TORONTO – Three-quarters of the way through this arduous stretch of 28 games in 27 days, the grind can be as much mental as it is physical for the Toronto Blue Jays. Without a doubt the past three weeks have been taxing on the body, and it’s one reason why manager Charlie Montoyo has made a point to ensure his regulars get a break, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., sitting after playing in the season’s first 34 games, although he did take an at-bat as a pinch-hitter.
Still, there’s an attrition of the mind, too, labouring for three-plus hours day-in, day-out, especially when you factor in that Wednesday’s 2-1 win over the Miami Marlins was the Blue Jays’ major-league leading 17th one-run game of the season. Add in seven more two-run contests and it’s been nine innings of all-in engagement on the regular since opening day July 24.
“Every day I’m waiting for one of those games, that we can (exhale), we’ve got a whatever lead, but it is what it is,” Montoyo said beforehand. “The good thing about playing close games – we’ve got good pitching. I’ll take that any time.”
For sure, and he’ll also take the two-run shot by Lourdes Gurriel Jr., in the fifth inning off the fabulous Sixto Sanchez – whose pace on the mound should be emulated by every on-the-cusp pitching prospect – that provided the margin of victory behind another Hyun-Jin Ryu gem.
What he won’t like is something the Blue Jays addressed both during the game and after in their victory celebration, the return of their scourge – careless mistakes in the field and on the bases.
New addition Jonathan Villar was responsible for three of those, running into an out in the first trying to stretch a base hit, making a poor throw on a likely double-play grounder by Corey Dickerson in the second, and then getting picked off at third base by catcher Jorge Alfaro when Teoscar Hernandez took off to steal second, ending the fourth.
Alfaro also picked off Gurriel at first to end the second, and it goes without saying that it’s a bad idea to give free outs to Sanchez, who features upper-90’s heat and a dominant changeup. There was also a catchable popper to short right by Brian Anderson in the second that fell into a Bermuda Triangle of Blue Jays defenders for a base hit.
On the heels of Guerrero getting picked off at second base to undermine a promising inning in Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Marlins, and some poor execution in Monday’s 4-3, 11-inning loss to the Baltimore Orioles, the Blue Jays need to make sure bad habits from earlier this campaign aren’t resurfacing.
“When we sent Teoscar, we knew they weren’t going to throw through (to second). Knowing that, we still got picked off at third. Nobody was really happy about that,” Montoyo said of the Villar pickoff at third base. “The funny thing about it after the game, Caleb Joseph, after (naming) the three stars, made everyone apologize and say sorry, we’re not doing that anymore.”
The post-game discussions would have been far different had the Blue Jays lost, with the stakes now being what they are. At 19-16, they are in possession of a playoff spot and in control of their own destiny, but that can disappear if they fritter away games through carelessness.
“We’ve got to be more careful on our baserunning,” Gurriel said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “We made some mistakes but the good part of that is we’re aggressive, you always have to stay aggressive base-running. We’ve just got to be careful and in the end, everything turned out good and we came up with the win.”
In Villar’s case, high-risk play is part of what you sign up for with him. Consider this tweet from MLB Network contributor Craig Mish shortly after the Marlins and Blue Jays completed their swap Monday.
Marlins felt Villar is still an extremely talented player but played reckless at times, and never fully bought in to what they are trying to do. In essence, not a fit in Miami from their perspective.
— Craig Mish (@CraigMish) August 31, 2020
Reckless is a word that came to mind often when the Blue Jays stumbled to a 7-11 start, leaving easily five or six wins on the table. Then they started hitting homers and lot of that got cleaned up, but when the barrage of dingers slows, that’s when games can be lost in the margins.
Ryu, who allowed only one run over six outstanding innings, delivered a pivotal escape act in the second, when Anderson’s ball dropped and Villar’s error left men on first and second with none out. Instead, he induced a groundout from Lewis Brinson before striking out both Alfaro and Jazz Chisholm to keep things at 0-0, when the 2019 run expectancy for that scenario is 1.53.
“I don’t really have a problem with players trying to make plays and making mistakes resulting in errors, whether it’s base-running or fielding behind me. As a starting pitcher I’m more focused on putting up zeroes so we still have a chance to win,” Ryu said through interpreter Bryan Lee. “I don’t think the approach really changes because you can’t decide the result, but you do have to be aware of the situation that you’re put into.”
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That time, the miscues only cost Ryu 10 extra pitches, but those pitches cost him a shot at coming back out for the seventh, which might have allowed Montoyo to save one of A.J. Cole or Rafael Dolis for Thursday’s opener in Boston.
Either way, that escape really swung the game.
“That’s what aces do. If people don’t play well behind him – that fly ball that should have been caught and the error we made – he kept making big pitches after big pitches. He was outstanding. To me, won this game because of Ryu,” said Montoyo, who added later that, “there was a lot of talking (about fundamentals) today. More than ever. …
“It became a tough game because we kept them in the game for seven innings because of the errors we made on the bases. The (conversations) were kind of different today because everybody knows what every game means.”
The Blue Jays managed not to beat themselves thanks to Ryu’s steadfastness, Gurriel’s big swing and some nifty relief work from Cole, Dolis and Anthony Bass. Long stretch of games or not, the Blue Jays may not be as lucky next time, and the cost of giving away games only goes up from here.
