TORONTO — On Tuesday night the Blue Jays began a six-game homestand against two opponents—the Los Angeles Angels and Minnesota Twins—who probably couldn’t beat Toronto consistently if they combined their rosters.
Make no mistake, there are good players coming to Toronto this week—the Angels’ Mike Trout and Andrelton Simmons chief among them. But there are a lot of bad players coming to Toronto as well. Far more bad players than good.
Consider also that, following this homestand, the Blue Jays will play more than a third of their remaining games against either the Boston Red Sox or Baltimore Orioles, the two teams they are directly contending with for the AL East title. Those games will be intense. Heated, tightly-contested affairs that will more than likely determine who gets a bye into the ALDS and who must face a one-game wild card playoff to earn their spot in the post-season proper. Those games will be good.
These games? These half dozen against the hapless Angels and Twins? These are games the Blue Jays should win. And they got off to a good start Tuesday night, thumping Los Angeles 7-2.
"Down the stretch, every game’s important," said Darwin Barney, who hit leadoff for the first time this season and went two-for-four with a double and a walk. "Obviously, when you’re playing an in-division opponent it affects the standings a little bit more. But every win is important to us right now."
And the Blue Jays, spoiled for power up and down their lineup, got that win by only hitting one home run, an inconsequential solo shot off the bat of Michael Saunders in the bottom of the eighth inning. Otherwise, Toronto drew five walks against in-over-his-head Angels starter Tyler Skaggs, running the left-hander’s pitch count up to 72 after three innings and tagging him for four earned runs despite not hitting the ball with their usual authority.
Then, Toronto went to work on the Angels bullpen, drawing two more walks and scoring three more runs in a game that was really nowhere near as close as the five-run margin of victory would suggest. The Blue Jays, who hold the third-highest strikeout percentage in the American League at 22.4 per cent, only struck out twice on the evening, consistently laying off tough pitches to draw seven walks and doing damage with the ones the Angels pitching staff threw in the zone.
"I wouldn’t say any guys in this lineup are up there trying to walk. Guys are up there trying to swing the bat and get good pitches to hit," Barney said. "But if they don’t throw them there, then that’s just one of those things that can happen for this lineup."
The Blue Jays got to Skaggs early, as Barney led off the bottom of the first with a double to the left field wall and came in to score two batters later on a Russell Martin single.
Then, in the third, the Blue Jays loaded the bases with no one out and got a free run when Martin drew a six-pitch walk. Troy Tulowitzki followed with a grounder up the middle that looked like it might get into centre field but bounced off the pitchers mound and right to the Angels shortstop Simmons, who started a double play.
Nevertheless, Josh Donaldson came in to score on the odd play with the Blue Jays’ third run, and a fourth an inning later when Kevin Pillar’s leadoff double came around on a Josh Thole sacrifice fly.
Then, in the fifth, Edwin Encarnacion—wait for it—drew a walk, moved to second on a Martin single, and scored as Tulowitzki roped a double down the left field line off Angels reliever Mike Morin. Martin moved to third on the double and scored the Blue Jays’ sixth run on a Melvin Upton Jr. sacrifice fly.
Meanwhile, Blue Jays starter R.A. Dickey was fine, as he often is, allowing two runs and six hits over his 6.2 innings. The knuckleballer allowed four of those hits in a troublesome second inning, including a two-run shot by minor league journeyman Nick Buss that put the Angels briefly ahead, 2-1.
But Dickey otherwise cruised, getting eight outs on the ground, nine in the air and two via strikeout, despite working with what he described as a "mediocre" knuckleball. Dickey said he took advantage of the lead the Blue Jays spotted him to use his conventional pitches—a fastball, a changeup and even a sinker—much more often than he normally does. And the results speak for themselves.
"It’s always great pitching with the lead. You can take some risks that you might not normally take," Dickey said. "I did that tonight. I threw a lot of good changeups tonight. I threw a lot of good sinkers down in the zone. I actually had good conventional stuff tonight and that helped me through some innings when I didn’t have a good knuckleball."
Dickey’s having a down year by his standards, with a 4.43 ERA through his first 26 starts and a 3.41 BB/9 that sits as his highest in any season as a Blue Jay. But he’s now allowed two runs or less in three of his four starts this month, and he’s encouraged by the improvements he’s made to his approach as the season has developed.
"It’s always about process. And trying to execute the mechanic that I need to have good results," Dickey said. "Tonight, the result was favourable. But I’ve been pretty close all year in a number of outings—I just haven’t had the same results. I’ve had better knuckleballs this year and given up more runs. It’s just he nature of the beast sometimes."
Of course, a visit from the 20-games-out-of-first-place Angels never hurts. Los Angeles’ struggles to generate offence are perhaps no better encapsulated by the fact that after Dickey’s rocky second inning no Angels batter touched second base until the eighth, when the perennial MVP candidate Trout reached the bag. He was the closest thing Los Angeles got to a run in the final seven innings. And, naturally, Blue Jays reliever Joe Biagini picked him off as he tried to steal third.
These are the wins the Blue Jays need on this six-game homestand against playing-out-the-string opposition. The wins they need to bankroll before the gauntlet that September will bring.
"I think that the onus for us should just be on playing good baseball and not beating ourselves. Usually, when you play what seems to be inferior teams, the way that they beat you is you end up beating yourselves," Dickey said. "So, if we can just execute and play good baseball I think we should come out of this homestand feeling good about the momentum going into Baltimore. But we still have to take care of business on the field."