The highly-anticipated battle between Toronto Blue Jays ace Marcus Stroman and San Francisco Giants super-lefty Madison Bumgarner didn’t live up to the hype, despite the best efforts of the Blue Jays’ righty.
However, it certainly did wind up being one heck of a game when all was said and done, with the Blue Jays rallying late to force extra innings before losing on a bases-loaded walk by Ryan Tepera to Buster Posey in the 13th.
Stroman, who came into the game with an ERA of 3.60 despite a sparkling 1.02 WHIP that stood eighth in the American League, was betrayed by the Blue Jays’ usually air-tight defence and by a stingy strike zone set by home plate umpire Tony Randazzo.
It was a tough bottom of the first as Stroman walked leadoff man Denard Span and, after getting a double-play grounder, gave up back-to-back singles to Matt Duffy and Posey. Posey’s was a ground ball to right field that seemed to eat up the usually sure-handed Darwin Barney, and though Stroman got Hunter Pence on a fly ball to end the inning, that Posey hit was a portent of things to come.
Brandon Crawford led off the bottom of the second with a ground ball wide of second that Barney couldn’t flag down either. Neither Posey’s nor Crawford’s hit was routine by any means, but they were both the kind of plays that we have grown to expect would be made by a Blue Jays’ second baseman, whether it’s Barney or Ryan Goins.
The next hitter, Conor Gillaspie, hit yet another ground ball – this one up the middle. Troy Tulowitzki ranged to his left and, perhaps thinking double play before securing the ball, didn’t field it cleanly, taking him out of a play on the lead runner. He fired a strike to first but though it was initially ruled an out on the field, the call was overturned on replay review and the Giants had two on and nobody out instead of the outcome Stroman deserved, which would have been two out and nobody on. Tulowitzki would do the same thing in the tenth inning, but Drew Storen picked him up by getting two huge outs to keep the game going.
Next up was Gregor Blanco, who smacked a hard grounder right down the first-base line into the right-field corner for an RBI double to get the Giants on the board. Still respecting the arm of Jose Bautista, third base coach Roberto Kelly held Gillaspie at third and did the Blue Jays a huge favour in doing so because while Bautista’s throw from the corner was solid, Barney spiked the relay throw home. Stroman then struck out Bumgarner and got ground-ball outs from the next two hitters, one of which scored San Francisco’s second run, to end the inning. Neither run was earned because of the Tulowitzki error – his fifth in the last 15 games (the error in the tenth was his sixth). Tulowitzki had started his Blue Jays career by being error-free in his first 61 games.
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Stroman didn’t have any luck with Randazzo, either. Randazzo might have been tight on Stroman anyway, but Bumgarner’s complaints about some calls he wanted but didn’t get in the top of the first could have had an impact.
The righty has become a ground ball specialist by living on the lower edges of the strike zone, helped out by the terrific receiving of Russell Martin, but on Wednesday those low strikes were called balls more often than not.
The worst case of Randazzo imposing his will on the game came in the bottom of the fifth with the Blue Jays down 2-1. Span and Joe Panik led off the inning with grounders, both of which made it through to the outfield for singles to put runners on first and second with nobody out. Duffy was up next and Stroman missed inside with a first-pitch fastball, but he didn’t miss again – according to the PitchTrax strike zone. But Randazzo judged that a pair of fastballs at the bottom of the zone were balls, so the count was 3-2 to Duffy instead of him having struck out looking (twice). The full-count pitch missed just low – a pitch called a ball that was actually a ball – and the bases were loaded with nobody out. Posey followed and hit into a double play, but instead of the inning being over, a run scored and the Giants added another on a two-out double by Pence.
The Blue Jays rallied late against the bullpen, something we have seen them do all-too-rarely this season, to get Stroman off the hook, and the bullpen allowed just four hits until Tepera had his nightmare 13th. Stroman has now gone 16 straight starts without a loss, the most since Roy Halladay had 20 in a row in his Cy Young season of 2003.