TORONTO – The temptation to draw meaningful conclusions from the early days of a baseball season is understandable. Without a wider body of work to contrast events against, whatever happens is subject to hyper-analysis and it’s easy to forget how little a week’s worth of games counts within the course of 162. The game teaches you to avoid small sample sizes for good reason.
Yet there’s been little reason surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays’ slow entrance into the 2016 campaign, although Wednesday night’s 7-2 victory over the New York Yankees is sure to quell some of the absurd local panic. The offence scratched out three runs off a pretty solid Michael Pineda before busting out late, J.A. Happ delivered six quality innings of one-run ball, and Brett Cecil bounced back with a scoreless inning of relief as the bullpen held things at bay.
Sure, issues remain – Troy Tulowitzki’s RBI single in the eighth ended an 0-for-11 rut, Edwin Encarnacion is still looking for his first extra-base hit and Russell Martin is having good at-bats with little to show for it. But over time things normalize. The Oct. 2 season finale in Boston is a long, long, long ways away. No one is hot wire-to-wire. Panic is never more pointless than now.
“It was just a matter of time before we finally barrelled a couple of balls and found some holes,” said Ryan Goins, who had a pair of doubles among his three hits and knocked in a pair of runs. “We’ve hit some balls hard, we’ve hit some balls right at people, that’s how it goes. We’re eight games into the season and people around us, not these 25 guys in here, but people around us have kind of panicked a bit, and I don’t think anybody in this locker-room has panicked one bit.
“We know we’re a great lineup and we’re going to score runs.”
Still, grinding through down periods is never easy, and their most lopsided win of the season gave the Blue Jays some relief.
Happ provided a pick-me-up by holding the Yankees down over six innings in collecting his first win, while Cecil helped secure matters when the Blue Jays handed him a 3-1 win. Manager John Gibbons showed no reluctance in going back to the left-hander, tagged with two losses already, and he responded by going three-up, three-down, his curveball far sharper.
“He’s a big part of this,” said Gibbons. “It’s like a hitter, when a hitter is struggling do you give up on him? Where does that get you? Nowhere. We had him protected with (Drew) Storen, but I thought he looked much better, and it was just a matter of time. You can’t throw everybody away every time they have a bad outing, you wouldn’t be able to field a team, contrary to what a lot of public opinion might think. We never care about that.”
Cecil talked things over with pitching coach Pete Walker and bullpen coach Dane Johnson before the game, and he made slowing his body down when delivering the hook a priority. He spiked his first two curveballs and later apologized to Martin for the beating he took blocking them, but then got his tempo right and snapped off some beauties.
He also simplified things in his mind.
“Yeah, I didn’t think,” he said. “Mechanics, when they get into your head can be a funny thing. I’ve never been a huge head case, going to look at video and stuff like that, but when stuff doesn’t feel right I don’t feel that good, it’s almost a must. Grab Dane, grab Pete and just go over some things. That’s what we did before the game and just hit on a few reminder things, and obviously it really helped. There’s still room for improvement … but a good clean inning.”
Storen followed in the eighth and while he surrendered a solo shot off the foul screen to Mark Teixeira that made it a one-run game, he retired his next two batters and then watched the offence post a four-spot on Ivan Nova, who clearly was some good hitting.
Back-to-back doubles by Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista, who over the first eight games had basically been the Blue Jays’ offence, restored a two-run lead, Tulowitzki lined a solid single to right field to cash in another run, Martin, who walked and scored on Ryan Goins’ double in the second, hit a sacrifice fly and Goins capped things off with an RBI single.
Happ’s only major trouble spot came in the fifth, when he faced men on the corners with none out, but allowed only Aaron Hicks’ RBI groundout that tied things up. “Minimizing damage is always big,” said Happ, who was displeased by throwing first-pitch strikes to only 17 of the 26 batters he faced. “I’d just like to get strike one a little more. I don’t know what the percentage was, but not great. Other than that, I’ll take that game any time, for sure.”
The Blue Jays took the lead right back in the bottom half of the inning when Justin Smoak, who walked to open the frame and advanced to third on another Goins double, scored on Kevin Pillar’s infield chopper. Teixeira couldn’t handle a poor throw from Ronald Torreyes at short and Goins alertly took third, stealing another run when he scored on Donaldson’s double-play grounder.
“I was just trying to be aggressive in that situation and make it easy for the guy coming up next to put something in play and score a run,” said Goins. “That’s what we do, we take the base, we run hard. And it sets up the next guy, not being selfish and knowing any extra base can set up the next guy for an RBI.”
Eventually, the floodgates opened, and the Blue Jays enjoyed the kind of break-it-open inning they’re going to have many more times this season.
