BALTIMORE – The Baltimore Orioles were 30-29 and 6.5 games back when the Toronto Blue Jays hit their high-water mark of 14 games over .500 back on June 6, and since then they’ve been like a rocket ship to the moon.
On July 3, a 5-2 win over Texas gave them a piece of the American League East lead. The next day, the Blue Jays lost 1-0 in 12 innings at Oakland to give them sole possession of top spot. They haven’t looked back since, and a 5-2 victory Monday night clinched at least a tie for their first division crown since 1997.
The inevitable for the 90-60 Orioles is nigh.
Over that same time period, the Blue Jays (77-72) collapsed, recovered, collapsed again, recovered again and are now hovering in salvage mode, trying to finish out strong while hoping the teams ahead of them in the wild card race fall flat on their faces.
The Kansas City Royals didn’t on Monday, rallying in the ninth to beat the Chicago White Sox and open a five-game gap on the Blue Jays, who lost for the third time in four outings and are quickly running out of time for a miracle finish. As manager John Gibbons noted before the game, “we’re going to have to play some series where we win more than two out of three, realistically, to get in.”
The Blue Jays could have given themselves a better chance to win this one in the first, as they had men on the corners with none out in the first and a run in on Edwin Encarnacion’s RBI single but Wei-Yin Chen recovered to strikeout Danny Valencia and Dioner Navarro before Nick Markakis made a diving catch on John Mayberry Jr.’s blooper to end the inning.
“We should have scored a couple more runs there,” said Jose Reyes, “but sometimes you have to give credit to the pitcher.”
Markakis then got things started against Marcus Stroman in the bottom of the first with a single and after an Alejandro De Aza double, came around on Adam Jones’ infield dribbler. De Aza came in on Nelson Cruz’s double and the Orioles wouldn’t trail again.
Things got testy in the sixth, when down 5-2, Stroman threw over the head of catcher Caleb Joseph, who in the fifth stepped on Reyes’ hand as he slid headfirst into home on Valencia’s RBI single. Reyes popped up angrily and complained to home plate umpire Ted Barrett that he was given no lane.
“I felt like he stepped on my hand with no reason,” said Reyes. “Stuff happens in the middle of the game, a lot of energy and I got a little bit hot there scoring a run. I thought he stepped on my hand. That’s in the past.”
While Joseph wasn’t sure why Reyes was mad – “I was just trying to make a play there,” he said –Stroman strongly denied there was any intent on the pitch.
“Fastball in that kind of slipped out of my hand,” he said. “It’s late in the game, I got two big strikeouts, I’m a little excited and trying to get out of the inning, I know it’s possibly my last hitter. I tried to execute a fastball in, I know if I throw that pitch in that location I have a chance to get out of that inning pretty quick, maybe one, two pitches, and it just kind of slipped out of my hand.”
Barrett warned both teams after the pitch, Stroman struck out Joseph to end the frame and the teams exchanged words as they traded places on the field. Nothing developed beyond a tongue-lashing for Barrett from Buck Showalter, which is standard.
“If you don’t have the command to throw the ball where you’re supposed to, to deliver a message then you shouldn’t be throwing at all there,” said Showalter. “It really pushed the hot button with all of us because it certainly wasn’t called for. That was obvious. It was border-line professionally embarrassing.”
Bad blood aside, the contest highlighted some of the reasons behind the separation in the standings between the clubs.
While Markakis saved at least one run with his catch in the first, the Blue Jays gifted the Orioles a run in the third when Jones’ blooper fell between three defenders, he took second on a wild pitch and came around on Nelson Cruz’s RBI single, all with two outs.
“They’ve got a good defensive club over there, that’s for sure,” Gibbons said. “They’re good at every spot.”
In the fourth, second baseman Ryan Flaherty, an unlikely power source, broke things open with a two-run shot off Stroman that made it 5-1, underlining the depth in their batting order, even without the injured Matt Wieters and Manny Machado plus the suspended Chris Davis.
And with Chen fortunate to have survived 5.2 innings allowing only two runs despite nine hits and a walk, the Orioles bullpen did its typical strong work in bringing win No. 90 home.
It is in those areas and others where the differences between the teams lie. Here are a few key discrepancies to consider:
- In one-run games, the Orioles are 30-21, the Blue Jays are 14-18;
- In extra-inning games, the Orioles are 14-5, the Blue Jays are 5-8;
- Against the AL East, the Orioles are 41-23, the Blue Jays are 36-31;
- Against the AL West, the Orioles are 21-12, the Blue Jays are 12-18;
- Before Monday’s play, the Orioles bullpen had an ERA of 3.21 and a WHIP of 1.178 in 466 innings; Blue Jays relievers posted a 4.15 ERA in 447 innings.
And while the Blue Jays struggled during the injury absences of Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Lind and continuing loss of Brett Lawrie, the Orioles to their credit have overcome injuries to Wieters, Machado, Davis, Ubaldo Jimenez, Bud Norris, Tommy Hunter and others.
Their depth outdid the Blue Jays’ depth, and with a Magic Number of one to clinch, pretty soon they’ll have an American League East title to show for it.