TORONTO – Nathan Karns, he of a 7.50 ERA in three big-league starts last year and a 5.08 ERA in 27 starts at triple-A Durham this one, stuffed the Toronto Blue Jays for seven innings in his season debut Friday night, won 1-0 by the Tampa Bay Rays.
Wait, who did what?
Fair question, as Karns is an unheralded 26-year-old right-hander acquired in the spring from the Washington Nationals for Jose Lobaton and two minor-leaguers as an on-the-cusp prospect, called up to pitch in the Rays rotation in place of the shutdown Drew Smyly.
After allowing 82 earned runs in 145.1 innings in the minors, Karns surrendered all of two hits and two walks in seven strong innings against the Blue Jays (76-70), who suffered the type of loss to the Rays (71-77) their faint post-season dreams can ill afford before 19,909 at Rogers Centre.
They’re now 4.5 games off the pace in pursuit of the second wild card.
“There’s not a whole lot of margin for error on our side, realistically were we going to win every game the rest of the way, that probably wasn’t going to happen,” said manager John Gibbons. “We need to bounce back the next couple of days, that’s for sure.”
The Blue Jays, winners of nine of their previous 11, seemed to have Karns on the ropes in the first when he walked Jose Reyes, hit Jose Bautista and fell behind 2-1 to Edwin Encarnacion, but he hit into a double play and after a walk to Adam Lind, Dioner Navarro grounded out weakly to first.
They didn’t have multiple base-runners on again.
“The chance to get him was in the first when he had trouble with the zone,” said Gibbons. “He didn’t throw a lot of strikes, then of course he got the groundball to get two and get out of there scoreless, and then after that things clicked for him.”
Added Reyes who walked and reached via error: “He was throwing a lot of fastballs but we weren’t able to put a lot of good swings on the fastballs. A little bit sneaky. When you see a guy for the first time, sometimes it’s tough, but we have to give him some credit. He made good pitches when he needed to.”
The sudden disappearance of offence made a hard-luck loser of J.A. Happ, who was ambushed on his first pitch of the third by Ryan Hanigan for a solo shot that stood up the rest of the way.
Happ allowed just two hits and a walk while striking out seven.
“You guys are probably going to say that’s a mistake,” Happ said of the home run pitch. “If being aggressive, throwing to the glove, and trying to get ahead is a mistake then it was a mistake. I think he kind of guessed right, ambushed it and got enough of it.”
The Blue Jays had a potential rally stunted by replay in the eighth when Jake McGee, who hit Chase Headley on the chin before being walked off by Chris Young and the New York Yankees on Thursday, appeared to hit Reyes on the left hand.
But Rays manager Joe Maddon challenged the call on the field, replay officials ruled it hit the knob of Reyes’ bunt and the shortstop popped out on a bunt the next pitch.
Afterwards Reyes admitted that the pitch didn’t hit him.
“In that situation, 1-0, that inning, McGee is a tough guy, I tried to make something happen,” he said. “It doesn’t always work out.”
Bautista followed and was knocked down by a low and inside fastball on the first pitch of the at-bat, took a called strike one that he reacted angrily to, and then popped up the next offering to end the inning.
Grant Balfour went three-up, three-down in the ninth to close things out.
“We can’t dwell on it, it’s over,” Happ said. “For me, I’m trying to keep us right where we’re at and give us as good an opportunity as we can possibly have, it came up a little short tonight.”
