TORONTO — Liam Hendriks drove up to Canada from Buffalo Thursday evening—getting stopped on his way out of the United States by border guards who recognized him as the newest member of the Blue Jays rotation and wanted to talk baseball—getting into town around 10:30 pm in hopes of a good night’s sleep.
After all, Friday was going to be a big day. It was his mother Debbie’s birthday back home in Perth, Australia. His wife Kristi, a Montrealer he met in Fort Myers, Fla., was flying in that afternoon for the couple’s six-month wedding anniversary. And there was the minor matter of the major-league start he was being asked to make against the Oakland Athletics—winners of 11 of their last 13—a little after 7:00 pm.
And yet, you would never know what a big day it was for Hendriks as he sat by himself at his new locker in the Blue Jays clubhouse Friday afternoon, playing games on his iPad and peeling the stickers off his crisp new Blue Jays hat. And you still wouldn’t know it after the game, as the affable Hendriks stood patiently in the clubhouse waiting for reporters to arrive and ask him about his first major league win since Aug. 30 of last year when he was pitching for the Minnesota Twins.
“It was a huge thing for me. I was given opportunities in Minnesota and I didn’t capitalize on them. But now I’ve got a different mindset,” said Hendriks, who worked 5.2 innings Friday night, allowing one run in a 3-2 Blue Jays win. “I’m getting aggressive and getting after guys early. I think it’s paid dividends thus far and hopefully I can continue the trend and stay up here.”
Hendriks breezed through his first two innings, needing just 19 pitches to retire six of the first seven batters he faced, and had little trouble in the third. He left an 85-mph changeup out over the plate to Brandon Moss in the fourth (Moss shot a line drive over the wall in right field for Oakland’s first run) but in spite of that, the 25-year-old still exited the inning having faced just two batters over the limit.
But there was trouble in the fifth when Hendriks had one on and two out before hitting the behemoth Kyle Blanks with a fastball run awry and then walking Coco Crisp on five pitches to load the bases.
“I just starting thinking a little bit too much and trying to make a perfect pitch,” Hendriks said. “Anytime I start thinking it’s never good. You can ask my wife about that one.”
Hendriks threw a first-pitch curveball well outside to the next batter, Jed Lowrie, which spurred a mound visit from Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker, who told Hendriks to stop nibbling and get back to being aggressive. His next pitch, a 91-mph fastball down in the zone, was crushed 373 feet to right-centre field where Kevin Pillar nearly collided with Jose Bautista as he reined in the ball on the warning track.
“[The plan was to] throw a strike to Lowrie and get him to hit a ground ball,” Hendriks said. “Didn’t quite work as a ground ball. It worked as a warning track shot. But I’ll take an out any way I can get them.”
There were an awful lot of those loud outs made on the warning track Friday night, which presents a bit of an optimist/pessimist scenario when looking at Hendricks’s start. You could say he was just ahead of the Oakland hitters, executing well in the strike zone. Or you could say Oakland’s batters were just missing some very hittable pitches, and were mere feet from turning Friday night into a very different ballgame.
It’s something the Blue Jays will have to live with as they go forward with Hendriks in the rotation. He’s a contact pitcher who relies heavily on his low-90s fastball (his four-seamer and two-seamer combined for more than 75 percent of the pitches he threw against the A’s) and he’s been deliberately working on throwing more strikes earlier in the count. Rogers Centre is hardly a haven for high-contact, fly-ball pitchers like Hendriks, which will put even more weight on his ability to locate down in the zone.
But he held the best club in the majors to just one run Friday night and left in the sixth inning to a standing ovation (“I got tingles all over my body from that,” he said). That’s something. And when you’re talking about a truly nice guy with a career ERA over six who was stuck in waiver purgatory for much of the offseason, it’s hard not to feel good about the possibility he’s figured something out. He was a revelation this season at triple-A Buffalo—he had a 1.48 ERA and a 0.80 WHIP in 10 appearances—before getting called up this week. He’s earned this.
“I’m being more aggressive, I’m getting after guys, I’m getting ahead more often,” Hendriks said. “I’m feeling comfortable on the mound again—which is huge.”
Coming into the outing many assumed Hendriks was only in Toronto as a stopgap; a temporary band-aid for the fifth spot in the rotation, in place only as long as it takes Marcus Stroman to get stretched out at triple-A. But with Hendriks performing admirably in his first Blue Jays start and the club loath to rush Stroman back to the majors, the Aussie will be staying in Canada longer than some expected. His next turn in the rotation will likely come up on May 28 against the Rays.
“I thought he was really, really good. He came in there confident, attacked the zone, used the guys behind him. For his debut, I thought he did a heck of a job,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “I’d definitely say he’s earned another start.”