TORONTO – One month into the 2015 season there was near panic about the Toronto Blue Jays pitching staff, which owned the second worst earned-run average in the American League at 4.78 and allowed the most walks at 83.
A minimal correction in the month of May lowered the ERA down to 4.59, dead last in the Junior Circuit, while they tied the Texas Rangers for the most allowed at 163. By the all-star break, when the Blue Jays stood 45-46, things had improved only incrementally, the team ERA up to 12th at 4.18 and the walks against seventh at 251.
Despite boasting the game’s most prolific offence, holes on the pitching staff were steadily undermining a season of promise.
That’s why after a 5-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night helped the Blue Jays seal at least a wild card berth for their first trip to the playoffs since 1993 and cut their magic number to claim the American League East down to six, the pitching staff deserves its due.
Since the all-star break, their pitchers have been the American League’s best with an ERA of 3.18, nearly a third of a run better than the Houston Astros. Overall, the Blue Jays now rank fourth in the AL with a 3.77 ERA and have allowed the fewest walks at 378.
“It’s been huge, especially once you get (to the) seventh, eighth and ninth,” said Josh Donaldson, who hit his 40th home run of the season. “I know they’ve had a couple of hiccups, but these guys are really good pitchers and they’ve really come into their own.”
Another gem on the mound pushed the Blue Jays four games up on the New York Yankees, 5-2 losers to the Chicago White Sox, atop the American League East, as R.A. Dickey threw seven innings of two-run ball to collect his 100th career win.
Mark Lowe, who surrendered a solo shot to J.P. Arencibia in the eighth, and Roberto Osuna, with his 18th save, wrapped things up before a delirious crowd of 47,696. The post-season drought dating back to 1993 ended by virtue of Minnesota’s loss at Detroit and a convoluted scenario set up by the remaining AL West schedule, ensuring only two of the Rangers, Astros and Angels could finish at 88-74, matching the Blue Jays if they lost out the rest of the way, with one of them claiming the division.
Regardless, the division title remains their focus.
“The one thing I do know is that the wild card game is not something we as a unit would celebrate, we’re after the division championship,” said Dickey. “I think we would all be incredibly disappointed if that were not the case. Would it be great for the fans if we got into the post-season in the wild card? I’m sure it would but for us, that’s not at all our mentality.”
Donaldson, easing out of a recent dry spell, led an offence that is still crushing – Jose Bautista added No. 37 and Kevin Pillar ripped No. 12 in win No. 88, matching the team’s high-water mark since 1993.
The defence has also improved, helping key the recent run, but very quietly the pitching staff is now doing lots of the heavy lifting.
“We joke around about it,” Mark Buehrle says of the staff’s fine work. “When your offence is that good they can get the recognition, I’m fine with that. Obviously we’re doing our job, giving us a chance to win, but sure, there’s a little bit of overshadowing since our offence has been so good.”
While it’s obvious that the pitching staff has been better over the past couple of months, the numbers really illustrate how dramatic a turnaround it’s been.
The Blue Jays have shaved a full run off their ERA since the beginning of May, and a third of a run since the all-star break, reductions that aren’t easy to accomplish.
And the climb up the AL rankings has come quickly.
Asked where he thought his team’s ERA sat, manager John Gibbons replied, “I think it’s upper-middle now.”
Told where the Blue Jays stood, he said: “That’s shocking to me. I knew it was better, but I wouldn’t have guessed that. It makes sense with what we’ve been looking at that we would rise.”
“Our defence has helped that, big time,” he added. “The additions of David Price and Marcus Stroman, even though Stroman hasn’t made that many starts, that’s helped. And our bullpen got better. But I’m surprised at that big of a leap.”
Edwin Encarnacion correctly guessed top-five for ERA, saying the team’s frustrations early in the year have completely turned around.
“That’s the number one thing to be competitive at this level, you’ve got to have pitching,” he said. “If you don’t have pitching, we’re not going to be where we are right now. That’s why we’re in first place right now.”
Told the Blue Jays had also allowed the AL’s fewest walks, Justin Smoak’s reaction was: “Really?”
“Early on we knew we needed to score some runs to win some ballgames, and we did,” Smoak continued. “We’ve got a good all-around team now. We can pitch, we can play defence and everybody knew we were going to hit.”
As Gibbons mentioned, the addition of Price prior to the trade deadline was a major difference-maker, the ace left-hander going 8-1 in 10 starts with a 1.95 ERA in 69.1 innings. He’ll start Saturday against Rays protégé Chris Archer.
The rest of the rotation’s improvement came from internal gains.
Dickey and Buehrle – who posted ERAs of 1.75 in June and 1.82 in July – both rebounded from terrible starts to deliver quality innings by the bushel. Marco Estrada was steady from the moment he replaced Daniel Norris, while Drew Hutchison pitched to an 11-2 record and 2.91 ERA in 16 games, 15 starts at home, even if his road numbers were frightful.
The additions of Lowe and LaTroy Hawkins help lengthen the bullpen, while the shift of Aaron Sanchez from the rotation to a set-up role after his return from the disabled list was also pivotal. Osuna’s start-to -finish dominance, Brett Cecil’s rounding into form and the emergence of Liam Hendricks, Bo Schultz and Ryan Tepera gave Gibbons plenty of options.
“I feel like we were capable of pitching better (than at the beginning of the season) and obviously when you add Price to the starting staff he’s going to bring the ERA down a lot,” said Buehrle. “With us not pitching well the first couple of months, I would have hoped it could have gotten back down to this, but if you go too long it’s hard to bring the numbers down so much. It’s pretty impressive that we did that.”
It really is, and their work is why a post-season berth is in hand.