Teoscar Hernandez, Rowdy Tellez, Danny Jansen and Hernandez again. More importantly, a couple of the club’s young pitchers showed up, as both Trent Thornton and Ryan Borucki came away with outings they can feel good about. And that continued a promising trend to start the season.
If there’s one thing about this team you can’t take contention with so far, it’s that the starting pitching has looked awfully serviceable. For the first time in a long time, the Blue Jays appear to have real, reliable rotation depth. And isn’t that an unusual thing to say about this club?
This is a team, you likely don’t need to be reminded, that used 21 starting pitchers last season and finished in the bottom-third of the league in rotation ERA, WAR, K/9, BB/9 and essentially any other pitching statistic that matters. It was rough. And the season prior wasn’t any better.
But the first four games of 2020 have been a considerable improvement. To be fair, Thornton skated out of his share of jams Monday. Approximately one per inning. A two-out single was stranded in the first. A walk and two more singles were stranded in the second, thanks in small part to some poor Nationals baserunning, and in large part to a Trea Turner rocket that travelled 382-feet directly into Hernandez’s glove.
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In the third, back-to-back singles were wiped out by a double play grounder and another laser off the bat of Asdrubal Cabrera that Lourdes Gurriell Jr. made a great diving play on in left. And the fourth began single, double, single, as the Nationals finally mustered a run, before another bit of ball-in-play luck led to a lineout double-play. Thornton’s night ended after the next batter, Adam Eaton, popped out at the end of a seven-pitch battle.
It was not an easy ride, as Thornton allowed eight hits and two walks over his four innings, needing 74 pitches to get 12 outs. But he minimized the damage, and isn’t that the point? Only one run crossed while he was on the mound, making the Blue Jays 4-for-4 when it comes to good starting pitching performances.
Hyun-Jin Ryu didn’t have his best fastball command in Toronto’s opener, but he was in complete control throughout his outing and flashed plenty of the pure stuff and pitchability that makes him the last arm in this rotation you worry about. Then Matt Shoemaker threw a gem the following night, allowing a run on three hits over six strong innings.
Thomas Hatch and Anthony Kay were next, combining for five innings of three-hit, one-run ball over a piggyback outing Sunday. Hatch in particular looked like a real find, all polish and composure on the mound while pumping 95-mph fastballs. Then Thornton kept his cool Monday, and showed progress over his rookie season in not letting things spiral when results didn’t go his way.
And don’t look now, but Borucki was stellar pitching in relief of Thornton. The oft-injured 26-year-old, who was stretched out as a starter during training camp, allowed a hit and a walk over 1 1/3 innings, featuring a sinker that averaged 94 mph and touched 95. He located his cutter for strikes as well, and rarely needed his changeup, which remains his best pitch.
All things considered, that’s a strong way for a rotation to start the season, particularly coming off an abbreviated training camp that threw into question just how prepared any of these arms were going to be. The Blue Jays can build on that, certainly, as starters continue to get extended and up their pitch counts. And Nate Pearson — one of the top pitching prospects in baseball — has yet to even make his debut.
That’s coming Wednesday, as the Blue Jays push Hyun-Jin Ryu back a day, which ought to be a benefit from a recovery standpoint. That could spell the end of Hatch’s time in the rotation, shifting him either to the team’s alternate training site or into a similar bulk relief role to the ones Kay and Borucki have been filling. But you know the Blue Jays will have to call on one, two or likely all three of that group to make starts somewhere down the line, the reliability of starting pitching being what it is.
So, amid all the legitimate cause for concern after this team’s rough season-opening weekend — and this league’s, for that matter — there is at least rotation depth to feel good about and even dream on. The Blue Jays have some real, promising, honest-to-goodness starting pitching. This being the season of the unusual across MLB, maybe that’s just par for the course.
