TORONTO – During five minutes with media after collecting his first big-league win, Joe Biagini covered a diverse range of topics ranging from finger-painting to sniffing a baseball for the scent of Justin Smoak’s bat. The Toronto Blue Jays’ rookie reliever even took umbrage with the basketball playoffs stealing some of the city’s spotlight.
"I just wish the Raptors weren’t playing so we could have all the attention," he quipped Tuesday night after throwing two shutout innings in a 3-1, 10-inning win over the Texas Rangers.
With Biagini, there are always jokes, which is why Jesse Chavez stood behind assembled media to catch some of his teammate’s one-liners before heading out, while Josh Thole sat at his locker behind the scrum guffawing at the proceedings.
Take this reply, for example, when Biagini was asked who was the first person he’d shared the news with: "I had an incident with the team in the bathroom, it was kind of a celebratory tradition, so I haven’t really been able to tell anybody. They don’t like to watch so I have to text them individually."
Or the aforementioned sniff test, which came when asked if the ball given to him post-game was the one that Smoak hit for his second homer, a two-run drive in the 10th that delivered the win.
"I was trying to smell it to see if it had his scent of his bat on it, but I don’t quite have the skill of that yet," said Biagini.
Witty banter aside, the Rule 5 right-hander continues to impress with the Blue Jays. After two scoreless innings Tuesday he now boasts an ERA of 1.04 in six games, despite five walks and nine hits over 8.2 innings. Biagini has also struck out eight while trying to stay sharp despite intermittent work.
"It’s tougher than it is like in Little League, for example," he kidded about his erratic usage. "It’s kind of a challenge because you want to be able to repeat and be consistent … but it’s also helpful for you because it helps you kind of develop a routine. I do my pre-game finger-painting exercises – just kidding, sort of – but really your routine is something you can implement every day and that challenges you to stay ready for any situation. I kind of have a defined role, it’s kind of still growing a bit, just being No. 25. Staying consistent is the biggest challenge, and when you’re able to apply those things into the game situation, that is the reward."
A learning experience came in the ninth, when Prince Fielder opened the inning with a double and Ian Desmond followed with a single. Pinch-runner Hanser Alberto was cut down at home by Darwin Barney on Mitch Moreland’s grounder, before Biagini struck out Elvis Andrus and got Brett Nicholas on a groundout.
Smoak’s first homer then tied the game 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth.
"I decided to start throwing better pitches," Biagini said of bearing down. "This team is aggressive and you have to make sure you’re disciplined right from the beginning, you can’t just lay one in there as I learned. I wasn’t super happy with that but that’s part of the learning process. Another part of that is being able to stay with it, battle, make it as tough as possible for them to move runners. It’s just another opportunity for me to be consistent no matter how an inning starts or ends, just be able to stay on top of it and take advantage of the opportunities to stay competitive and keep your team in the game."
EFFICIENT ESTRADA: Marco Estrada threw 43 pitches in his first two innings Tuesday and then only 45 over his next four frames, allowing just one run on two hits and a walk with three strikeouts over six innings.
The difference?
"I loosened up, I guess," said Estrada. "I was able to throw the changeup for strikes the last two, three innings, and that’s what really changed. Early on I didn’t have any off-speed pitches, and I got away with a lot of stuff today, at least those first few innings, they had a lot of hard-hit balls but we played great defence and I kind of turned it around after that."
Estrada was seen rubbing his shoulder on the mound during his last outing and manager John Gibbons noted that his right-hander "was stiff after his last outing, but he kind of loosened up a little bit and all his stuff got better."
Gibbons added that the Blue Jays "put a limit of six innings on him, we weren’t going to push it any more than that."
When asked if his issues getting loose were related to his shoulder, Estrada replied: "Yeah. That’s all it was."
ROSTER MOVES: The Blue Jays added a second left-hander to their bullpen by recalling Chad Girodo from triple-A Buffalo and optioning corner infielder Matt Dominguez.
Girodo threw two scoreless innings in his big-league debut last month and has a 1.04 ERA in 8.2 innings over six games at Buffalo.
With the Blue Jays deciding to run with Justin Smoak at first base, Dominguez became somewhat of a redundancy.
