TORONTO – For all the praise heaped upon the dynamic duo of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton – centre of the universe, we’re looking in your direction – it’s worth remembering that there may be no more a dynamic player in the AL East than Mookie Betts.
The opening month of the 2018 season is certainly serving notice of that, as the multi-talented Boston Red Sox right fielder has been the most dominant player on what’s arguably been baseball’s most dominant team.
On Wednesday, he dropped the hammer on the Toronto Blue Jays in a big way, pummeling Aaron Sanchez’s third pitch over the wall in left before shooting a 91.6-m.p.h. heater from Danny Barnes over the wall in right for the decisive margin in a 4-3 victory.
Quite the presence in the leadoff spot.
“He’s somebody who can get you quick, as you saw – they were up 1-0 three pitches into the game,” said Sanchez. “You just try to limit damage in that spot, be aggressive with your pitches, get him to get out on your pitches and see if he’ll chase on some things. I felt like my next two at-bats with him were very good. Falling behind 2-0 to an all-star like that, he put a good swing on a pitch that for me was middle-middle. With a player like that, he’s supposed to do that.”
Betts’ second homer, a two-run drive, erased the 3-2 lead Yangervis Solarte had provided in the bottom of the sixth inning when he ambushed an Eduardo Rodriguez slider to open the inning and pounded it into the second deck in left before a crowd of 18,914.
It was the second night in a row the Blue Jays blew a late lead – Roberto Osuna surrendered a 3-1 lead in the ninth Tuesday before Curtis Granderson’s walkoff homer in the 10th won the opener – and it was far from optimal ahead of a date with Chris Sale in Thursday’s rubber match.
The Blue Jays will need to be much sharper against him than they were versus Rodriguez – who allowed three runs on six hits and a walk in 6.2 innings and got away with a few pitches, including a four-seamer that Teoscar Hernandez skied to the warning track in the third.
“We missed some pitches we could have hit better,” Solarte said through interpreter Josue Peley. “I think he got lucky a couple of times and we didn’t take advantage of it. We made the adjustment a little bit, but I think he got lucky more than us getting beat.”
Much like Tuesday, the margin was painfully thin between the divisional rivals, with pitchers for the most part ruling the day.
Back in the climate-controlled comforts of the dome after consecutive starts in the cold, Sanchez’s velocity was back up to normal levels, averaging a tick above 94 m.p.h. on both his two- and four-seam fastballs, topping out at 96.1.
He used the power to great effect, getting nine swings and misses on his four-seamer, four more on his two-seamer, along with four more on his change-up. Sanchez mixed in only three curveballs, including a beauty to freeze Jackie Bradley Jr., and end the sixth inning.
“I watched what J.A. [Happ] did the night before, really exposing those guys up in the zone [with the fastball], and I just figured, ‘Hey, might as well try to do the same thing,’” said Sanchez. “I was getting swings early in the game and they weren’t really laying off it. It’s something that I just stayed with until they would stop swinging, or put together a few good hits there and they didn’t.”
In all he allowed two runs on three hits with eight strikeouts over six strong innings, the one two-seamer in the first to Betts and an RBI double to Brock Holt in the fifth his main mistakes.
The latter run came on a play with a lot happening, as left-fielder Steve Pearce fell as he turned to try and chase the ball down and Christian Vazquez nearly passed Bradley on the bases as Bradley turned back toward second thinking the ball might be caught.
The Blue Jays challenged but the call that the runners didn’t cross was confirmed.
Sanchez cleverly limited the damage there as he induced a Betts fly ball to right that wasn’t deep enough for Vazquez to tag on, and after a walk to Andrew Benintendi, Hanley Ramirez hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
“In a situation like that, I know I have first base open, I’m not going to get beat on something if I know I have a base open,” said Sanchez. “And then you’ve got a righty-righty matchup, I like that better than lefty in terms of how the ball was moving tonight and I was able to get a first-pitch groundball.”
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Lourdes Gurriel Jr., making the start at second base, helped tie things up in the bottom half of the fifth with his athleticism, legging out an infield single, stealing second and scoring on Pearce’s bloop single to left.
Solarte then delivered his sixth home run of the season – a third of the way to his career high of 18 established last year – but the Blue Jays didn’t have an answer for Betts.
“They’re good top to bottom over there,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons, who described Betts as a perennial MVP candidate type of player. “He’s a guy that not only can he hit, he’ll steal some bags, he does everything, so it’s not like you’re throwing a big hitter up there that can’t move. Really, they can hit him anywhere in the lineup they wanted to, he just fits there because of the speed profile. He’s pretty good.”
Some other talking points from the Blue Jays on Wednesday:
• Gibbons said Josh Donaldson has progressed to long-tossing and is due to start throwing to the bases before he plays in some rehab games.
• Troy Tulowitzki was cleared for light baseball activities after seeing the specialist who performed the surgery to remove bone spurs in both of his heels. He can begin hitting off a tee, playing some catch and taking stationary groundballs in the limited he can be on his feet.
• The Blue Jays are pretty much at the finish line on the renovation project of their spring facilities in Dunedin, Fla., after the city approved the deal Monday and Pinellas County did the same Tuesday night. A rubberstamp on state funding that is already earmarked is the last formal step needed, but the club has already engaged design firms to for the project.
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