TORONTO – An early trademark of the young season for the Toronto Blue Jays is that their games feature a whole lot of late leverage, and so far they’re thriving with minimal margin for error.
Monday night’s 6-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox, sealed on Bo Bichette’s go-ahead grand slam in the bottom of the eighth, was the latest example of their pressure-cooker life.
Limited to solo shots from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Matt Chapman by Nate Eovaldi, a similarly brilliant Jose Berrios made the advantage stand up through seven before getting into trouble in the eighth.
Adam Cimber, who’s faced more pressure than any Blue Jays reliever other than closer Jordan Romano as measured by game-entering Leverage Index, was called upon to clean up a two-on, none-out mess. He allowed an RBI single to Kike Hernandez and a sacrifice fly to Alex Verdugo after a Kevin Plawecki sacrifice bunt, but kept the score 2-2.
In the bottom half, Santiago Espinal lined a one-out base hit off Matt Strahm, Bradley Zimmer followed with a pivotal bunt single and after Tyler Danish took over, a George Springer single loaded the bases.
Bichette then delivered a rare game-breaking blow before a crowd of 20,981, lining a 1-0 sinker over the right-field wall for a 6-2 lead, offering Julian Merryweather some ninth-inning breathing room.
“We all know that we're going to bust out and have big games that aren't so close all the time,” said Bichette. “But to win a championship, you've got to win these types of games against really good teams. We're excited with how we're playing, continue to play that way, continue to play hard and just continue to compete.”
Not having to sweat the final three outs was a nice change of pace for the Blue Jays after six of their previous seven outings were decided by one run. This was just the fourth time in 17 games this season the decisive margin was more than three runs.
“We're going to look forward to the days when we're up by 10, for sure,” veteran right-hander David Phelps said before the game. “But good teams play in leverage ballgames. That's what it is. We knew this first part of the season was going to be a gauntlet for us and it's felt more like September baseball than it has April baseball. It's fun but the highs and lows of those leverage games take you a little bit longer to come down from, but that's the exciting part about baseball.”
The Blue Jays, now 11-6, have certainly had their share of excitement.
Seven of their games have been decided by one run, three by two runs and another three by three runs. They’re 9-4 in those games, including 5-2 in one-run contests, which was an area they struggled with at times last year, particularly in May and June, finishing 15-15 overall.
The experience from a year ago has been in the minds of this group, especially during the recent run of tight games Cimber described as having “a playoff-type atmosphere.”
“That probably goes back to how we finished last year one game away from a playoff spot,” he continued. “We realize how important every single game is. And when you're in a close game every night, it's kind of like playoffs for us knowing that it's always potentially just one game away. April or September, it matters. That's the idea right now.”
The Blue Jays bullpen, which has logged 45 percent of the club’s innings thus far, has worn a lot of the leverage, which manager Charlie Montoyo has largely concentrated around Romano, Cimber, Yimi Garcia, Phelps and Tim Mayza.
Here are their Leverage Index numbers heading into Monday’s play.
That Romano’s number is at more than twice the average amount of pressure a reliever faces when entering a game isn’t surprising. As a closer, his role is to enter games when the stakes are highest.
But there have been plenty of tight spots to go around, especially in a condensed period, which can take a toll. That’s among the many reasons Berrios going seven innings Monday was so valuable, while Bichette’s game-breaking swing allowed Romano to get a break.
Even with that, he’s still been in nine of the team’s 17 games. Cimber, Mayza and Garcia have each appeared in eight, while Phelps and Richards are at seven. The Blue Jays entered the game with the seventh-highest Leverage Index number in the majors, a stat in which the Red Sox and Yankees led the way.
As the offence comes around that number should normalize over time for the Blue Jays – they finished last season at 1.04 – but in the interim, they’re building muscle memory in high-stress situations.
“I just feel like in the bigger spots now we're more prepared to win,” said Romano. “Even in 2020, maybe early last year, some of these games we were just losing. Now, we're taking some of them. That's going to be big come September. It's going to add up.”
Also adding up is the impact of the club’s defensive gains.
George Springer made the latest contribution to the highlight reel with a brilliant diving catch on a Plawecki liner to end the fifth. Three pitches into the bottom half Gurriel took Eovaldi deep to open the scoring.
With Espinal and Chapman tightening up the infield, and Springer along with Zimmer and Raimel Tapia, who made a nice catch by the left-field wall on a seventh-inning drive by Jackie Bradley Jr., gobbling up balls in the outfield, the Blue Jays are not only making the outs they should make, but also taking away hits, too.
“It's easier to just throw strikes” behind a strong defence, said Cimber. “You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to try to paint corners. It's just like, hey, throw it in the box, try to get as weak a contact as you can and know that somebody behind is ready to make a play.”
At the plate, too, the Blue Jays have learned to take what’s given to them.
While Bichette’s grand slam was the decisive blow, crucial to building the rally was Zimmer recognizing opportunity and laying down a pretty bunt up the first-base line in a tough left-on-left matchup versus Strahm.
“It's just situational baseball,” said Zimmer. “Our offence is so explosive but at times you still need to do the fundamentals. In that situation, we had one out, we just wanted to keep the line moving. That's exactly what we did. Espy has a great at-bat, I get a base hit there so there's two guys on and George gets a base hit, just three good at-bats back-to-back which leads to a big hit for Bo. That's big for us. You can only hit so many solo home runs. You've got to do the little things sometimes.”
A steady diet of high-leverage baseball to open the season is reinforcing that across the board for the Blue Jays, who so far have been up to the task.
