NEW YORK — It’s not easy to go from a bases empty situation to plating a game-winning run without hitting the baseball. But that’s exactly how the Toronto Blue Jays overcame the New York Yankees on Wednesday, 7-6, winning their first series in their last seven tries in the process.
It started when Miguel Montero, making his Blue Jays debut, led off the eighth inning of a tie ballgame by working an eight-pitch walk against Yankees reliever Dellin Betances. The next four batters swung at exactly one pitch, letting Betances do all the damage to himself as he walked three more, including Russell Martin, who just so happened to be at the plate to collect the game-winning RBI.
"We’ll take that," Martin said. "It looked like he was struggling with his command. And he’s got tough stuff to hit, so the key was really to try and keep him in the zone. I felt like maybe the umpire gave him a little bit of help there in my at-bat. But still was able to battle and able to work the walk. In that situation, you’ll definitely take that."
That was it. No contact needed. The Blue Jays merely stood in the batter’s box and allowed the Yankees to beat themselves. It was a timely bit of fortune for Toronto, as it erased the memory of another rough outing for Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada, who’s had more than enough of those lately.
"We’ve got the break coming up and I need it, obviously," Estrada said. "I need to clear my head. Just go back to the way I was. The only way I’m going to get that done is having these next few days off and stop thinking about everything. Things are going to change. I know they are. It’s just a rough patch right now."
Following a nightmare June that featured a 9.11 ERA and 5.86 BB/9, Estrada has been tweaking his mechanics, trying to eliminate a series of bad habits that crept in to his delivery, affecting his timing and direction to the plate.
As he entered the fifth inning Wednesday afternoon in the Bronx, it looked like it was working. He’d allowed exactly one hit on the day: a mistake pitch to Aaron Judge, which the New York Yankees behemoth hit an awfully long way, as he’s known to do. Otherwise, Estrada’s afternoon had been a breeze.
Flash forward eight batters and there was Estrada, pacing beside the mound, hammering his fist into his glove, as manager John Gibbons walked slowly out of the dugout to remove him from the game. Simply put, that fifth inning was a disaster. There were three hits, two walks, four runs scored and a blown lead as the Yankees overcame a five-run deficit.
"I don’t know what happened. I stopped locating. Pitches were being hit a lot better, obviously, because I was making mistakes," Estrada said. "I got frustrated and let things get to me and tried even harder. And usually when that happens you don’t make your pitches."
Earlier on, the Blue Jays built a five-run lead against New York starter Michael Pineda thanks to home runs by Justin Smoak, Kendrys Morales and Kevin Pillar on a hot day that helped the ball fly. Meanwhile, Estrada faced the minimum his first time through the Yankees lineup with a nifty double play started by Smoak eliminating his one misstep, a one-out walk of Austin Romine in the third inning.
But Estrada’s second trip couldn’t have started much worse, as he walked Brett Gardner at the end of a pesky nine-pitch at-bat before leaving a first-pitch fastball up and on the plate to Judge. The ball landed 398-feet away in the Yankees bullpen as New York got two runs back.
Estrada rallied, retiring the next three Yankees to escape the inning. But in the fifth, he allowed a leadoff single to Jacoby Ellsbury before leaving another fastball up, this time to Ji-Man Choi, who hammered it 457-feet to right for another two-run shot, cutting New York’s deficit to one.
Things continued to fall apart from there, as Estrada loaded the bases with one out thanks to a pair of walks and a Judge single. The pitch Judge hit was Estrada’s 100th of the afternoon and 27th of the inning, but Gibbons left his starter in to try and tightrope out of the jam.
"I’ve called him Houdini many times. I’ve seen him get out of those jams," Gibbons said. "And, you know what, he was cruising along. It was a tough fifth inning. But I love to give starters a chance, man. Those are your guys, you know?"
A Gary Sanchez pop-up provided a second out, but Didi Gregorius laced an elevated fastball into right field three pitches later, plating two and giving the Yankees the lead. That’s when Gibbons was forced from his dugout, as Estrada paced and punched his glove.
"I made a lot of good pitches. But I just ran out of gas, I guess. And started missing my spots and I got hit," Estrada said. "It’s a good lineup over there. You make mistakes, they’re going to get hit. Especially in a park like this. It is what it is right now. I’m glad the break’s coming up. I’ve just got to clear my head and stop putting so much pressure on myself. Because I know this team needs me. And I need them."
Fortunately for Estrada, Martin tied the game in the seventh, ambushing a first-pitch heater from Yankees reliever Chad Green and driving it over the wall in right-centre for his eighth homer of the season.
The Blue Jays then took the lead in the eighth without hitting a baseball, as Betances walked four of the five hitters he faced, including Martin with the bases loaded to bring in the go-ahead run.
That should make the day easier to stomach for Estrada, who will have to continue tinkering with his mechanics in search of what ails him. He says he knows where the problems lie in his mechanics and that he took positive steps towards correcting them Wednesday afternoon.
Still, Estrada’s season ERA now stands at 5.17 after 18 starts. And while his 4.54 xFIP could suggest he’s been a bit hard done by, that number is in line with the 4.64 mark he put up last season when he enjoyed much better results.
What’s encouraging is that you don’t have to go back too far to find a time when Estrada was pitching much better. He was his normal self for the first two months of the year, pitching to a 3.15 ERA with a 2.2 BB/9 through the end of May. But in his seven outings since that point, those numbers have ballooned to 9.46 and 6.1.
"It’s just been a long stretch — a long run for me of bad outings," Estrada said. "I only feel bad because I’m letting the team down. That’s the only thing I feel bad about. I don’t care about my numbers. I don’t care about any of that. I never have.
"I’m letting the team down. They need me to be the guy that I can be. The guy that I normally am. The guy that I’ve been the last few years. And things are going to get back to that. Because I want to help this team out. And I want to keep working hard. It’s a small thing I have to fix and I’m going to fix it. And when I get back from the break, I’ll be back to normal."
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