HOUSTON – The roof at Minute Maid Park hadn’t been open during a game this season since back in April, while the last time it was rolled back for a contest in the month of August was Aug. 6, 2004, when Roy Oswalt threw a five-hit shutout against the Montreal Expos.
Yet, late Saturday afternoon word filtered into the Toronto Blue Jays clubhouse that the roof would be open for the evening’s clash with the Houston Astros, and while the hosts perhaps enjoy giving Canadian guests a taste of the local climate, it was hard not to wonder if there was some gamesmanship at play.
R.A. Dickey, after all, was scheduled to start for the visitors, his knuckleball has at times been particularly effective indoors and the Astros, as analytically-bent an organization as there is in baseball, could easily have done some work on the matter.
Conspiracy theorists, have at it.
Or maybe the Astros simply wanted to take advantage of a pleasant 27 C night – which just happens to fall under the club’s minimum 31-C night-time threshold for the roof to be shut.
Whatever the case, a decent performance by Dickey wasn’t good enough in an 8-2 loss to the Astros, his errant pickoff throw the catalyst for an ugly go-ahead run before a Chris Carter solo shot in the decisive two-run fifth built a deficit the Blue Jays failed to overcome.
“It was hot and humid but that was fine, I had a fine knuckleball,” said Dickey, indifferent to the roof’s status. “It might not have had the movement it did in Boston but it was fine, I didn’t walk anybody, I was throwing a lot of strikes with it. They covered a few but for the most part I felt pretty much in command of my pitch.
“It’s just unfortunate they barrelled up some in big situations and that was it.”
Lefty Brett Oberholtzer outduelled Dickey through seven innings, allowing two runs on six hits and a walk, before Robbie Grossman saved things for the Astros in the eighth, when he leapt over the wall to rob Juan Francisco of a pinch-hit two-run homer off lefty Tony Sipp.
Boom to bust in an instant.
“It will take the wind out of you when you think you’ve tied the game up,” said catcher Josh Thole. “He made a great play, hat’s off to him to go into the stands and get it. It’s frustrating but those are the things you try to overcome.”
The Blue Jays didn’t overcome and the catch turned out to be key as things fell apart in the bottom of the inning. Carter led off with a single that ended Dickey’s night before Jason Castro hit a two-run homer off Brett Cecil to make it a 6-2 Astros lead.
After a single by L.J. Hoes, Jon Singleton hit an inside-the-park homer on a drive to deep right-centre, Anthony Gose slipping while trying to chase it down. He recovered to throw the ball in to Ryan Goins, who made a strong throw home that led to an out call at the plate.
Houston challenged and a review showed that Singleton beat the tag from Thole, who was probably hurt by the new collision rule forcing him to give the runner a lane.
“I’ve just got to be aggressive, if they’re going to change the call and say I blocked the plate or whatever, it is what is,” he said. “It was just a bad tag on my part. The throw beat him in plenty of time, I’ve just got to make a better tag.”
The ugly ending made it two straight losses for the Blue Jays (60-52) after a six-game win streak, and they’ll look to rookie Marcus Stroman to salvage a split against the Astros (46-55) and Scott Feldman to conclude a 10-game road trip. They’re 6-3 thus far.
“After three cities, that takes its toll,” said manager John Gibbons. “We’ve been playing good baseball, that’s the way the game goes, ups and downs. We need to come out (Sunday) and hopefully Stro is on like he has been all year, and we walk out of here with a win.”
The Blue Jays will need some better relief work, too. Aaron Loup gave up the winning run in the eighth inning Friday night while Cecil faced three batters without an out Saturday.
“We haven’t been able to get any outs late in the game coming out of the bullpen at all,” said Gibbons. “We’ve got to tighten that up a little bit. They play with passion over there, they’re a bunch of talented young kids it means something to. They took it to us.”
Dickey had his moments Saturday but gave up lots of solid contact, too.
After the Blue Jays opened the scoring in the first on Nolan Reimold’s sacrifice fly – cashing in Jose Reyes, who led off with a double and advanced to third on Melky Cabrera’s clever bunt single – the Astros responded in the bottom half on Carter’s RBI double – the pitch after an apparent HBP was ruled to be a foul ball – and Singleton’s two-out RBI single.
A Castro single off Dickey’s glove helped fuel the rally.
“It was one of those changeups,” said Dickey. “I saw it off the barrel pretty good and it was going actually a little slower than I anticipated and so sometimes when that happens, optically it’s deceiving and it deceived me. It hit me in the mitt, I just couldn’t close it in time and that ended up costing us a run.”
Jose Bautista tied things up with a laser beam RBI double in the third but the Blue Jays’ offence dried up from there.
The Astros went ahead for good in the fifth when Jose Altuve singled, advanced to third when Dickey threw away a pickoff attempt, and scored on Danny Valencia’s ill-advised throw to third. An out later Carter crushed a first-pitch knuckleball right out of Minute Maid Park.
Astros flamethrower Mike Foltynewicz made his big-league debut in the eighth, facing three batters including Bautista, whom he struck out on three straight 99 mph fastballs. He left after a walk to pinch-hitter Colby Rasmus, replaced by Sipp, who has Grossman to thank for avoiding a blown save.
