TORONTO – You can make a compelling argument that when Mark Buehrle started to find his way in the middle of last month, so too did the Toronto Blue Jays.
A pivotal date for both came May 11, the day after they fell a season-worst 11 games under .500, when the left-hander delivered seven dominant innings of one-run ball against the Boston Red Sox in what ended up a 3-2 win.
Since then, the Blue Jays are 22-12 including Wednesday night’s 5-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies that ran their winning streak to eight games, while Buehrle is 3-2 with a 2.65 earned-run average over eight starts during that span, giving the starting rotation a pillar of stability that it so desperately needed.
“You look back to that game in Boston, or even of the games he struggled in, he’s the same guy every day and for a lot of the younger guys, it’s great for them to see how he carries himself through adversity and tough times,” said pitching coach Pete Walker. “We struggled early in the year, we’re kind of coming out of it now, obviously, and I think he spring-boarded us out.
“He’s certainly turned himself into a leader on this team.”
Buherle and R.A. Dickey are the only Blue Jays starters to have not missed an outing this season, and getting quality innings from the veteran lefty to supplement what the knuckleballer provided helped buy time for things to settle within the rest of a rotation that’s gone through 12 different pitchers.
While that process played out, the team posted a 6-2 mark in the games started by Buehrle, giving them an element of dependability that lacked during April’s dark days.
“Guys pick up something from that,” said manager John Gibbons. “He’s done it his whole career, he’s a little older now but he’s the same guy, he guts it out good or bad. Really, everything took off from that point (in Boston).”
Against the Rockies he wasn’t at his best but still managed to throw five innings of two-run ball, combining with the bullpen to make Adam Lind’s three-run homer in the first and a pair of add-on runs stand up.
“Today was a lucky day,” said Buehrle. “Back-to-back starts I had some pretty good stuff with location, getting ahead in the count, today there were a lot of pitches I missed over the plate … a lot of pitches I got away with. Earlier in the season that wasn’t happening, those pitches were getting hit for home runs, and getting us down in a hole early.
“Getting those three runs early was a big help.”
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WHERE THINGS STAND: The Blue Jays (35-36) moved within a game of .500 for the first time since sitting 6-7 on April 15 before a crowd of 27,235, and are on their first eight-game win streak since winning 10 in a row Aug. 30-Sept. 9, 2009.
They also completed back-to-back sweeps for the first time this year and each of their five series against the Rockies (37-36) have ended with a sweep for the home team.
The Blue Jays open a three-game series Friday against the Baltimore Orioles, with R.A. Dickey (6-8, 4.90) taking on Jason Hammel (7-4, 5.24). On Saturday it’s Chien-Ming Wang (1-0, 3.14) against Freddy Garcia (3-4, 4.89) in a matchup of ex-Yankee reclamation projects, and Sunday Josh Johnson goes for Toronto while the Orioles are TBA.
“When you get on winning streaks there’s always a good feeling in there, and to do that everybody’s got to be pitching in one way or another,” said manager John Gibbons. “Everything is clicking right now, you almost hate to have a day off, but that will still probably do us some good. We’re on a roll.”
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LONGBALL FOR LIND: Adam Lind’s ninth homer of the season not only put the Blue Jays up 3-0 in the first, it also moved him past Fred McGriff for ninth place on the club’s all-time list with 126 home runs.
He’s also five away from matching Ernie Whitt for eighth all-time at 131.
Aside from his blow, the Blue Jays also eked out runs in the fourth on Emilio Bonifacio’s run-scoring fielder’s choice and in the seventh on Melky Cabrera’s RBI single.
“Any time you can get a lead it changes everything,” said manager John Gibbons. “The pitcher can settle in and relax a little bit, he doesn’t have to live and die with every pitch. It’s tough when it’s an uphill battle. … You get the lead, you feel good, you can set up your pitching any way you want.”
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CECIL STREAKING: Brett Cecil extended his remarkable run of dominance out of the bullpen with another perfect inning of relief, and has now established a new club record of 38 straight batters faced without allowing a hit.
The last batter to collect a knock off the left-hander was Atlanta Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons on May 28, and he’s now logged 17.2 straight shutout innings.
“I’ve always been confident in my stuff, even in spring training,” said Cecil. “In spring training they saw some stuff that was good and obviously there was some stuff I needed to work on, but I’m glad they gave me a chance and I appreciate it every day, for sure.”
David Cone held the previous Blue Jays record for batters faced without allowing a hit of 36, set June 11-17, 1995.
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BATTLING: Blue Jays reliever Neil Wagner prevailed in a 14-pitch at-bat against Rockies second baseman D.J. LeMahieu, using a 96 m.p.h. fastball to induce an infield popup snared by shortstop Munenori Kawasaki to end the sixth.
Wagner jumped out 0-2 against LeMahieu before the count evened at 2-2. Three straight foul balls followed and after a ball, LeMahieu spoiled five more heaters before finally popping out.
“Our approach there was, he started fouling a few of them off, so we went slider on 2-2 thinking maybe he’d be fishing for something,” said Wagner. “But he gets to 3-2, at that point fastball is my best pitch, we had Carlos Gonzalez on deck who’s one of the best hitters in the game, so the guy we wanted to get was in the box, and we figured the best pitch to do it with was a fastball. We tried to move it around a little bit and it ended up working out.
“It took more pitches than I wanted, but the approach was make him hit this pitch if he wants to get on base.”
Wagner struck out the other two batters he faced in the frame in his latest impressive work out of the bullpen.
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NUMBERS: The solo shot Carlos Gonzalez hit in the fifth inning off Mark Buehrle ended a streak of 56 straight innings without a home run for Blue Jays pitchers. … Blue Jays relievers have thrown 24 straight innings without allowing a run, and have given up a mere five earned runs over the past 17 games.