TORONTO — Last Thursday, when Marcus Stroman faced Baltimore in his final start of the regular season, he quickly realized the Orioles’ strategy against him. Hitters were swinging early and often, trying to ambush fastballs with an uber-aggressive approach. He allowed nine hits and four runs that day, striking out just three as the Orioles shot balls all around the park.
So, when Stroman got the call to start his team’s do-or-die wild-card game against the same lineup less than a week later, he sat down with his catcher, Russell Martin, and devised a new plan.
“I wanted to throw a lot more curveballs, cutters. I wanted to mix more,” Stroman said in a jubilant Blue Jays clubhouse after Edwin Encarnacion’s extra-inning dramatics sealed a 5-2 Toronto victory. “Last time out, I threw a lot of heaters and they were pretty aggressive so I wanted to come in and keep them off balance. I had my curveball going early so we rolled with it.”
The plan worked perfectly, as Stroman allowed just four hits and two runs over his six innings Tuesday night, striking out six in the process. He leaned on his cutter early in the game, throwing it far more than his two-seam fastball, which has generally been his go-to pitch.
That wasn’t an accident. Stroman’s cutter, two-seam fastball and four-seam fastball all look similar out of his hand, but all move in very different fashions. Knowing that he’d leaned heavily on his fastballs the last time he faced Baltimore, the idea Stroman and Martin devised was to use his cutter in fastball counts, hopefully making the Orioles think he was throwing fastballs when he was really throwing cutters.
“From experience in a game like this, guys get amped up, they get juiced up—they want to swing the bat,” Martin said. “So, that cutter could kind of be disguised a little bit. It’s got late movement and it looks like a fastball coming out of his hand. So, when you’re hitting and you see what you think is a fastball right out of the hand, you get a little excited. And I felt like we took advantage of that today.”
According to Brooks Baseball, Stroman threw 31 cutters in the game, 20 of them for strikes. The Orioles put nine of them in play, seven of which went for outs. And when Stroman wasn’t getting outs that way, he was getting them with his breaking ball, which he worked in 22 times and used to induce the majority of his swing and miss, including five of his six strikeouts.
Stroman was perfect through the first nine batters of the game, and was damaged on only one pitch, a two-seamer down and in to Mark Trumbo with a runner on first in the fourth inning. Martin called the pitch with the intention of getting Trumbo to hit a groundball like he had in the second inning, but this time the Orioles slugger turned on it and drove the ball 354 feet over the wall in left field.
“That wasn’t a mistake. He threw the ball right where I asked for it. When that happens, its the catcher’s fault,” Martin said. “Trumbo, he just pulled his hands in and got it. The guy’s strong. I don’t think he flushed it. I think he got jammed a little bit. But he’s strong enough to muscle balls out of here.”
But that was the lone time Stroman faced trouble. After the home run, he came right back and attacked the next hitter, Matt Wieters, with an array of cutters to get ahead 0-2 before eventually getting the Orioles catcher to chase a breaking ball down and in.
That composure in the face of adversity was another key adjustment. Stroman was animated on the mound as he always is, letting out primal roars after big outs and applauding his teammates when they made strong defensive plays behind him. But when it came time to refocus and make a pitch, Stroman brought his intensity down to a low simmer, concentrating on rhythm and execution before letting his emotions pour out again after each groundball or strikeout.
“It has to do with the experience. I’ve learned how to stay calm while being able to be emotional at the times when I need to,” Stroman said. “I think that comes with past experience, being in the moment, being in the limelight and being able to deal with it.”
Going into the sixth inning, Stroman’s manager, John Gibbons, had a decision to make. Stroman had worked around a Michael Bourn single with a groundout and a pair of strikeouts in the fifth, but small cracks were beginning to show in his foundation.
The last four batted balls he’d allowed came off bats at 98, 101, 111 and 100 miles per hour as the Orioles appeared to be catching on to the gameplan he and Martin had devised. Stroman was due to start the sixth against the top of the Baltimore order for the third time, a challenging trip through the lineup for any pitcher. This season, opposition hitters put up a .847 OPS against Stroman during his third trip through the order. And the Orioles had done even better than that, with a collective .870 OPS when seeing a pitcher for the third time in a game.
But Gibbons stuck with his young starter, sending Stroman back out while reliever Joe Biagini warmed up over his right shoulder in case there was any hint of trouble. Stroman rewarded his manager, working around a soft Manny Machado single and getting three ground balls to push his team through to the seventh.
Those high exit velocities of the fourth and fifth innings suddenly dropped in the sixth, with the four balls the Orioles put in play that inning coming off bats at 90, 85, 57 and 92 miles per hour. In a true reflection of the randomness of baseball, the 57-mph ball off Machado’s bat was the only one that went for a hit. Modern baseball thinking would tell you that Stroman should have been less effective his third time through, battling fatigue as his pitch count climbed. But Tuesday night, that thinking was wrong.
“It didn’t matter how many times he went through—his stuff was just that good today,” Martin said. “He was locating pretty well. His fastball’s got so much movement. He’s got that late action on the cutter. He had the curveball working, too. When you have a mix of those pitches, he’s really tough no matter how many times you see him.”
As of now, it’s unclear when Stroman’s next outing may come. He would be on regular rest for Game 3 of the ALDS against Texas, but it’s hard to envision Marco Estrada, J.A. Happ and Aaron Sanchez not pitching the first three games of the series. That could line Stroman up for the fourth game in Toronto on Monday if it’s needed. That would be an elimination game for one of the two teams—just another crucial, everything-on-the-line start for a young right-hander who’s making a habit of showing up in a big way for them.
“He stepped up like he always does in these big games,” said Blue Jays outfielder Michael Saunders. “He’s a young guy, a young pitcher. But he’s so mature—he carries himself beyond his years. And he carried us to this win today.”