TORONTO — Through three games of the ALCS, the Blue Jays have gotten three strong outings from their starting pitchers. And every time that pitcher has ended up taking a loss.
Such is life for the Blue Jays starting staff which has been excellent all season, pitching to an American League best 3.64 ERA, but often undone by an inconsistent offence. It was Marcus Stroman’s turn Monday night, as the right-hander pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowing three hits and four runs while striking out five in a 4-2 defeat against the Cleveland Indians.
“Not good enough. Didn’t do the job. That’s pretty much it,” Stroman said while evaluating his outing. “I had great stuff. Just didn’t locate on certain pitches. And they kind of capitalized on my mistakes.”
Stroman started his night with a five-pitch walk of Carlos Santana before he settled in and got two quick outs on six pitches, including a strikeout of Francisco Lindor, who’s been Cleveland’s best player all series.
But with two out, Mike Napoli got the barrel of his bat on a 91-mph cutter down and away, driving it 366-feet to right-centre field where Jose Bautista looked it into his glove at the wall and then watched helplessly as it squirted out and fell on the warning track. After a good pitch, a good piece of hitting and a missed play, it was 1-0 Cleveland.
“It just looked like he was patient, waiting for his pitch, and didn’t miss it today,” Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin said of Napoli. “Sometimes guys get good pitches to hit and they just foul them off but that wasn’t the case for Napoli tonight.”
Stroman looked to be cruising from there, allowing a walk and nothing else in the second before working a clean third on just 11 pitches. But Napoli burned Stroman again in the fourth, taking a look at a first-pitch sinker down and in for a strike before attacking a second-pitch sinker that caught considerably more of the plate and driving it 411-feet into the left field seats.
“Yeah, I struggled with the sinker all day. I just struggled to throw it for a strike. It didn’t have the same action,” Stroman said. “It just wasn’t in the exact spot I wanted it. My command was a little off. But he put a good swing on it.”
Again, Stroman locked in, getting out of the inning with a strikeout sandwiched by a pair of weak groundballs, before pitching a clean fifth with perhaps some of his best stuff of the night, mixing and matching his pitches to great effect.
“My off-speed stuff was great,” Stroman said. “I felt good. My command was a little off, but I wasn’t up.”
Stroman began the sixth with an interesting sequence to Jason Kipnis, working backwards from his slider to his cutter and eventually to his four-seamer, which he jammed the Cleveland second baseman with to get to a 2-2 count. Stroman then went back to the same four-seamer Kipnis had just seen, only this time leaving it up and over the plate.
Kipnis couldn’t have hit it much harder, lining it 405-feet to right-centre field for a solo shot that put Cleveland up by a run. It was just the fourth time in 61 career starts that Stroman has allowed two home runs or more.
“That was just a challenge four-seamer. And it was a good swing by [Kipnis],” Martin said. “Stroman had everything going today, just in that situation maybe the pitch was up a little bit. But again, a really nice swing by Kipnis.”
Once again, Stroman dialed in after the homer and struck out Lindor on three pitches. Stroman looked so good against Lindor that manager John Gibbons let him stay in to face Napoli a third time with the first baseman having already squared him up twice. Stroman fell behind 3-0 and came back with a pair of called strikes, but eventually lost Napoli on a slider tailing out of the zone that the first baseman refused to offer at.
At 94 pitches, that was it for Stroman, who watched from the bench as Joe Biagini let Napoli advance to second on a wild pitch and score on a Jose Ramirez single.
“They did a great job of putting the ball in play,” Stroman said. “I wasn’t necessarily in the certain areas of the plate where I normally am. I made mistakes in certain counts where I don’t normally make mistakes on certain pitches. And I got beat.”
Stroman was hard on himself after the game, as he consistently is following a loss. But it’s hard to find fault in a Blue Jays starting staff that has pitched well in all three games while the Blue Jays offence has scored just three total runs.
“I thought Stroman did great,” said Martin. “He kept us right in that game. We just weren’t able to get that big inning.”