TORONTO — On Thursday afternoon, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was asked if he had any explanation for Drew Hutchison’s early season struggles. Why had the 24-year-old gone from one of the Blue Jays’ most reliable starters in the second half of 2014 to a guy with a 7.20 ERA in his first three starts of 2015?
Could it be his mechanics? His pitch usage? Maybe his velocity?
Gibbons leaned back in his chair, shook his head and dismissed all the theories. Sometimes baseball doesn’t have to be that complicated.
“At this level, most of them, just about all of them, have good arms, right? So, it really comes down to location. That’s always the big thing,” Gibbons said. “Hutch battles that sometimes. And when he’s really good, he doesn’t.”
Thursday night, he was really good.
Hutchison was perfect through his first five innings and ended up limiting the Orioles to two runs on four hits while striking out seven, as the Blue Jays held on to a 7-6 victory, completing a sweep of their division rivals for the first time since June, 2013.
The Orioles rallied with Hutchison out of the game in the ninth, as Manny Machado crushed his second home run of the night, a three-run shot off Miguel Castro to bring Baltimore to within one. But Castro retired the next two batters, letting fly with an emphatic fist pump as he earned his fourth save of the season.
The win turned what was a 2-5 homestand into a 5-5 one, and pushed the Blue Jays to two games over .500 as they head out for a 10-day, three-series road trip.
“It’s big,” Gibbons said. “You always want to get off to a good, competitive start — at least hold your own until you get some games under your belt.”
Hutchison’s eight innings — the longest outing by a Toronto starter all season — were a great turnaround for a pitcher who had been solid on opening day but stumbled through his subsequent two starts, failing to make it out of the fifth on both occasions.
Plenty tried to speculate as to why. Hutchison’s velocity had been slightly down, by a mile on his fastball, and a couple miles on his slider, the crucial pitch he rode to tremendous success in the second half of 2014. He was throwing more changeups, and far less sinkers. He was working a second or two faster on the mound.
But Thursday night put any concern, valid or not, to rest.
He threw with more velocity, as his four-seam fastball averaged 93.3 mph and was clocked as high as 95.7. His slider was harder, too, averaging 85 mph on the 20 he threw. He mixed and matched with his sinker and changeup to induce 12 groundball outs, tying a career high.
And he satisfied his manager’s primary area for improvement – location — by throwing first-pitch strikes to seven of the first nine batters he faced, and 18 of 29 overall.
“I feel like all year long I’ve been doing a better job of getting the ball on the ground,” Hutchison said. “Just better execution of keeping the ball down and then elevating when I want. I’m not getting caught in that middle zone.”
Gibbons did note that Hutchison will occasionally fall into phases where he over-throws, trying to put too much life on his pitches, which can increase deception but also decrease control. Evidently, that wasn’t an issue on Thursday.
The hardest hit ball he surrendered was to Machado who led off the sixth inning with a home run to break up Hutchison’s perfect game bid. Otherwise, Orioles batters had trouble making much noise at all, as Hutchison pounded the strike zone with his fastball early in counts, before mixing and matching with his three other offerings.
“I just felt like I did a good job being aggressive in the zone,” Hutchison said. “I got a good tempo going, a good rhythm. And the ball was coming out good. So I was able to pump my fastball early and get ahead of guys. That was the difference.”
Meanwhile, Toronto’s explosive offence continued to surge, scoring six or more runs for the ninth time in 16 games this season. The loudest hit came off the bat of Josh Donaldson who launched a 481-foot homer in the third, the longest in the majors this season.
The Blue Jays now lead the majors with 94 runs scored and have four players with four home runs over the first 16 games of the season. Of course, plate discipline was just as important as the long ball on Thursday, as the Blue Jays drew eight walks on the evening, plating three of them.
“Obviously the homestand didn’t start the way we wanted it to, but we finished it playing our style of baseball,” said Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin. “I feel like we played really good baseball these last three games.”