TORONTO — When Toronto Blue Jays catcher Luke Maile made what he estimates was “the dumbest play in my entire career,” throwing a dropped third strike into the right field corner and allowing a run to score, he immediately told his pitcher, Aaron Sanchez, he’d get him back for it.
“But I didn’t think he was going to do it two times,” Sanchez said, after Maile hit a pair of long balls in a 5-3 Blue Jays victory over the Boston Red Sox. “It’s unbelievable what he’s done.”
Maile, the backup catcher with a .548 career OPS, hit his first homer of the night off Chris Sale of all people, taking an 0-1 fastball over the wall in left to tie Friday’s game in the seventh. Five innings later, he hit a walk-off bomb to right-centre for his third hit of the night and his first career multi-homer game.
“I haven’t had a walk-off homer since college,” he said. “Definitely not since I’ve been in pro ball. Shoot, you can probably count them on a couple of hands, how many homers I’ve hit in the last five years.”
Four hands, to be exact. Maile’s hit 20 homers over the last five years (27 over his full seven years as a professional) yet he’s never had a season quite like the one he’s having now.
He’s hitting .339/.418/.542 with seven extra-base hits over his first 67 plate appearances, after going .146/.176/.231 across 136 plate appearances in 2017. When Blue Jays manager John Gibbons brought him north at the end of spring training to back up Russell Martin, Maile told his skipper he was a better hitter than he’d shown last season. Six weeks in, he’s doing everything he can to prove it.
“What a year he’s having,” Gibbons said. “He’s always been great defensively. But he’s got big hit after big hit. Pitchers love throwing to him. So, you just tip your hat.”
Maile’s 12th-inning rocket bailed the Blue Jays out of a tough night against Sale, Boston’s overpowering, fire-breathing left-hander. Not that the Blue Jays didn’t have some early opportunities against the Red Sox ace.
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In the first, Teoscar Hernandez sent Sale’s first pitch of the game screaming to left-centre for a double, and Josh Donaldson followed with a well-struck single three pitches later that opened the scoring.
And in the second, the Blue Jays took a lead, 2-1, in the most unusual of fashions. Kendrys Morales snapped an 0-for-28 skid with a ground rule double, advanced to third while challenging the arm of Mookie Betts of all people, and scored on a Maile single.
Then, Hernandez squibbed a ball up the first-base line that Sale fielded and threw wide of first, giving the Blue Jays runners on the corners with two out and leaving one of the best pitchers in the game doubled over at the waist, cursing himself.
Donaldson stepped to the plate smelling blood. Sale was two batters into his second trip through the order in the second inning. He’d already thrown 31 pitches. He looked downright mortal. Seven pitches later, Donaldson had worked the count full.
But on the eighth pitch of an exceptional plate appearance, Sale unleashed a truly cruel breaking ball — a slider that started outter half and ended up nearly clipping Donaldson’s right ankle. The Blue Jays third baseman couldn’t hold his bat back. Strike three.
“He threw a couple sliders tonight that were just crazy,” Maile said. “It’s amazing.”
That filthy strikeout was the beginning of a run of 15 consecutive retired for Sale, including six straight strikeouts at one point. He retired 20 of 21, allowing only the Maile home run that tied the game in the seventh. As Sale mowed down batter after batter, it was hard to shake the feeling the Blue Jays had missed their chance.
“That’s typical of the great ones in the game. It’s always been this way,” Gibbons said. “Elite pitchers, man, they smell it. And he kicked it in gear.”
Sale was pitching so well, Red Sox manager Alex Cora let him work into the ninth, as his pitch count rose well above 100. And why not? After Maile’s home run, Sale struck out four of the next five he faced (he struck out 15 total), before Kevin Pillar crushed a double to the wall in right-centre in the ninth and was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple. With his 116th pitch of the night, Sale got Morales to ground out softly and send the game to extras.
With Sale lifted, the Blue Jays wasted a golden opportunity in the 10th, stranding back-to-back leadoff walks after Dalton Pompey couldn’t get a bunt down. They wasted another in the 11th, when Morales (now 5 for his last 60) struck out with a runner in scoring position and two out.
But Maile came up with the big swing in the 12th. As he rounded the bases, his teammates were waiting for him at home plate. Hernandez was armed with an entire cooler of sports drink that soaked Maile’s jersey blue. He jumped around like he hasn’t since college.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said. “Pretty cool to do it against the Red Sox in kind of an important game for us here. Even though it’s early in the season, it’s the type of series where you really want to try and win it. So, it feels great.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Sanchez went only five innings — as Blue Jays starters do — allowing three runs, two of them earned. In the wake of J.A. Happ’s disastrous outing Thursday, Sanchez has taken over as Toronto’s most consistently successful starter, which isn’t saying a whole lot as his rotation-leading ERA now sits at 4.08.
Nevertheless, it was a positive outing for Sanchez, who threw his curveball more often than he has in any outing this season, and generated 16 swinging strikes. Sanchez wasn’t thrilled with his feel for the breaking pitch in prior outings, but after the Blue Jays coaching staff ran some analytics by him illustrating how effective it had been, he decided to incorporate it more often Friday.
“I feel like I’ve thrown good curveballs all year. I just kind of got burned on some,” Sanchez said. “And I just shied away after that point. But Luke gave me the confidence to just continue to throw it.”
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The biggest issue for Sanchez was how high his pitch count ran early in the game, thanks in part to walks issued in the first and third innings. But he didn’t get much help behind him in the fourth when, with a runner on first, Sanchez induced a pair of soft groundballs his infielders couldn’t turn into double plays.
The inning was extended even further when he struck out Sandy Leon with a filthy change-up that moved so much Maile couldn’t hang onto it. The ball skipped not far from home plate, but Maile took too long to locate it and rushed his throw to first, sending the ball skittering into the right-field corner as a run scored and Leon ended up at third.
“I definitely made strides in the right direction,” Sanchez said. “I just need to continue to be out there longer.”
Sanchez survived a leadoff walk in the fifth, but didn’t return for the sixth, handing things over to an already-taxed Blue Jays bullpen that has performed admirably while Toronto’s starting staff has spent a couple weeks wandering the woods.
Toronto’s best bullpen arms took turns lowering their ERA, as John Axford (1.40), Seung-hwan Oh (1.56), Ryan Tepera (2.89), and Tyler Clippard (1.33) each threw a scoreless inning of relief. Sam Gaviglio, called up from triple-A Buffalo Friday afternoon, followed with three scoreless innings of his own to earn a win in his Blue Jays debut.
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