TORONTO — J.A. Happ’s two-seam fastball has been easily his most important pitch this season. Coming into Monday night’s start with a 2.05 ERA in seven outings, Happ was leaning on his two-seamer 31 per cent of the time, far more than he’s ever used it over his nine-year career. Opposition hitters were batting just .239 against it, and it was generating a groundball 54 per cent of the time it was put in play.
But Monday night, that two-seamer betrayed him. Several times he watched it leave his hand and cut over the strike zone instead of fading down through it, which left the pitch up on a tee for the Tampa Bay Rays to exploit. And boy did they ever, knocking Happ around for eight earned runs on seven hits including two long home runs, as the Toronto Blue Jays fell, 13-2.
“That’s a nightmare outing,” Happ said, after recording just six outs and doing some damage to the 1.68 ERA over his prior 17 starts that he carried into the night. “But there’s no pitcher in the game who’s immune to that. You look at the best of the best and it happens. It certainly doesn’t make it okay. And I’m not okay with it by any means, but I’ve got to flush it and come back and work to get right.”
It was Happ’s worst start since August, 2010, when he was a Houston Astro and gave up seven earned on six hits and three walks to the St. Louis Cardinals, managing to retire just three batters. It also brought an end to his 17-game streak of allowing three earned runs of fewer, which was the second-longest active run in the majors behind 2015 Cy Young winner Jake Arrieta.
“It’s not a big deal as far as how I feel or anything. I felt great out there,” Happ said. “I felt good in the bullpen. Nothing was different. I just didn’t execute. It got away from me quick.”
It sure did. The battering of Happ by the Rays was swift and unrelenting, beginning when Steve Pearce ambushed a 92-mph two-seamer with a runner on in the first inning, hitting the ball so hard that Happ didn’t even bother watching it leave the yard.
Tampa Bay added three more in the second inning with a series of loud hits, punctuated by a deep Tim Beckham homer over the centre field wall off that same two-seam fastball.
“It just wasn’t coming out of my hand the right way,” Happ said. “It kind of cut in to some of those righties. With Pierce, first pitch, it cut down and in. And then Beckham, same exact thing.”
Back out for a third inning to try to salvage some sliver of solace on the night, Happ let the first three batters he faced reach safely before Blue Jays manager John Gibbons came out of the dugout to end his evening. It was the first time in 20 games that a Blue Jays starter lasted less than six innings.
The 33-year-old Happ says this kind of undesired movement on his sinker is something that occurs from time-to-time. Usually he’s good at not overreacting to it and letting the pitch sort itself out in his hand. But as he laboured against the Rays Monday night, Happ started trying to force the pitch to sink instead of cut.
“And that’s always a mistake,” Happy said. “When that happens I should probably go to other pitches or maybe use of the four-seam more. But it’s been so good for me this year, I felt like I could make the adjustment. And some were good, but I think it’s just a matter of being able to hit with everything. And tonight I didn’t.”
Another left-hander, Drew Smyly, started for the Rays and, not that it mattered considering the Tampa Bay onslaught that was to come, but the Blue Jays actually had him on the ropes in the first inning. They loaded the bases with three consecutive walks, which brought Troy Tulowitzki to the plate with an opportunity to deliver a decisive blow.
But Tulowitzki let Smyly off the hook by striking out, which you may have noticed has been a theme for the 2016 Blue Jays offence. Despite throwing 68 pitches over his first three innings, Smyly somehow managed to carry a no-hitter into the fourth before Justin Smoak broke up the bid for history with a single to left field.
Tulowitzki was then called out on strikes behind him, the third one scraping along the very bottom of the zone, which drew the ire of the Blue Jays dugout. That’s when home plate umpire Mike Winters turned to his left, removed his mask, and ejected Gibbons, putting an early end to the Toronto manger’s night for the second straight game.
“You know, just balls and strikes,” a brusque Gibbons said after the game when asked what led to his ejection. “That’s all.”
The Blue Jays eventually scored a run off Smyly in the bottom of the fifth, as Jose Bautista drove in Darwin Barney’s lead-off single. But that didn’t stop bench coach and acting manager DeMarlo Hale from waving his white flag at the end of the inning, emptying his bench and giving several regulars the rest of the night off.
And there isn’t much more to say than that about what was truly a grim, bleak ballgame for the Toronto Blue Jays. Of course, one of the club’s starters, who have been consistently reliable throughout the season, had to falter at some point. It was Happ who did and how he responds in his next outing will say a lot about how far he’s come since his first go-round as a Blue Jay years ago, when one bad outing would often beget another.
“Tough night,” Happ said, succinctly. “But if I let it be more than that it’s going to consume me. So, I just have to come in tomorrow and start over. This game certainly can drive you crazy. And in the past it has. Tomorrow, I’m gonna flush it. I’m gonna come in, I’m gonna get my work in like always. And we’ll keep going. I felt good and I’m gonna feel good then next time out. And we’ll do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”