It sure feels tenuous, doesn’t it? The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays Sunday in one of those games where every matchup appeared to favour the visitors, where almost everything that could go wrong went wrong for the Blue Jays and almost every little edge belonged to the Red Sox – especially their bullpen.
And that wasn’t supposed to be the case. Beyond the disappearance of Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista – not to belittle that – the most concerning aspect of the Blue Jays’ current funk is that the bullpen put together in-season appears to be showing some seams. It was bound to happen, right? Joe Biagini was going to give up a home run eventually and Joaquin Benoit wasn’t going to finish the season on a scoreless run. The hope now is it really all hasn’t been smoke and mirrors. I said it last season and at the start of this season and I will say it again: not enough people understand how important Brett Cecil is to this team tactically. His absence, I believe, cost the Blue Jays the American League Championship Series and his inconsistency this season still hamstrings manager John Gibbons. We’ve seen snippets of Cecil returning to form lately and he might be able to be a difference maker, still.
It’s understandable that much of the focus going into Monday’s first of three games against the Tampa Bay Rays will remain on the starting rotation. No pitcher in the major leagues has made as many starts as Aaron Sanchez has on extra rest this season. He will do it again, getting eight days off before his next start in Seattle, by which time the irritation on the inside of his right middle finger – the Blue Jays are calling it a “hot spot,” a kind of precursor to a blister, and he’s been dealing with it on and off all season – should have settled down. And let’s face it, this whole six-man rotation thing was to get Sanchez to the position he was in Sunday: starting against the best team in the division in the deciding game of a series.
It’s what the final weekend needs to look like, from the Blue Jays’ point of view. But given the wobbly nature of the Blue Jays starting rotation this past half month, I’ve got a feeling this division race is going to be won and lost in the bullpens. Sitting in his office after Sunday’s 11-8 loss, Gibbons pointed to the work done by veteran Red Sox right-hander Brad Ziegler, who came on in the seventh after Robbie Ross gave up a Ryan Goins single and induced Devon Travis to hit into a double play and then, after Donaldson reached on an error, struck out Edwin Encarnacion on four pitches. Ziegler, acquired in a trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks on July 9, came out for the eighth, but that was in effect the ball game. Just what the Blue Jays needed – another righty reliever to deal with in the AL East. Gibbons expects to see a lot of Ziegler in that final weekend. His own bullpen, it appears, is going to play a larger role than we originally expected in making those games relevant.
TORT LAW
John Tortorella poked his head out of his cave earlier this week and announced that he’d bench any player who didn’t stand for the U.S. national anthem, which is vintage Tortorella. That he took a discussion about Colin Kaepernick’s protest and made it about him, wrapping himself in the flag and military, was the biggest transgression of the Team USA coach.
What a grand-standing buffoon.
But as my friend Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo! Sports and the Marek vs. Wyshynski podcast pointed out, there’s a more disturbing context to this. If Tortorella or other coaches are going to make something like a flag protest so personal, you don’t think it’s going to make it even more difficult for, say, a gay hockey player to feel comfortable “coming out” to his teammates and organization? It’s all fine and well when general managers and club presidents say they’re open, but coaches control ice time and by extension a player’s ability to earn money. They have a direct role in influencing what is said and done in a dressing room or clubhouse. Tortorella may think he’s a patriot, but in reality he’s another exclusionary who has just set back the cause of inclusion in the NHL.
QUIBBLES AND BITS
THE ENDGAME
Kudos to those NFL players with the stones to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, whether it was Miami Dolphins players kneeling for the national anthem or the Kansas City Chiefs‘ Marcus Peters with his powerful black-gloved, raised right fist gesture. Tough to show courage like that on a day like Sept. 11, especially when you play in a league that takes money from the U.S. military to put on patriotic displays – hey, when there’s no draft, if you’re the military you need all the advertising you can get, right? – and leeches off the sorrow of other people’s tragedy the way the NFL leeches off it.
