TORONTO – If R.A. Dickey can keep pitching the way he did Saturday, the Toronto Blue Jays will be that much closer to finding stability in a shaky starting rotation.
But the Blue Jays’ bullpen undermined those efforts, allowing two game-changing home runs to highlight the fact that Toronto’s pitching questions don’t end with the rotation. Despite Dickey’s solid outing, the Blue Jays lost 3-2 to the Tampa Bay Rays in front of 41,583 at Rogers Centre.
The trouble began in the seventh inning when Aaron Loup threw Brandon Guyer a changeup that caught too much of the plate. Guyer hammered it, leading to another frustrating outing for Loup.
“When I make a mistake I’m paying for it right now,” the left-hander said. “I’ve had some bad luck and at times I haven’t pitched well, so it’s been a little combination of everything. For the most part I don’t think I’ve pitched as bad as the numbers show, but at the same time they’re the numbers.”
It’s been a rough year for Loup, whose season ERA now sits at 5.03. Despite an encouraging ratio of 38 strikeouts to five walks, he has tied a career-high with five home runs allowed. The Blue Jays say the 27-year-old’s capable of more.
“He’s a very valuable guy, and he’s been very reliable for us, too. He’s one of the more durable ones,” manager John Gibbons said. “I’m not worried about it at this point.”
The Blue Jays’ bullpen struggles didn’t end there, as Ryan Tepera allowed a home run to Curt Casali to put the Rays ahead for good, much to the frustration of Toronto’s relievers.
“We take a lot of pride down in the bullpen,” Tepera said. “We talk about it all of the time. We have great arms down there. We all want to be successful. Sometimes they do a good job of hitting the ball, too.”
On an otherwise difficult day, Dickey’s outing provided the 46-47 Blue Jays with a positive. Each of the knuckleballer’s three seasons in Toronto has started poorly, yet he rebounded from poor starts both of the last two years with a 3.56 ERA in the second half of 2013 and a 3.57 ERA after last year’s All-Star break.
That’s the kind of late-season performance the Blue Jays would love to see again, and Dickey took a step in that direction, pitching six innings while allowing one run on four hits and striking out four.
“You could tell the knuckleball was giving us fits because they weren’t coming down,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “They were kind of staying on that same plane where it seems like they take off and gain speed.”
Dickey’s 3-10 record might suggest otherwise, but he’s been pitching better of late, with a 3.49 ERA since June 1 and quality starts six of the last seven times out. Still, the lack of run support proves difficult at times.
“I haven’t had a year like this — ever — so it’s new territory for me,” Dickey said. “But that’s OK. So much of that is outside of my control, so it’s a great mental exercise to just try to put it behind you and keep going.”
In the end, Dickey doesn’t assess himself on win-loss record.
“You don’t have a lot to do with it, too,” he said. “There are so many things that have to go your way, so I don’t really think about that. I think about the other numbers much more. The ERAs, the runs given up, the strikeouts to walk, those kinds of things mean more to me because I feel if those metrics are in line then the wins and losses are going to take care of themselves.”
The Blue Jays’ defence helped Dickey out on a couple of occasions. Kevin Pillar threw Tim Beckham out at the plate to end the fifth inning and prevent the Rays from taking a 2-0 lead. In the first inning Jose Bautista made a diving catch, and though Jose Reyes made a routine error the following play, Toronto escaped unscathed.
Pillar and Bautista also figured prominently in Toronto’s offensive production. Pillar doubled to lead off the fifth inning and scored when Devon Travis, arguably the best No. 9 hitter in the game, doubled him home. The following inning Bautista led off with his 18th home run of the season, a long shot that landed in the third deck in left field. In the end that was all the offence Toronto got despite an eighth-inning rally against All-Star reliever Brad Boxberger.
Despite opening the second half with back-to-back strong starts from Drew Hutchison and Dickey, the Blue Jays clearly need a starter as much as ever given Felix Doubront’s up-and-down track record and Hutchison’s 2015 struggles.
Aaron Sanchez, now rehabbing at triple-A, will bolster the big league pitching staff at some point, but he’d fit nicely alongside Roberto Osuna in a bullpen that’s short on late-inning answers.
“I think he would change the whole dynamic out there,” Gibbons said before Saturday’s game. “One extra real good arm.”
The Blue Jays were a real good arm or two short Saturday, slipping back under the .500 mark in the process. To get to where they want to be, they’ll need results up and down the pitching staff, and the sooner the better.
NOTES: Expect the Blue Jays to continue using Bo Schultz in key, late-inning spots. The right-hander has a 1.85 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 24.1 innings after striking out four batters in two innings Friday. Hitters may still be adjusting to Schultz, which suits the Blue Jays just fine… Gibbons has been impressed by the way Russell Martin has handled the challenge of catching Dickey. “It’s not easy, but I think he’s doing a damn good job of it,” Gibbons said.
