Blue Jays’ Stroman rises to occasion with help of dominant slider

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got his first MLB hit and Brandon Drury hit a walk-off home run as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics 4-2.

TORONTO — If anyone loves a big game, it’s Marcus Stroman. He pitched plenty of them in 2015, when he returned from knee surgery sooner than expected to help the Toronto Blue Jays qualify for their first postseason in two decades. He pitched in more at the 2016 World Baseball Classic, and later that year when he started Toronto’s win over the Baltimore Orioles in the American League wild card game.

But he hasn’t gotten to pitch in too many lately. Both 2017 and ’18 were lean years for the Blue Jays, and the loud, raucous atmospheres that were briefly the norm at Rogers Centre have been seldom seen since. That’s why, when the Blue Jays announced they were calling up baseball’s top prospect, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., for Stroman’s start Friday against the Oakland Athletics, he got just as excited as everyone else did.

“Because I knew the buzz that was going to be in the building and how many people were going to be here,” Stroman said after the Blue Jays walked it off in the ninth, 4-2. “And I don’t think there’s anyone that rises to the occasion like I do.”

So, of course Stroman was dominant, allowing a hit and two walks over seven scoreless innings, striking out seven. He threw 61 of his 97 pitches for strikes, attacking Oakland’s lineup with a mix of sliders, sinkers, and cutters. He started 15 of the 24 batters he faced with strikes, and kept a stellar start to the season rolling.

Stroman’s now given up only one earned run over his last 19 innings, and six over 37.2 innings pitched this season. That’s good for a 1.43 ERA, second among qualified MLB starters. Storman’s 3.72 xFIP suggests he’s benefitted from some good defence, like when Josh Phegley shot a rocket right back into his glove to end Friday’s third inning. But it’s the results that count, isn’t it?

“He’s throwing all his pitches for strikes. That ball’s got a lot of movement on all his pitches,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo. “He’s been fun to watch.”

Stroman’s been spinning the ball like crazy this season, coming into Friday’s outing using his slider 37 per cent of the time, up from 22 per cent last season, and 24 per cent the season prior.

And you’d probably do the same if your slider was regularly getting uncomfortable swings like this one from Khris Davis:

Or this one form Phegley on a pitch that ended up in the dirt:

Earlier this month, Stroman said he’d been inspired to up his slider usage after watching Cleveland’s starting staff use a heavy diet of breaking balls to neutralize Toronto’s hitters during a four-game sweep. Stroman used that slider as his primary pitch in both of his starts against Oakland over the last seven days. Friday, it earned him 11 swinging strikes, one shy of the 12 he generated with the pitch in his season-opening start against the Detroit Tigers last month.

Stroman clearly has a strong feel for the pitch at the moment, as he’s been throwing it both inside the zone for strikes and off the plate for swing-and-miss. But he’s been making it even tougher for hitters to track by adding and subtracting from its velocity. Friday, he threw it as softly as 83 m.p.h. and as firmly as 90 m.p.h.

Look how the yellow line in his pitch usage chart darts up and down. He rarely threw it at the same speed twice in a row:

“It’s always been a plus pitch. I’ve always just been fastball dominant. I think I’ve always thrown too many sinkers,” Stroman said. “I’m just catching onto the trend. And I’m seeing how bad the swings are on my slider. I can throw that pitch in any count, in any spot, to anybody.”

It worked so well when Stroman held Oakland to one run over eight innings last Friday, so why not keep going to it when he faced the same lineup a week later? Stroman said he anticipated Oakland’s hitters making some sort of adjustment in the short timeframe between outings, and came into the start prepared to counter it. But the adjustment never came.

Stroman retired the first nine batters he faced with only 39 pitches, and after Marcus Semien led off the fourth with a single, he put away the next three in short order. He worked around two more runners in the fifth, and stranded a one-out Semien walk in the sixth, striking out Matt Chapman on three pitches and getting Stephen Piscotty to hit a lazy flyball to right.

Coming out for the seventh having thrown only 85 pitches, Stroman struck out Khris Davis with three consecutive sliders — making it six strike outs in Davis’s last six plate appearances against Stroman — before getting an out in the air, and an out on the ground to end a 12-pitch frame.

With his pitch count only 97 at that point, you know Stroman wanted to come back out for the eighth. He’d already been up to 99 pitches or higher three times this season, including last Friday in Oakland when he threw 109. But Montoyo went to his bullpen instead, bringing on Joe Biagini to protect a two-run lead. A dozen pitches into the inning, Biagini gave up a game-tying homer.

That kept Stroman from earning his second win of the season, a statistic that doesn’t mean much in today’s era, but does carry some significance for a pitcher who’s gone to arbitration twice already in his career, winning once and losing once. Arbitrators are notoriously beholden to antiquated statistics, and if Stroman opts to go that route again this winter, he’ll want the back of his baseball card to look as good as possible.

Afterwards, Montoyo said the Blue Jays were planning to lift Stroman around 90-100 pitches regardless of how he was performing due to the length of his outing in Oakland a week prior. That’s likely the safe thing to do this early in the year with a pitcher coming off a season that was half-lost to injury. Particularly as the Blue Jays keep an eye toward July’s trade deadline, when a healthy and effective Stroman could be one of the most valuable arms on the market.

But what matters most to Stroman now is simply continuing to pitch well, and preferably in similarly charged atmospheres like Friday’s. It won’t always be that way. Guerrero’s a unicorn, and the energy permeating his MLB debut won’t be easily replicated. But having him around certainly can’t hurt.

“I love the big moment. I’ve never been one to shy away from it — ever. I want the ball in that moment each and every time,” Stroman said. “I’m excited to have him because I think a lot of our games are going to have this buzz around them now.

“I’m more excited than anyone. A lot of guys have played with him in the minors coming up. But to be around him each and every day now going forward, I’m excited. It provides a huge edge for my team.”

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