SAN FRANCISCO – John Gibbons had no intention of critiquing the finer points of what went wrong for the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday afternoon. In his mind, the way his players fought back from a late deficit and navigated through nearly four innings of extra baseball in a 5-4, 13-inning loss to the San Francisco Giants outweighed the bad. So he cut short a line of questioning on whether Ryan Goins should have tried stretching a lead-off single into a double in the 13th, and another on a two-error game for Troy Tulowitzki, his first since April 17, 2012, a span of 401 contests. He wasn’t having any of it.
“The guys played a good game out there, we battled, we came back to tie it against a good pitching staff, we battled our ass off, we came up short, they’ve got a good team over there,” Gibbons said. “I’m not going to sit here and pick on who didn’t do what or this because they’re busting their ass, you know? I’ll leave it at that.”
And he did, clearly feeling his team needed a pat on the back rather than a kick in the butt for taking two of three at the dashing AT&T Park, and heading for Arlington for three against the Texas Rangers starting Friday at 18-18, even though an opportunity for a sweep in San Francisco was there.
Losing on a bases-loaded walk to Buster Posey by Ryan Tepera, the game’s 15th pitcher optioned back to triple-A Buffalo afterwards with Brett Cecil due back from paternity leave Friday, certainly stung. The Blue Jays went 1-for-9 with men in scoring position, two of those outs coming from Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista (who reached base a combined 10 times) with two on in the top of the 13th, after Goins was called out at second on a play so close it was neither confirmed nor overturned on a replay review. Gibbons insisted he had no problem with Goins’ decision to go.
“I thought he looked safe from what I saw. He’s just trying to make something happen, it’s late in the game, guys are trying to do some things, he made a great play,” said Gibbons, before questioning a reporter on whether he thought Goins made it or not. “You thought he was safe, I thought he was safe, who cares if it’s smart or stupid because we both thought he was safe.”
Things unravelled in the bottom half as Brandon Belt was hit by a pitch to open the inning, Denard Span followed with a bunt that Russell Martin fielded and threw to second on a bounce that Tulowitzki couldn’t handle. A Tepera wild pitch advanced both runners prompting the Blue Jays to intentionally walk Joe Panik, and after Matt Duffy lined out softly to first, Tepera walked Posey on four pitches.
That came after Marcus Stroman – making his final start before leaving Saturday to pick up his sociology degree during commencement weekend at Duke University – threw six innings, but was undone by some shoddy defence that led to a pair of unearned runs in the second. A couple of bleeders to open the fifth led to two more runs before a late rally undid the damage.
“I felt great all day, I felt like I was making quality pitches, just felt like I was getting beat to specific spots and holes,” said Stroman. “I didn’t feel like I was getting hit all over the ballpark, hard contact. That’s where I try to be.”
Madison Bumgarner held the Blue Jays to a run on three hits and four walks over 6.2 innings and left up 4-1 before the Giants bullpen coughed it up by allowing a two-spot in the eighth and Michael Saunders’ game-tying solo shot off closer Santiago Casilla leading off the ninth.
Saunders pummelled the ninth pitch of the at-bat – a 94 mph fastball – over the wall in centre field.
“He ended up leaving a fastball up,” said Saunders. “I was trying to stay big part of the field, and I tried to stay through it. I fouled some good pitches off, he threw me some good sliders and a curveball that I was fooled on but I was able to make contact with it, foul it off, and finally get a pitch I was able to handle.”
That set up several near-misses and miraculous escapes in extra frames as both teams combined to strand 30 runners.
The Giants, who went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, nearly won it against the slumping Drew Storen in the 10th, as with two on and one out, Gregor Blanco’s potential double play ball was booted by Tulowitzki to load the bases. Storen rallied to strike out Brandon Belt before Span grounded out to first to end the frame. Then in the 11th, Derek Law got Edwin Encarnacion on a fly ball to right to right to strand Donaldson at second and Bautista on first.
The Giants took a 2-0 lead in the second when Brandon Crawford snuck a single through the right side and Conor Gillaspie followed with a tailor-made double-play grounder that Tulowitzki bobbled for an error. Blanco followed with an RBI double and an out later, Span’s RBI groundout made it a 2-0 game.
The Blue Jays clawed out a run in the third when Donaldson and Bautista opened the inning with walks, and Donaldson proceeded to steal third base. Encarnacion followed with an RBI groundout but Bumgarner held the damage there.
The Giants tacked on two more in the fifth when Span and Panik found holes before Stroman walked Duffy to load the bases. A Posey double play ball brought in another run before Hunter Pence’s double just over a charging Kevin Pillar’s head in centre made it a 4-1 game.
The Blue Jays pulled within one in the eighth, when Donaldson led off with his third single of the game, Encarnacion added a one out single and Tulowitzki was hit on the hip to set the stage for a Martin sacrifice fly and Justin Smoak’s pinch-hit RBI single.
But they could never take a lead, and fell to 3-8 in one-run games.
“It’s tough because I know we probably could have had a couple of more wins at this point, just the fact that they are one run games, we’re not going to lose them for the rest of the season, things are eventually going to turn,” said Saunders. “We were down by three in the eighth inning and battled back to push it into whatever inning it was, good signs, but we’re not going to lose these one-run games the entire year.”
Gibbons, obviously, feels the same way, and decided this wasn’t the right time to lament another winnable game that slipped away.
