DUNEDIN, Fla. — Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. That’s baseball for you. Unless it’s Spring Training, in which sometimes you tie, and that’s what happened to the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles Tuesday afternoon.
The Jays’ first sister-kisser of the spring was a result of one terrible pitching performance, one clutch performance at the plate and a few opportunities wasted on both sides.
The award for ugliness in pitching went to Esmil Rogers in this one. The hard-throwing righty, acquired from the Cleveland Indians for Mike Aviles and Yan Gomes this winter, went into his outing with an unblemished spring record in three appearances and promptly gave up back-to-back home runs to Conor Jackson and Steve Pearce. Two outs and an infield single later, Luis Exposito took him deep again. Six batters faced, three home runs, and a three-run Blue Jays lead turned into a one-run deficit.
The big clutch hit came courtesy of Ryan Langerhans, a guy not too many people have on their radar but who has a chance to help the Blue Jays at some point this season.
Over his parts of ten seasons in the big-leagues, being a Three True Outcome guy (walk, home run or strikeout), Langerhans has beaten up the Jays to the tune of a .300/.462/.600 line. So they decided it would be better to have him on their side than against them, and though he’s likely ticketed for Buffalo, it’s not tough to see a situation arising over the course of a season where the Jays might need an experienced left-handed power bat that takes his share of walks.
Langerhans took Orioles’ reliever Zach Clark off the left-centrefield scoreboard, tying the game with his first Grapefruit home run. Earlier, Andy LaRoche had hit his team-leading third of the spring. That one also tied the game, at 2-2, back in the second inning.
As far as the missed opportunities went, each team had a couple late in the game.
The Blue Jays scored three runs in the bottom of the fifth with a rally that started with two out and nobody on. Anthony Gose walked and was tripled home by Emilio Bonifacio (now THAT was fun to watch, those two speedsters flying around the bases). Singles by Melky Cabrera, Jose Bautista and Mark DeRosa followed, two of which scored runs, and it looked as though the game would be blown wide open.
But after pinch-runner Eugenio Velez took off stealing third, Lars Anderson thought it would be a good idea to follow and go for second. He was wrong about that, and the inning ended there.
The Orioles’ shot came with the bases loaded and one out, but Brad Lincoln steeled himself and got a pop-up and a strikeout to escape the threat. The Blue Jays’ chance came with two out — although they did have men on second and third with nobody out — but Kevin Gausman, Baltimore’s best pitching prospect outside the otherworldly Dylan Bundy, struck out Velez and Sean Ochinko around a walk to Anderson to keep the Orioles on top.
Later in the contest, Baltimore had two on and one out in the eighth against Jeremy Jeffress, and the Blue Jays had two on and nobody out in the ninth after the Langerhans homer, but neither team could cash in those situations, hence the tie.
It was a solid outing for J.A. Happ, who gave up two runs on six hits over his three-inning start. Four of the hits came on ground balls that found holes, and the one home run, to lefty-killer Steve Pearce, was wind-aided.
Happ was helped out by three double plays behind him, only one of which was of the traditional ground-ball variety. One was a humpback liner on which Mike McCoy caught Alexi Casilla leaning too far off second base, and the other was a fly ball to centre on which Gose unshackled the howitzer and destroyed Exposito at third by a good three or four steps.
There was good news before the game as Dustin McGowan came through his side session all smiles; the big key will be to see how he feels in the morning. But it wasn’t all good news for the Blue Jays as and Sergio Santos’ Thursday outing was cancelled because of some minor triceps soreness. Santos is still scheduled to pitch Saturday, when the Blue Jays host the Detroit Tigers.
It will be the Tigers playing host on Wednesday, though, with the Blue Jays heading to Lakeland for what would be a spectacular pitching match-up as Brandon Morrow takes on Justin Verlander. It being Spring Training, though, they’ll likely only pitch three innings each.
We’ll also see Brett Cecil and Aaron Loup take the mound — two guys who might just be competing for the same spot in the bullpen. The Blue Jays aren’t bringing the best of the best, position-player-wise, since they’re running a skeleton crew with four regulars at World Baseball Classic camps. The only starters making the trip will be Adam Lind and Maicer Izturis.
Dirk Hayhurst and I will have all the action for you, as we do with every weekday game this spring, live and in colour — make sure to tune in, won’t you?