ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Of the many reasons why the Toronto Blue Jays have not had anywhere near the 2017 season they would have liked, the club’s inadequate starting pitching is perhaps the most crippling. Toronto starters have thrown only 671 innings collectively, the fifth-fewest frames of any staff in baseball. And the unit’s 4.68 ERA doesn’t exactly help.
Simply put, there have been too many nights like Tuesday at Tropicana Field, when Chris Rowley — making his third MLB start — lasted only 3.1 innings, forcing the Blue Jays to dip into their bullpen early, which was slowly bled by the Tampa Bay Rays, who eventually won, 6-5.
“I thought he was a little bit off,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said of Rowley. “He just needs more strikes. His ball-to-strike ratio needs to be more strikes. I thought a little bit he was trying to be too fine, at times, when he needs to just attack and look for contact. Let the guys behind you play a little bit. But he’s been very good the first couple. So, that’s the way this level is sometimes.”
To be fair, this isn’t an indictment of Rowley, whose season began in double-A. The issue is he’s the 12th pitcher to take a turn in Toronto’s rotation, as a long string of journeymen, spot starters, and better-suited-for-the-bullpen arms have tried and failed to hold down spots on this staff before him. Few teams have a reliable major league starter a dozen spots down their depth chart.
And that begets another issue. When a team’s bullpen is constantly being called on early in games — as Toronto’s has with an AL-leading 447 innings pitched — it eventually wears out. Toronto has had a number of relievers hit the DL throughout the season; closer Roberto Osuna’s velocity has dropped; and the club has been trying everything it can to limit the innings of Ryan Tepera and Danny Barnes, two bullpen bright spots who have carried exceptional loads this season.
And when that’s happening, your offence better be very, very good — both to overcome all those early deficits you allow and provide a large enough lead for your beleaguered bullpen to protect. The Blue Jays, who have scored the fourth-fewest runs in baseball, do not have that offence. And that’s how a team that many picked to contend for the post-season falls well short of that forecast.
Rowley’s trouble started when he threw a pair of early pitches that he’d very much like to have back. In the first inning, he hung a slider to Lucas Duda, who barrelled it 405 feet into the right-field bleachers for a solo shot. And in the second he left a change-up on the plate to Corey Dickerson, who crushed it to deep right for a solo shot of his own.
And the inning spiralled from there, as Rowley put the next two batters on, got an out, and left another change-up on the plate, this time to Kevin Kiermaier, who smoked a triple to deep right-centre, cashing both runners. Rowley eventually stranded Kiermaier at third, but needed 32 pitches to escape the inning.
“To be honest with you, I’m not too upset about solo homers. Solo homers are going to happen. Duda’s one was a terrible pitch and he made me pay for it. The one Dickerson hit was a little bit back over the plate,” Rowley said. “But the one that really hurt was the triple with guys on base and two outs and two strikes. And the walks. Those are the ones that I really would want back.”
Rowley followed up that nightmare frame with an eight-pitch third, but he was lifted in the fourth after putting two runners on with one out. Matt Dermody wiggled out of that jam, but was tagged with an unearned run in the fifth when Evan Longoria led off with a double, moved to third on an error by Carrera, and scored on Wilson Ramos’ slow roller up the third base line off Dominc Leone.
The Rays cashed another off Leone in the sixth, when Evan Longoria hit a two-out triple to score Adeiny Hechavarria’s lead-off single.
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Meanwhile, Rays ace Chris Archer always presents a formidable challenge for the Blue Jays, coming into the night with a 3.16 ERA in 23 career starts vs. Toronto, including a 2.89 ERA in four outings this season.
Things did not begin well for the hard-throwing right-hander, as Nori Aoki turned around the second pitch Archer threw, driving a 93-mph fastball on the plate 394 feet over the right-field wall to give the Blue Jays an early lead. But Archer settled in from there, retiring the next seven batters he faced.
One of those batters was Kevin Pillar who, after grounding out to lead off the third inning, said something to home plate umpire Chad Fairchild as he jogged back to the dugout that was apparently appalling enough to get him immediately thrown out of the game.
Pillar and Gibbons had a more extended dialogue with Fairchild following the bizarre ejection, a ludicrously quick hook which certainly didn’t help abate the infantile reputation of MLB’s umpires.
“I didn’t get an explanation. He just threw me out,” Pillar said. “As I ran by home plate, I offered my opinion about what I felt the first pitch of the at-bat was. All I said was ‘first pitch was terrible.’ That’s it. Didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t use any profanity.
“I just felt like I offered my opinion. That’s an elite pitcher out there. And when he’s getting stuff off the plate, it makes my job extremely difficult.”
The Blue Jays didn’t get to Archer again until the fifth, when Miguel Montero reached on a dropped third strike, moved to third on Ezequiel Carrera’s long double to right, and scored when Ryan Goins, who can do no wrong with runners in scoring position, singled up the middle. Goins is now batting .342 (26-for-75) with runners in scoring position on the season. He’s hitting .164 (27-for-165) without runners on base.
Carrera eventually scored himself, moving to third on Goins’ single and crossing the plate on an Aoki sacrifice fly. But Josh Donaldson was called out on strikes by Fairchild — on a pitch half a foot off the plate — to end the threat.
Donaldson had his revenge in the eighth, hitting his 21st home run of the season off Rays reliever Tommy Hunter. And the Blue Jays scratched across one more during a brief ninth-inning rally. But that was all Toronto would get, on yet another night when their starting pitching simply wasn’t good enough.
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