TORONTO – Twenty-five years plus a day to the day the first pitch ever to count at SkyDome was thrown, Jimmy Key was back on what is now the Rogers Centre’s mound on a perfect baseball night, once again delivering a strike to catcher Ernie Whitt.
Even at 53 – what, 53! – Key can still carve it.
The scene surely triggered a flood of memories, and with Cito Gaston carrying the lineup card to home plate before the game and a boisterous crowd of 33,528 on hand – not like back then, but still not bad – it briefly felt like the good old days.
“It’s amazing,” said Key. “When I got the call about doing this I was like, ‘Holy cow, it has been 25 years!’ It’s kind of weird. Place looks beautiful though, like it’s brand new.”
Well, the building has been through some renewal over the past decade but the thing still missing is a new set of glory days for the sets of generations far enough removed from the championships of 1992 and ’93 that they’ve never lived through a pennant race, let alone the post-season.
Any stadium, no matter how beautiful, is just a place to play until the home team stuffs some glory in it.
The 2014 Blue Jays are certainly trying to make that happen, and a clever 3-1 triumph over the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night made it six straight wins, and victories 15 of their last 17 and 20 of their last 24.
Not even Jose Bautista hitting into the seventh triple play in team history (we’ll get to it) slowed them down.
Perhaps most importantly, and this bodes well for the rest of the season, was rookie Marcus Stroman, who at times walked a tightrope in his six-plus innings of work, but held the Cardinals to just a run on seven hits and two walks with seven strikeouts.
The Blue Jays viewed Stroman as the prospect most likely to give their rotation a shot in the arm coming into the season and in his two starts so far, he’s definitely done that.
While not as dominant as he was against the Kansas City Royals (six innings, five hits, one run, one Eric Hosmer “Wow” caught on camera), he smartly avoided any big blows despite allowing runners in all but one of his innings.
“He’s young and new to the big-league level and that’s a big thing for his confidence,” said manager John Gibbons. “He faced some pretty good hitters and made some pretty good pitches at the right time, and that’s basically what it comes down to.
“The kid believes in himself as much as anybody – he just attacks you. He’s a great competitor, he’s on a mission, and he’s off to a great start.”
A team not fighting it the way the Cardinals are right now – they’ve lost eight of their last 10 with their offence a primary culprit – might have exacted more of a price on Stroman, but if this is the learning curve, the Blue Jays won’t complain.
“I’ve always felt like when guys get on, I feel like I’m able to buckle down and really be at my best, that’s something I’ve always prided myself on,” said Stroman. “Any time a guy gets on, I definitely try to take it up a notch and limit the guys from scoring.”
The key for Stroman to maintain his success is being down in the zone, as his 5-9 frame means he gets little natural downward plane on the ball. If his pitches don’t travel downward through multiple planes, his 95-plus stuff plays down and becomes more hittable.
“It’s more mechanical, I’m getting quick, I’m getting antsy, I’m getting excited to get out there and pitch,” Stroman said of what happens when he’s up in the zone. “I just tell myself to stay back and really drive the ball down.”
If he wants to continue succeeding, he must adjust to pitching in his new surroundings the way Key did back in the day.
“I liked to pitch to wind conditions, winds blowing in or out from left or right, it gives me a field to pitch to,” said Key. “I was a control pitcher, and I had to manoeuvre my balls around a little bit. In this place you never really had a field to pitch to because it was perfect every night, so I didn’t feel I had an advantage here as I did over [at Exhibition Stadium].
“I had to [get] more groundballs, you’ve got to keep the ball on the ground here, fly balls go out of here. It did put a little onus on me and my control to throw more groundballs here.”
Against the Cardinals, some handy relief work by Brett Cecil, Dustin McGowan and Casey Janssen, pitching the ninth for his 11th save, made what little offence the Blue Jays mustered stand.
Bautista’s solo shot in the second tied the game up 1-1 and Brett Lawrie’s solo drive in the fifth made it a 2-1 game.
In the sixth, Bautista hit into a 4-6-3 triple play when his bases-loaded liner was caught by Daniel Descalso, who relayed to shortstop Jhonny Peralta at second for the second out, and relayed on to first for the triple play.
The rarities didn’t end there as in the ninth, Bautista tracked Tony Cruz’s fly ball into the stands, was running under it, and then had a young fan’s glove keep him from catching the ball. In other words, he got Bartmanned.
The difference is manager John Gibbons challenged, the call was overturned and Chicago Cubs fans can only wish that instant replay be implemented retroactively to the 2003 NLCS with the Florida Marlins.
“He’s caught up in the emotions like anybody else, the ball’s coming to him, he wants to catch a ball hit by a major-leaguer at a Major League Baseball game,” Bautista said in forgiving the fan. “He’s not thinking about the play the way I am. So you can’t blame him for it.
“It doesn’t matter. They reviewed it, and they made the right call.”
Bautista also threw out a runner at home in the first inning, adding to a remarkably rare collection of plays on the scoresheet: a homer, a triple play, an outfield assist, and a putout on fan interference via replay.
“It’s got to be the most eventful game I’ve ever had in my career,” he said. “I’d like to see if anyone can find somebody else to have that combination of plays. That would be pretty awesome.”
For the Blue Jays, it all added up to more things breaking their way. On a night where a better past was being celebrated, what’s turning into a pretty good present continued, too.