TORONTO – There is promise for the Toronto Blue Jays if Francisco Liriano’s return Friday night is a starting point rather than a peak for the left-hander, with more upside to come as he continues to rebuild his stamina and physical base. His velocity was up, his slider was effective and up until he hit a wall in the sixth inning, he was far more than the formidable New York Yankees could handle.
“No question,” said pitching coach Pete Walker. “I think his stuff was definitely a click up from what it was his few starts before he went on the disabled list. I think he feels stronger now and the slider was sharper. I actually saw him under control, he wasn’t overthrowing a lot, either. So I think it came a little easier to him, which was great.”
For a first start back from shoulder fatigue after a quickie rehab, the Blue Jays couldn’t have asked for much more than the five-plus innings of two-run ball he gave them. Bigger picture though, more is going to be needed from both Liriano and the rest of a rotation nearing full strength – Aaron Sanchez is due to resume throwing with his blister nearly totally gone – to help a weary bullpen pitch more often at or near full strength.
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The toll of a heavy recent workload showed up late in a 7-5 victory over the Yankees as Danny Barnes and Ryan Tepera, both used frequently in recent weeks, surrendered runs in the sixth and seventh innings as a comfortable five-run lead twice got pared down to a single run.
Joe Smith in the eighth and Roberto Osuna in the ninth locked things down as the Blue Jays delivered a solid reply after the Yankees knocked them around 12-2 in the opener of an intriguing four-game series.
“That’s a hard-earned win by our guys,” said manager John Gibbons. “They kept coming at us, the bullpen guys, they bent but didn’t break. They’ve got as good a lineup as you’ll see and you always have the power threat.”
So, too, do the Blue Jays as Josh Donaldson demonstrated his hitting chops with a solo shot in the first on a Michael Pineda slider up in the zone – getting his hands up to his chest to get the barrel out – and again on another solo drive in the sixth, dropping his back leg to drop the bat head on a Jonathan Holder curveball at the bottom of the zone.
Justin Smoak added a two-run homer on a 93.6-m.p.h. Pineda fastball, a sacrifice fly and scored on a Devon Travis sac fly in the seventh before a crowd of 44,261 as all the add-on runs came in handy.
“I feel like everything he throws is hard, hard slider, hard change-up, split-finger so honestly, my approach was to get on the fastball,” Smoak said of his plan versus Pineda. “Get ready for the hard stuff.”
Luke Maile, starting with Russell Martin nursing a sore neck, singled and scored on a passed ball in the fourth that made it 5-0, but his most important contributions came in his handling of Liriano.
Making his first big-league start since Cleveland rocked him for seven runs in two innings on May 10, Liriano held the Yankees to just two runs – both via an Aaron Judge laser to the second deck in right field in the sixth – on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts. More critically, he was up about half a m.p.h. on his fastball at 92.6 and one m.p.h. on his slider at 85.2, still down from the 93.98 and 86.05 he averaged last year but enough to make him better.
“I worked some stuff differently while I was on the DL so everything went well for me tonight,” Liriano said in comments interpreted by Josue Peley. “I didn’t try more or less, it was just fine.”
He was also much better from a command perspective, his misses more by design high and low over the plate rather than side to side.
“He was actually getting inside on right-handers pretty good, too, where he’s sticking his fastball glove side,” said Walker. “He was around the zone and they weren’t wild misses so you could tell he was feeling good, you could tell when he was warming up before the game, even right now he said he felt strong, even up at 81 pitches. Really next time he should be free to go and get even deeper into the next game.”
Liriano helped set the tone for his team, too, as a three-base error by Ezequiel Carrera on Brett Gardner to open the game put him into an instant jam. He responded by getting Gary Sanchez to ground out on a pretty pick by Donaldson, Judge to strike out and Matt Holliday to fly out.
After the Blue Jays gave him a three-spot in the bottom of the first, Liriano escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the third when he induced a 5-4-3 double-play on an 84.6-m.p.h. slider to Holliday. Donaldson made a strong pick on that ball, too.
“Thankfully that one was more right at me,” said Donaldson.
Liriano retired his next six batters, striking out the side in the fifth, before opening the sixth by allowing a single to Sanchez and the homer to Judge. Barnes walked Holliday before Starlin Castro’s two-run poke to right field made it a 5-4 game, while Holliday’s RBI double in the sixth after Tepera walked Judge on a close 3-2 pitch cut the Blue Jays lead to 6-5.
The Blue Jays bats had an answer each time to pick up the bullpen on a night Liriano brought the rotation a big step closer to where it needs to be.
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