TORONTO – Right around the time Marcus Semien’s OPS dropped to a season-low .595 after an 0-fer April 20 at Fenway Park, an old Toronto Blue Jays foe reached out to the star infielder. Mark Trumbo had been watching and noticed that Semien’s bat path weaved in and out of the zone when he offered at sliders. The former Baltimore Orioles slugger suggested a tee-drill to help level out the swing and it’s now part of Semien’s regimented pre-game routine.
“It’s something that keeps my swing through the strike zone longer,” he explained.
Another key element of that routine, which helped Semien earn player of the month honours in May, is hitting off the high-speed pitching machine before each game, something he’s doing “more than I ever have because the velocity (in the game) is through the roof,” he said. “I try to just battle off the thing because if you can hit that thing, then you should be OK in the game. We have a good pitching machine that throws good fastballs, breaking balls, and you just learn how to hit it, try and take that swing into the game. It takes a lot of reps, but it’s something that a lot of hitters do now to combat the high-velocity and high-spin.”
Sometimes, though, there’s no preparation to counter a pitcher executing his game plan the way Zack Greinke did in the Houston Astros’ 13-1 thumping of the Blue Jays on Friday night.
The 37-year-old right-hander, lacking the elite velocity of his younger self, hit his spots with a fastball that averaged 89.9 m.p.h., mixing in a changeup, slider, a curveball he tossed in as low as 68.2 m.p.h., and a sinker in a complete-game gem.
He surrendered 11 balls off the bat at 95.6 m.p.h. or harder, six of them over 100, but only four resulted in hits, including Randal Grichuk’s homer in the seventh.
By that point, the Astros were well into cruise control having busted open a close game on Martin Maldonado’s sixth-inning grand slam off Hyun-Jin Ryu that made it 7-0. That ended the ace lefty’s night after he allowed more runs in 5.2 innings than he had in his previous four starts combined (five runs in 25.2 innings).
The Astros eked out a run in the fourth on a Yordan Alvarez RBI double, and then added two more in the fifth when Jose Altuve’s sac fly brought home Myles Straw and Carlos Correa hooked a changeup over the left-field wall the Houston hitters capitalized on.
Maldonado’s slam also came on a changeup sent packing to the left, while Aledmys Diaz hit a homer in the seventh off Carl Edwards Jr., and Correa hit another one in the eighth off a struggling Tyler Chatwood, who faced six batters, allowed five runs and didn’t record an out.
The Blue Jays haven’t lost in such decisive fashion since the Astros spanked them 10-4 back in Houston on May 7. Toronto had responded to a six-game losing streak from May 19-24 by going 6-2 in their next eight games.
Better pitching was a hallmark of that run but Ryu hit a rare speedbump and some worrisome bullpen trends re-emerged. The offence went quiet, too, but that’s going to happen on occasion and Greinke deserves credit for making it a bad night all around for the Blue Jays.
“If you’re playing good defence consistently, you’re probably going to be in more games because you’re not giving away runs,” Semien said. “If you put the ball in play more, you’re probably going to be in more games because you’re giving yourself a chance to get on base. And of course, as a pitcher, if you’re throwing strikes and limiting your walks, as well, those are three things that if you did every night, you’d probably win 100 games at least every year. But you go through stretches where things are a little off.”
As they were on all fronts for the Blue Jays on Friday night.
