TORONTO — As the Rogers Centre grounds crew jogged out to groom the infield following the third inning of a series finale between the Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians, there were already 12 runs and 12 hits on the scoreboard, both starting pitchers were out of the game, two players had left injured, a pitching coach had been ejected, and each team was about to begin its third trip through the order.
So, yeah, it was a messy one under the roof Wednesday night. But at least it didn’t go to extras, as Ryan Goins lined a first-pitch single up the right-field line off Cleveland closer Cody Allen with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, giving the Blue Jays an 8-7 victory.
“I definitely wanted to be aggressive right there, for sure,” Goins said. “I wanted to get a heater early, and that’s what happened.”
The shortstop’s walk-off came at the end of an excellent string of plate appearances by Blue Jays hitters, as each batter who stepped in the box forced Allen to throw at least six pitches. Justin Smoak and Steve Pearce worked back-to-back, two-out walks after falling behind early in their counts, loading the bases and pushing Allen’s pitch count over 30.
By the time Goins stepped in, he knew Allen would be eager to get ahead with a strike, and jumped all over a 94-mph fastball to win the game.
“Cody’s one of the top closers in the game. When he came in, you knew it wasn’t going to be easy, that’s for sure,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “It was great at-bats. We laid off some tough breaking balls and made him work. And I think it’s key that Goins ambushed him there. You don’t want him to get to that breaking ball. He’s one of the top guys in the league. Normally, he doesn’t have to work that hard.”
It was a tidy ending to what was, through three innings, a very untidy game—the primary culprit for that being a pair of exceptionally ineffective outings from starting pitchers Francisco Liriano and Danny Salazar, who combined to record only 14 outs total.
Liriano found himself down two runs before the game was five minutes old, as he issued a leadoff walk to Carlos Santana, followed by a single off the bat of Francisco Lindor and a double down the right field line by Jason Kipnis, which scored both runners.
Kipnis moved to third on an Edwin Encarnacion fly ball to deep centre and, suddenly, the Blue Jays were playing their infield in to try and keep things from getting out of control before many fans had even taken their seats.
Liriano got out of the jam, and the next time he took the mound he found himself with a lead as the Blue Jays got off to a quick start of their own. It began with a Kevin Pillar leadoff walk of all things, followed by an Ezequiel Carrera liner up the middle that nearly took Salazar’s head off. Jose Bautista then worked a full count before getting a fastball on the inner half of the plate that he drilled on a rope at 113 mph into the left-field bullpen to put the Blue Jays up by one.
It was Bautista’s third home run of the season (his first at Rogers Centre), and came in his 34th game and 150th plate appearance. That’s the deepest the two-time home run champ has gone into a season without hitting three home runs since 2009 when it took him 63 games and 197 plate appearances.
“Jose needed that,” Gibbons said. “The ball’s been down in the zone a little bit more. I think he’s been chasing that ball up in the zone and that’s been giving him trouble. That ball looks good riding in there chest-high. But if the guy’s got something on it, it’s tough to catch up with it, I don’t care who you are. He’d been in a little bit of a rut, there’s no doubt. But he’s got a lot of pride and he’s working at it.”
After an uneventful second inning, Liriano came undone in the third, walking Santana again, allowing a single to Lindor again, and giving up a run-scoring hit to Kipnis, again, which tied the game. A walk of Encarnacion followed to load the bases, which brought out Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker for a mound visit.
That gave home plate umpire Vic Carapazza his latest opportunity to—and we don’t put this lightly—make an utter ass of himself, ejecting Walker from the game after he said something to the perpetually aggrieved official while he walked back to the dugout. Considering the extensive history of mutual hostility between Carapazza and these Blue Jays—each of Carapazza’s last five ejections, dating back to July 1, 2016, have been Blue Jays—it’s a small wonder MLB lets him anywhere near a ballgame Toronto is involved in.
Anyway, two pitches after Walker’s ejection, Jose Ramirez took a Liriano slider the other way to plate Lindor form third and keep the bases loaded, which was about all Blue Jays manager John Gibbons needed to see, as he emerged from his dugout to take the ball from his besieged starter.
Liriano clearly didn’t have it Wednesday night, throwing just over half of his pitches for strikes and needing 53 to record six outs. After a masterful spring training, Liriano has walked four batters or more in five of his first seven regular-season starts, boasts a 6.35 ERA, and leads baseball with 7.31 BB/9.
“I’m just going through a tough time right now,” Liriano said. “I’m trying to find a way to find out what it is and find a way to get better every start and try to go deeper. I don’t know. I’m just going through a tough situation right now. But you’ve got to stay positive and try to find a way to get better.”
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Gibbons summed it up as “just one of those nights,” while Blue Jays catcher Luke Maile, who was working with Liriano for the first time in his career, thought the left-hander actually deserved better than he got against a deep Cleveland lineup.
“They put some really good swings on a couple pitches that weren’t bad pitches. They weren’t the best that he’s got, but they weren’t necessarily bad pitches,” Maile said. “He struggled a little bit with his command at times. But they‘ve got a really good team—a lot of tough outs. I just thought they had a good approach to him.”
As Liriano exited, Dominic Leone came in to try and keep the mess contained, but achieved quite the contrary as Brandon Guyer struck a hard double to the wall in right-centre field, scoring all three runners Liriano left behind. Guyer was gunned down trying for third, which gave the Blue Jays a desperately needed out, and after Yan Gomes hit a hard double, Leone was able to escape the inning with the game still in reach.
The Blue Jays scratched a couple runs back off Salazar in their half of the third, as a Bautista walk and Smoak double both came around to score, the former on a Pearce sacrifice fly and the latter on a Goins single, cutting the deficit to two. That drove Salazar from the game, and turned Wednesday night’s affair into a battle of the bullpens in the bottom of the third inning.
It also set the stage for Carrera to tie the game at seven with a two-run homer in the fourth, bringing in Darwin Barney’s leadoff double with a 105-mph rocket into the right-field bullpen.
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Things settled down considerably once Liriano and Salazar were out of the game, as Toronto and Cleveland’s respective relief units competed admirably, patch-working their way through the ninth inning using five relievers each. Leone, Danny Barnes, Ryan Tepera, Joe Smith, and Roberto Osuna combined to throw seven innings of scoreless ball for the Blue Jays on six hits and no walks.
“Our bullpen’s been outstanding lately. You can’t say enough about how important they’ve been,” Maile said. “They’re talented, everyone knows how good they are. But they’ve got a little bit of momentum right now, too. They’re pitching well in big situations. They gave us a chance to win the game—and that’s what happened.”
After Osuna pitched a clean top of the ninth, Carrera hit a one-out single off Allen in the bottom half before reaching third on the back-to-back, two-out walks by Smoak and Pearce. That brought up Goins, who took care of the rest.
“I feel like we’ve been playing good baseball all year. We’ve lost, what, 11 or 12 one-run games?” Goins said, off by a bit from the seven one-run losses the Blue Jays have on their record. “We’ve been knocking on the door a lot and now we’re finally knocking that door down. Now we’re just going to put our heads down and get as many wins as we can.”