TORONTO – What’s maddening about the Toronto Blue Jays to this point of the season is that they’re capable of playing the type of mature baseball game they dropped on the Baltimore Orioles in their series opener at Camden Yards.
Hyun-Jin Ryu swapped out the nasty swing-and-miss stuff he broke out in his last outing with a steady diet of soft-contact-inducing change-ups, cutters and sinkers over six impressive innings. The defence dutifully gobbled up the 11 groundouts – including a pair of double-play balls – he produced, without any of the shenanigans that have been a staple. The offence pounced when Alex Cobb and the Orioles gave them a small little crack.
After a pair of dreadful losses Sunday fuelled by the type of troubling haphazardness that’s undermined them all season, not to mention the loss of Bo Bichette, a 7-2 victory Monday night was an ideal response on many fronts.
Still, the Blue Jays are only 8-11 rather than something substantially better because they haven’t delivered these types of performances consistently enough.
“We know that we have it in us, we know we can go out there and play crisp baseball, run the bases hard, play aggressively, mistake-free and play good defence,” said Randal Grichuk, whose three-run homer in the second was the decisive blow. “We have the talent on this team and that was one thing we touched on in the post-game celebration – we played a crisp game.
“We talked about cleaning up the bases, cleaning up the defensive mistakes. We did that tonight and we won a big-league ballgame. I would like to say that’s how we’re going to play moving forward but we know that’s not how baseball works. We’re going to focus on it, play hard and hopefully we play more games like tonight.”
Instead of giving away hits against the 12-10 Orioles, they stole them. Ryu sprung off the mound to collect an Andrew Velazquez bunt and throw in the fifth, while Travis Shaw dove to stab Renato Nunez’s grounder in the seventh, throwing from his knees to Rowdy Tellez, who took an elbow in the head reaching into the base-path to corral the relay.
Tellez left the game after the inning under the concussion protocol and “isn’t feeling great,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. He’s day-to-day.
Building on the early advantage, Grichuk fought off a Cobb fastball on the inner half to bloop an RBI single to right that plated an important add-on run in the seventh. Cavan Biggio’s two-run shot in the ninth added more breathing room.
Rafael Dolis and Anthony Bass, unavailable Sunday due to back tightness, delivered lock-down relief before the lead opened up, while Jacob Waguespack allowed a run while cleaning up the ninth.
And Ryu’s outing tied it all together, as for a change the Blue Jays were able to enjoy a victory in a game they controlled nearly the whole way through.
“I was able to get them off their timing and keep them off-balance just enough to create that much weak contact,” Ryu said through interpreter Bryan Lee of keeping the Orioles in check. “Not staying on a particular pitch really helps, giving different looks and different speeds have made things more successful recently.”
More typically, the Blue Jays have been in leverage all game long, with eight of their 11 losses coming when they have either led or been tied through seven innings. Sunday was especially galling, as they dropped the winnable completion of Saturday’s suspended game before coughing up a ninth-inning lead in the series finale versus the Tampa Bay Rays.
Sloppy play was a feature of both games.
“(Sunday) hurt,” said Grichuk. “We feel like we should have taken two out of three easily from them at their place, we should have taken two out of three (in Buffalo), and we feel that we’re a team now that can compete for a playoff spot, compete with anybody that steps on the field with us. But those games we’ve got to win. We can’t let them slip away. We’ve seen that happen way too much this year.
“So, yeah, we’re definitely putting a lot more emphasis on it in our pre-game meetings, pre-series meetings and our post-game celebrations, enough to touch on it when congratulating guys on good things and the team on getting a W.”
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Bichette’s absence will hurt, although a second read of his MRI results Monday revealed a Grade 1 sprain of the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee, according to a source, and the Blue Jays were still mapping out a rehabilitation plan for him. The good news is that the injury is relatively minor with no long-term impact, although he will need time to let the area heal.
Joe Panik singled and scored in his place Monday, and Montoyo said the veteran infielder, Brandon Drury and rookie Santiago Espinal will be matched up to opponents as Bichette recovers.
Replacing the offence will be near impossible, which is why Montoyo said, “it’s all about the guys in the lineup picking up the slack.”
“(Lourdes) Gurriel Jr. is not hot right now and he’s a better hitter than that, so hopefully he’ll pick up the slack. Grichuk is going to hit second and he’s been swinging the bat well, he’ll pick up the slack, too,” said Montoyo. “It’s all about the rest of the lineup to try and pick up what Bo was, and that’s tough to replace.”
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Batting second in Bichette’s spot, Grichuk did his part, while Gurriel added an infield single and scored the game’s first run on a clever dash to the plate on Biggio’s infield single. Grichuk’s revamping of his approach in search of more batting average and a higher on-base percentage to complement his power is beginning to pay dividends.
Last year, on the pitch he blooped to right in the seventh to put the Blue Jays up 5-1, “I swing and miss or jam-shot groundball to third or the pitcher,” said Grichuk. “I was able to stay inside of it nicely, and flare it out to right. Obviously not what I wanted to do with that at-bat, but it got the job done.”
The same applies to the Blue Jays collectively Monday night, when they were on the positive side of the quality baseball scale after being on the opposite end Sunday. Reconciling that isn’t easy, and staying on the right side of the ledger is even tougher.
“I want all of us to play hard, play aggressive and if we make a mistake, hopefully it’s an aggressive one – we understood what the situation was, it wasn’t a, hey, I kind of got caught thinking about my previous at-bat, something of that sort,” said Grichuk. “If you know the situation and play aggressively, mistakes are going to happen – it’s part of the game. We know that. We can live with them if it’s a good mistake. If it’s a careless, effortless mistake, those are the ones that hurt.”
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