How all-encompassing was Marco Estrada’s dominance on Wednesday? So much so that even though the Kansas City Royals‘ first hit of the game came in the fourth inning, their manager Ned Yost referred to Alcides Escobar’s hit as “breaking up the no-hitter.”
He didn’t call it the first hit of the game; didn’t seem worried that most of the time a game isn’t referred to as no-hitter until a little later in the proceedings. No-hit through five innings; no-hit through six, seven, eight. OK, that’s fine. But is anybody ever, really, truly no-hit through three innings?
Wednesday … yeah, Wednesday it was an apt description. Estrada was, simply, that good. Again. The man who allowed one earned run over 6.1 innings in the Blue Jays’ ship-righting win in Game 3 of the American League Division Series turned the Royals’ bats into mush, giving up three hits over 7.2 innings, striking out five and walking one, making him 2-0 in elimination games.
“Absolutely dynamite,” was Yost’s description. Added Estrada’s catcher, Dioner Navarro: “He’s really good, man. I think he’s one of the best in the league. And it’s so easy to catch him, too. So easy.”
If that was the last game the 2015 Blue Jays’ play at home, at least they will have removed much of the stain of the 14-2 debacle in Game 4. And it’s also given us some real food for thought about the Blue Jays rotation going forward. Mark Buehrle, David Price — heck, even Marcus Stroman — all took turns electrifying us this season. R.A. Dickey did what R.A. Dickey does. Yet it was Estrada, a 32-year-old right-hander acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers for Adam Lind, who was the Blue Jays’ most consistent starter during the regular season, continuing it into the playoffs.
Going into the post-season, the clamour was to re-sign Price, a free agent who will likely ask for seven years and over $200 million. Dickey, despite being maddening, seemed a steal — a steal — with his ability to offer 200 innings for a mere $12 million, should the Blue Jays elect to pick up his option.
Now? After spitting out the bit in Game 4, you wonder how this edgy, uncertain fan-base would welcome Dickey’s return — never mind how a new president who has yet to extend the general manager and who might not be a fan of the current manager feels about having a knuckleballer in the fold. In terms of baseball economics, it’s a slam dunk for a team that, as of now, has penciled in a rotation Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and, maybe, whatever’s left of Drew Hutchison’s psyche.
Optically, though, it might be a tough sell — and without Estrada leaving the locals with a potentially happy memory, almost unthinkable. Price? I’m not giving him seven years after what I’ve seen. Sorry. Plus, there’s a sense among some of the national reporters who have spent more time around him than any of us that he isn’t all that thrilled with the way he’s been used in the post-season. If they ask the right questions, they’ll find there are uniformed personnel in the Blue Jays clubhouse who don’t exactly view him as Pitching Jesus anymore, either.
Which leaves us with Marco. Estrada. Mar-co … Es-trada. A free agent who would command a qualifying offer in the neighbourhood of $16 million, whose stock in trade is subliminal stuff and guile coming off a career-high 181 innings, and who is precisely the type of pitcher for whom a team might over-reach in terms of dollars and term.
But, hell, that’s for another time, no? Let’s love the one we’re with. Nothing wrong with that.
“Everybody is aware that you lose, you’re on your way home,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “And it’s been a tremendous season for us … if it was to end abruptly, you’d feel a little sour.’
“He’s pitched like that all year,” said Gibbons, who came perilously close to bringing in Price out of the bullpen when Estrada gave up loud fly balls to centre field off the bats of Salvador Perez and Alex Rios in the sixth inning. Price would have come in had Eric Hosmer come to the plate with multiple runners on base in the seventh. As it was, Estrada struck out Hosmer after a two-out walk to Lorenzo Cain, and when Gibbons came out to take Estrada out in the eighth after Perez’s home run and Alex Gordon’s single, he said just one word to his pitcher.
“Wow.”
Not ‘great job’ or ‘hey’ or ‘way to go.’ Just ‘wow.’
“Never done that, I don’t think,” Gibbons said later. “Normally I do say good job or something like that. Buehrle … he’s probably the only guy I really talk to on the mound when I take him out of the game.
“I’m not normally one to talk a lot when I take a pitcher out.”
Estrada — bless him — had no clue about the transaction. He didn’t remember tapping his skipper on the shoulder; normally, it’s the other way around.
“I don’t remember,” he said. “I put my head down, walked out, and just tried to take it all in, how loud the stadium got. It was an incredible feeling.
“The only difference between this game and (the Rangers game) was that I got to pitch at home. It’s been a while since I pitched here, and I forgot how great our fans were. The last game I was pretty calm and I was just trying to do my job. This time, I had the same mindset, but the fans got me going a little bit early on, and just made it a little more fun.”
It was fun for all, coming as it does in the middle of a full-blown bullpen crisis brought on by Brett Cecil’s absence due to injury, Aaron Loup’s absence for a family matter … and, just generally, LaTroy Hawkins and Ryan Tepera being what they are at this stage of their careers and at this stage of the season.
This road is still a long one: Price has shown himself to be capable of falling apart after a bloop single and Stroman, for all his ballsiness, didn’t fool anybody in Game 3. But after Game 5, they’re a team with a shot — and a pretty good idea about who will start Game 1 of the World Series if it gets that far.
Marco Estrada, you’ve come a long, long way.