TORONTO, Ont. – It was a battle of Cy Young Award winners — R.A. Dickey and his capricious knuckleball up against King Felix Hernandez, who was having another tremendous season and looked to be on the way to another Cy Young.
The Blue Jays scored a run in the first inning but then Hernandez settled in, striking out four hitters in a row after Edwin Encarnacion’s RBI single to begin a dominant run of 11 consecutive batters retired. That allowed the Mariners to take the lead on Robinson Cano’s two-out two-run single off Dickey in the third inning.
Hernandez was cruising into the fifth, having shaken off his 21-pitch first inning to sit at just 55 pitches through four, looking every bit the big-time ace that he is. Little did we know that he was about to begin the worst inning he would ever pitch in the major leagues, hitting the showers 10 batters later with five runs already in and two of the runners he left yet to cross.
It started with a terrific at-bat by 21-year-old Mississauga native Dalton Pompey. A strikeout victim in his first trip, Pompey had the kitchen sink thrown at him his second time up. He refused to bite on a curveball and a sinker out of the zone, fouled off a 2-0 pitch then took a change-up to put himself in the driver’s seat, ahead in the count 3-1. Pompey looked fastball, got one and murdalized it. His first major league home run, deep into the 200 level in right field, tied the game – he would later say that it might have been the farthest ball he has ever hit.
As the Blue Jays dugout celebrated with a little bit of silent treatment and then a bunch of head-slaps to the kid (who is now one home run behind Rob Ducey for fifth place on the Blue Jays’ all-time homers-by-Canadians list), Hernandez got ahead of Anthony Gose 1-2 before Gose slashed at a 94 mph fastball and just snuck it inside the third-base line, down into left field for a double.
Josh Thole was next, charged with sacrificing Gose to third, and he dropped a beautiful bunt out towards the pitcher’s mound. Hernandez pounced off the mound, reached down with his bare hand … and left the ball on the turf. Thole’s bunt single put runners on the corners, and Gose would score on a Ryan Goins line drive to left field, a sacrifice fly that gave the Blue Jays the lead.
From that point, Hernandez had absolutely no answer for the Jays hitters. It was a one-run game, with a man on first and one out, and the home team just simply blew the doors off.
Jose Reyes hit a change-up through the right side for a single and Jose Bautista walked, loading the bases for Encarnacion, who immediately fell behind 0-2. But King Felix didn’t throw him another strike, and couldn’t get him to chase. Bases loaded walk.
Adam Lind, who looked awful striking out in his two previous at-bats, fell behind 0-2 as well, and then hit as seeing-eye a single as you’ll ever witness, on the ground past diving first baseman Logan Morrison to keep the line moving for Munenori Kawasaki, who beat out a double-play grounder to cash yet another run.
That brought Pompey back to the plate, with two on and two out and five runs already in, the 10th batter to face Hernandez in the inning. He fouled off a two-strike curveball, didn’t bite on a pair of two-strike change-ups to run the count full, fouled off another change to stay alive and then took a curveball in the dirt for ball four on Hernandez’s 40th pitch of the inning, reloading the bases and sending King Felix to the showers.
Rookie Dominic Leone came into the game and allowed two of those three inherited runners to score, closing the books on a seven-run frame for the Blue Jays, each run charged to Hernandez, who had never given up more than five runs in an inning. Hernandez’s ERA climbed over a quarter of a run in the game, from a league-leading 2.07 to 2.34, now second behind the White Sox’s Chris Sale.
The win gave the Blue Jays 80 on the season, meaning they need to go only 2-3 the rest of the way to have their first winning season since 2010. Small consolation, to be sure.