TORONTO – A bad start to an important series. An opposing left-hander on the mound. An offence suddenly gone cold. A starting pitcher battered for 18 runs in 17.2 innings over his previous four outings.
Everything seemed lined up against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, yet there they were at the end of the night celebrating an important 5-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles, reversing a series of troublesome trends in one fell swoop.
After panic set into the more fatalistic portions of the fan-base following Tuesday’s 9-3 thumping in the series opener, it was a perfect washing of the palette.
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“We needed that,” said manager John Gibbons.
Key to it all was Drew Hutchison, who save for one mistake in the second inning that Chris Davis smashed into the second deck in left field, was brilliant. The young right-hander, facing questions of fatigue and about his place in the rotation, allowed just the one hit and a two-out walk to Nick Markakis in the ninth while striking out eight in 8.2 innings.
The crowd of 33,054 hammered Gibbons for pulling him after the walk, and then stood and applauded as Hutchison walked off, roaring when he tipped his cap. They were even louder when Casey Janssen got Manny Machado on a weak popper to first to end it.
“I wanted to finish it and it was real close,” said Hutchison. “That will keep you up at night a little bit but I had every chance to finish it and unfortunately I walked Markakis.”
With his slider as sharp as it’s been in recent memory and impeccable fastball command, Hutchison didn’t let the Orioles breathe.
“Locating my heater down was more important and then the slider comes off of that,” he explained. “That was more a by-product of getting through the ball and getting through with the fastball command first. And I thought my changeup was really good.”
A mechanical adjustment between starts made the difference.
“Just a little tiny one I was able to make in my last bullpen, I was really able to get on top of the ball and stay through it,” he explained. “Me and (Dioner Navarro) were on the same page pretty much every pitch and we were able to execute a lot of good pitches.”
Notably, the AL East leaders are also the opponent he has feasted on most. In his previous three starts against them, he allowed just two earned runs in 19 innings of work. They’d managed only 16 hits and three walks against him.
Regardless, it’s an important performance for him to carry into his next outing Monday in Seattle.
Next are the Blue Jays’ well-known struggles against southpaws, and Wei-Yin Chen came in having won five straight starts. Despite being down a right-handed hitter in Brett Lawrie’s absence, they became the first team to push across five earned runs against Chen since Milwaukee on May 27.
Danny Valencia, acquired to deliver against lefties, did just that in the first inning with an RBI single that made it a 2-0 game while Jose Bautista dropped the big blow with a two-run homer in the second that made it a 4-1 game.
That was plenty for Hutchison, and plenty to beat their first southpaw starter since Tyler Skaggs of the Angels on July 8.
“Any time you can score early and score first, I wouldn’t say it releases tension, but it puts the pressure on the other team,” said Bautista. “They have had to come back and get us and today they weren’t able to.”
The success against a left-hander was relief for an offence that had gone 4-for-25 during the four-game losing streak that followed the Blue Jays’ 11-3 start out of the all-star break.
Despite the cold spell, hitting coach Kevin Seitzer told his hitters not to change a thing.
“Right before when we went into a bad skid when we got to Oakland, I was really upset with the at-bats, the approaches, just the way everything was unfolding and we had a pretty intense heart-to-heart right before the break, and then coming out of it, the at-bats got a lot better,” he said. “When we got to Houston, things were rolling good, the at-bats were just as good as what they’d been, but the pitchers were making pitches when they needed to. That’s what I told the guys (Tuesday), stay right there, same mindset, same approach, same attitude when you get in there.”
The Blue Jays went 5-for-11 with runners in scoring position Wednesday, including key two-out hits by Dioner Navarro and Valencia in the first to open up a 2-0 lead, and the two-run homer in the second plus an RBI double in the sixth by Bautista.
“Nobody does it every day throughout the year, that’s the ups and downs you go through,” said Gibbons. “Sometimes you find some holes, sometimes you don’t, but I thought we put some good at-bats together, we were using the middle of the field pretty good for the most part.”
The Blue Jays (61-54) are back within four games of the Orioles (64-49) for top spot in the AL East and remain in sole possession of the second wild card spot.