TORONTO – The tendency these days when a player struggles is to overlook his qualities and focus only on what’s going wrong. The performance isn’t there? Get rid of him yesterday, cry the panacea-seekers, believing a trip to the minors or a change of role is always the answer. Too few have the patience for a little steadfastness in the face of adversity.
Such a context-lacking thought process is no way to develop a player, and lost amid the past six weeks of struggle is that Marcus Stroman is still a developing player. Everyone, it seems had the answer, from demotion to a bullpen banishment and the background noise was everywhere. That’s why Toronto Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins sat down with the right-hander in the visitors’ dugout at Coors Field on Tuesday night, and tried to ease his mind.
"Often-times what happens in a development approach or a trying-to-help approach is that it becomes overly negative and focused on (what a player isn’t doing)," said Atkins. "Not just Stro-specific, what we’ve got to do here is focus on guys’ strengths and look for ways to complement and subtly improve other areas."
Stroman found a correction weeks in the making against baseball’s hottest team Friday afternoon with 6.2 outstanding innings of one-run ball, providing a small bit of solace from a wild and remarkable 2-1, 19-inning loss in which two position players pitched and the Cleveland Indians ran their win streak to a club record 14. The marathon lasted six hours 13 minutes, featured three Blue Jays ejections due to Vic Carapazza’s umm, carapy strike zone, a total of 19 pitchers used and a combined 34 men left on base. Even Stroman exchanged words with the umpire during his best outing in weeks.
"It just shows you how much confidence and how much not only your clubhouse guys but the execs and everyone above believe in me, and it shows how much they want me to be here and how much they want me to succeed and basically they want me to do everything in my power to help me be the guy out there," Stroman said of his conversation with Atkins. "That was the message and it’s extremely gratifying hearing it from his mouth and just hearing he’s confident that I’m going to get through what I’ve been going through. It’s reassuring and I couldn’t be happier to be a Blue Jay."
Stroman’s effort wasn’t enough in a game that was settled when Darwin Barney, the 10th Blue Jays pitcher who took over after fellow infielder Ryan Goins snuck his way out of a troubled 18th, surrendered a full-count homer to leadoff man Carlos Santana in the 19th.
A raucous Canada Day crowd of 45,825 became infuriated when Carapazza ejected Edwin Encarnacion in the first inning after he questioned a dodgy third strike, and then heaved manager John Gibbons for coming out to argue.
Russell Martin had to be restrained by bench coach DeMarlo Hale and third base coach Luis Rivera after he was ejected in the 13th. The only Blue Jays run came in the sixth on a Justin Smoak solo shot that tied the game 1-1 off Josh Tomlin.
The teams traded a series of impressive escapes – the Indians were 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position while the Blue Jays went 1-for-10 – in what matched the longest game in terms of innings in Jays history (they beat Detroit 6-5 on Aug. 10, 2014). "We just weren’t able to come through," lamented Martin, who was tossed for commenting on a call as he was walking away. "It wasn’t the best display of umpiring that I’ve seen."
Stroman allowed only five hits and a walk with six strikeouts to build on the progress he made last Sunday in Chicago, when he introduced a mechanical adjustment in which he kept his hands low at the start of his delivery rather than pumping them up to his ear, as a way to better stay on top of the ball.
He dominated the lower part the strike zone with his sinker, generating 12 groundball outs, he worked ahead and confidently and the couple of times he got into a jam, he didn’t wilt.
"I feel like Stro was mowing them up and down," said Martin. "He probably had his best outing in a while."
To be sure, Stroman had been through the most trying stretch of his career over his previous eight starts, allowing 38 earned runs on 67 hits and 16 walks in 45.1 innings of work. Over that span, he worked on refining his slider, adjusting his pitch mix and getting more downward plane on the ball while investigating his delivery for any possibility that he was tipping pitches. He wasn’t, and finding the necessary adjustment consumed him.
"I felt like there were times where he’d make a good pitch, they would get a hit and instead of staying with the same plan and understanding that was a really good pitch, he would try to make a bigger adjustment than he needed to," said teammate and close friend Aaron Sanchez. "That’s really the only thing that started catching up to him, he tried to overadjust instead of continuing what he’s doing and understanding that’s right, even if he still gave up a hit."
Given both Stroman’s own expectations and those placed on him, the determined way in which he looked for answers is understandable. A couple weeks ago he started making a conscious effort to do his thinking between starts and trust in the process once on the mound. He benefitted from that in Chicago.
"There’s a point where you can definitely overanalyze," said Stroman. "I feel like I didn’t overanalyze in this process, I feel like I knew what I had to get back to, I was just doing things that were going to help to get me getting back on top of my sinker, which was basically keeping my hands low the entire time and then simplifying my delivery, kind of like a Sonny Gray or (David Price) where I’m already turned in the stretch. I worked relentlessly at it in between starts and now it’s at the point where it feels really comfortable."
Worth remembering is that Stroman has only 41 career big-league starts under his belts, including Friday. He was bound to experience some growing pains.
"Development never ends, players never get to the point where they have arrived because as soon as they feel like they have, somebody makes an adjustment and if they’re not making the adjustment back, they’re not having the level of success they could be," said Atkins. "There are players who get to the point where there isn’t development for them in the minor-leagues, the only development is going to be at this level or they’re not going to be very effective. Stro is not either of those, he’s right now somewhere in between. I think the most likely scenario is that Stro’s development occurs here, but he’s exceptionally young, not just from an age standpoint, but in overall experience."
Stroman certainly gained some experience from his recent struggles. If he can continue applying his gains Friday to future outings, both he and the Blue Jays will be able to take some good from a gruelling and difficult loss.