TORONTO – Tonic for Mark Buehrle came in the form of five restorative and largely effective innings Wednesday night, and more importantly, a rare, rare victory over the New York Yankees.
The veteran left-hander’s performance in a 5-1 Toronto Blue Jays win over the American League East leaders – just his second win in 22 career starts against the Bronx Bombers – should very much have a calming effect after his last two outings raised all kinds of alarm bells.
Buehrle wasn’t necessarily hit that hard April 26 at Tampa Bay when he allowed five runs on 13 hits in 5.2 innings, but he got rocked by the Cleveland Indians last Sunday in allowing eight runs on 11 hits, two of them home runs.
Combined with a couple of earlier outings in which he benefited from a solid handful of at-‘em balls, and all of a sudden the discourse shifted to whether time had caught up to the 36-year-old. All the talk clearly irked Buehrle, who angrily rejected speculation about his health, and shot down a three-week old report by Jon Heyman of CBS Sports suggesting he was considering retirement after the season.
“I’ve heard I’m going on the DL, my back’s hurting, doing everything I can do (to pitch),” said Buehrle. “One thing is right, I have been pitching in pain and everything – for 10 years now. So, that reporting’s a little bit late. And I do do everything I can in between my starts to go out there and get ready for my next one.
“There are reports saying I’m retiring next year. I haven’t made a decision yet. I don’t know, whoever these close sources are to me, they’re not paying them enough or they aren’t going to the right people. It’s kind of ridiculous.”
All that aside, the one run on six hits and a walk he allowed over five frames against the Yankees certainly won’t alleviate all the concerns – the fifth nearly unravelled on him and Liam Hendriks was a batter away from taking over – but there were positive signs Buehrle’s game stabilized.
First, the Yankees, who’d beaten him in 12 straight previous decisions, rarely squared up balls against him, a sign he was locating the ball more effectively. There was also more zip on his pitches, as Buehrle topped out at 86 mph, significantly above the 83.1 mph he’s averaged this season.
Given that, 36 of the 77 pitches he threw, or 46.7 per cent, were fastballs according to MLB.com’s Gameday tracker, up a bit from recent outings. He threw 18 cutters (23.3 per cent) and 21 changeups (27.2 per cent), a pitch he’s relied on more this season, and two curveballs.
The combination worked.
“They had to honour that, hey, he can still throw some fastballs in there and beat you with it,” explained catcher Russell Martin. “As soon as you plant that seed that we’re not afraid to go inside, it definitely helps you use a mix of slower pitches.
“You get them in between, then you can get some weaker contact on the changeup. The changeup is a deception pitch, you can tell a guy it’s coming, but if you sell it the right way, if you have the right arm speed and it looks like it’s going to be harder than what it is, it can be deceiving. Today he had good arm speed behind the changeup.”
That’s the pitch Buehrle turned to in the fifth with Mark Teixeira up and the bases loaded, getting the first baseman to roll over the first pitch for a groundout to short that ended the frame and preserved a 3-1 lead.
“You have to be aggressive there,” said Teixeira. “You want to try to get something up in the zone – which I did. But he keeps you off-balance, so I was just out in front of it.”
Roberto Osuna took over in the sixth, throwing 2.1 clean innings, Aaron Loup added two outs in the eighth and Brett Cecil handled things in the ninth to secure Buehrle’s first win against the Yankees since April 10, 2004.
“It is (meaningful) because I finally beat them and, I guess, for friends and family and media to quit wearing me out,” said Buehrle. “But other than that it’s another win. It’s frustrating I haven’t been able to beat them more. Especially now being in their division, we play them a lot of times – that’s frustrating. It’s another win and I’ll go get ready for the next start.”
The bottom of the Blue Jays lineup did the heavy lifting at the plate, with Ezequiel Carrera delivering a two-run single in the second off CC Sabathia, Chris Colabello adding an RBI single in the fourth, one of his career-best four hits, Martin blasting a solo shot in the sixth, the fourth straight start in which he’s gone deep, and Ryan Goins hitting an RBI triple in the eighth.
None of it, however, would have mattered if not for Buehrle, who needs to be the Mr. Reliable the Blue Jays have been counting on to help a rotation thinned out by Marcus Stroman’s season-ending knee injury and the recent demotion of Daniel Norris. The young left-hander made his debut with triple-A Buffalo on Wednesday night, allowing a run on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts at Durham, throwing 95 pitches, only 53 for strikes.
While R.A. Dickey has been a pillar in the Blue Jays rotation, there’s still plenty of start-to-start volatility right now from Drew Hutchison and Aaron Sanchez, and it’s too early to say for certain what Marco Estrada will be as a starter. That’s why it’s so pivotal that Buehrle serve as another supporting beam.
“I definitely thought (his stuff) was better,” said manager John Gibbons. “He scuffled the last couple of times out, he didn’t have anything he could go to, so I thought he was much better. Personally, I don’t mind it when (his fastball velocity) is a little bit lower than 85, 86. That’s kind of in that happy zone, but that’s always debatable. The guy wins, he’s done it his whole career, I know he’s got to be feeling good, mentally anyway.”
Certainly things were due to turn for him. Spikes to his home run to fly ball ratio of 18.8 prior to Wednesday – nine per cent higher than his career average of 9.8 and well above last year’s total of 6.6 – and line drive rate of 28.2 per cent – up eight per cent from his career average and about six per cent from last year – are likely unsustainable.
So the normalization may very well have started with the win against the Yankees – against whom he’s now a career 2-14 with a 6.03 ERA. The challenge moving forward for Buehrle is to extend and sustain the recovery.