TORONTO — Just another day in the AL East. Home run after home run; wild lead changes; bizarre fielding errors; pitchers finding and losing their control; a sense that no matter what the scoreboard says, no matter who’s on the mound or in the batter’s box, and no matter how many outs are left, the unlikely and unexpected is always right around the corner.
Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons talked about it after his team’s 8-7 loss to the Boston Red Sox Friday night. And he had to be thinking about it the next afternoon, as he watched his players engage in another seesaw battle before eventually falling again, 8-4, in the club’s fourth consecutive loss.
“It was really a typical, in a lot of ways, American League East game, you know?” Gibbons said Friday night. “In these ballparks you never feel good. If there’s an inning left, a lot can happen.”
And a lot happened Saturday at Rogers Centre. We can start with R.A. Dickey, who everyone in the Blue Jays clubhouse agreed had one of his best knuckleballs in quite some time, but could never quite make it work to his advantage.
At times, he would baffle Red Sox hitters with knucklers that careened through the zone and earned him nine strikeouts. And at others, he would leave the pitch a little too far up, and watch them get shot into the outfield as Boston tagged him for seven runs, six of them earned.
“They did a good job of fighting off some pitches, slicing some balls down the line,” Dickey said. “Some of this is you’re dealing with guys who are the best in the world at what they do and you’ve got to tip your hat. But also some of it is poor execution in counts that are favourable for me.”
In one inning, the fourth, Dickey struck out three with a knuckler that was so unpredictable that catcher Josh Thole dropped every third strike. In another, the fifth, he allowed three hard hits, including one off the bat of Hanley Ramirez that hopped over Jose Bautista’s head in right field and scored two runs.
“I wasn’t expecting it to bounce that high. I was hoping to cut it off on a jump,” Bautista said. “I shouldn’t have let the ball get past me, gift them two runs and put a guy on third. It’s unacceptable. It shouldn’t happen. But it did.”
And that wasn’t the end of the missteps. There were two passed balls from Thole, one wild pitch from Dickey and a botched pick-off attempt in the third inning that saw the 41-year-old snap the ball wide of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and well into centre field, allowing two runners to advance.
“It was the confluence of a lot of really weird things going on out there today,” Dickey said. “It was hard for me to arrest the free fall.”
There was terrific command at times and a complete lack of it at others, which is why Dickey needed just 21 pitches to get his first six outs, and 55 for his next six. It was that kind of day, one Thole is hoping to soon forget.
“His pitches were moving late, and with big movements. It makes it tough. But when you’ve got one job to do and you don’t do it well, it makes for a long night,” Thole said, clearly frustrated with his performance receiving the knuckleball Saturday afternoon. “When they keep moving like that it makes it challenging. As good of a knuckleball as he had today, it’s frustrating.”
For Dickey, it was a conflicting day. He was encouraged by the life his knuckleball had, but he was also quick to blame himself for the loss.
“You’re paid for results. And the results today were not what I had hoped for,” he said. “The final line obviously is not what I would deem acceptable. But this is a time for all of us to trust the process. For me in particular, there’s a lot of stuff to build on here early in the season. We’ve just got to stay the course.”
On the other side of the ball, Bautista clubbed two nearly identical home runs to left field off Red Sox starter Rick Porcello, both times cashing Josh Donaldson who had reached base ahead of him.
The bottom of the Blue Jays order did their best, battling a variety of cutting and sinking fastballs from Porcello, who walked a very thin line between dominance and disaster all afternoon, allowing baserunners in all but one of his six innings, while limiting the damage to only Bautista’s two homers.
Of course, the Blue Jays weren’t able to take advantage of Porcello like they have in the past (he pitched to a 6.45 ERA in four starts against Toronto last season) and have quickly dropped two games under .500 after opening the season with two strong wins.
“It’s a long season. We’re in the first week,” Bautista said. “There’s going to be periods like this at some point. It’s just happening now. We have to stay positive. We’re a great team. Just because we’re 2-4 doesn’t mean anything at the end of the day. We’re not going to dwell on it too much.”
Like we said, just another day in the AL East. These two teams have now combined for 27 runs over the first two games of this series, with one more to play on Sunday afternoon.
Of course it’s early. And of course you would be a fool to read too much into the sixth game of the Blue Jays’ season, especially considering the team was hovering around .500 after 100 games last year.
But it’s still imperative to play well in these divisional games, as wild and unpredictable as they can be, at any point in the season. The Blue Jays play their first 17 games within the AL East, and each one will count the same when Toronto finishes its season in October, either looking down or looking up.
“Every division game is important. Every single game you play no matter what is important. You never know if you’re going to be half a game out the last day of the season. So you never want to lose or give up a game, especially when it’s a team that could be on top of you in the standings,” Bautista said. “That could mean a lot when it comes to the playoffs. Wining the division versus going in as wild card. They’re important games. But we’re here trying to win and it just happens that we haven’t been able to come out on top in the last four. But we’re looking to change that tomorrow.”
