TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays need help for their heavily used bullpen and Paul Sewald, the veteran reliever recently designated for assignment by the Arizona Diamondbacks, will try to provide some. Claimed on waivers Wednesday afternoon, the 36-year-old former closer is expected to join the team Thursday and likely to be active Friday, giving manager John Schneider another option with late-game experience to sift through.
It’s a potentially opportunistic and timely add, since the Blue Jays didn’t backfill with a now piece for Jeff Hoffman the way they did for Kevin Gausman, with Jose Soriano, and for Daulton Varsho, with Brett Bateman and Josh Smith, during their hybrid deadline. Hoffman’s absence has been particularly notable throughout the week-and-a-half of near constant leverage work for the relievers since the Aug. 3 cutoff, and as the club’s churned through arms to refresh the bullpen, Sewald, in the midst of a bizarre process-seemingly-better-than-the-results season, could provide a dose of what they need.
“Veteran guy, we've seen him a lot, he's had some really good years and kind of a weird down year this year. We're at the point looking for a little bit of stability. It's tough to find a (player) who's been around in the big-leagues and been in some big spots at this time of year,” said manager John Schneider. “It's been kind of a weird year for him keeping the ball in the park. We're just going try to tighten up some matchups for him.”
Thanks to six innings of one-run ball against the Boston Red Sox from Soriano in his home debut, the Blue Jays actually managed to ease the burden on their relief group Wednesday. And when Willson Contreras dropped a Kazuma Okamoto foul popper that would have been a critical first out in the eighth inning, the Japanese slugger delivered a go-ahead RBI single to begin a five-run outburst that led to a 6-4 victory.
A third straight win over the Red Sox pushed the Blue Jays to 59-63 and moved them past the Baltimore Orioles (58-63) in the wild-card race, leapfrogging one of the teams in front of them for a second straight day. Four clubs remain ahead of them, but with an 11th win in their last 16 games, they suddenly have some real momentum.
"Maybe the baseball gods are changing their mind about us after about 10 months, you never know,” Schneider quipped of the crucial Contreras error. “Oak made them pay. You've got to take advantage of mistakes. It seems like maybe a month ago, a couple of weeks ago, that ball would have been fair, it would have been infield fly rule, but from me to the baseball gods, thanks, keep it coming.”
Back-to-back singles by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Alejandro Kirk opened the pivotal eighth before Okamoto’s single off Tayron Guerrero broke a 1-1 tie. After an intentional walk to Andres Gimenez loaded the bases, Tayron Guerrero walked Ernie Clement to force in a second run while George Springer’s pinch-hit sacrifice fly plated a third run and Myles Straw’s two-run double capped the rally.
“I was given another chance, obviously, and I was able to regroup and wanted to at least move the runners over,” Okamoto said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “I was glad I got the big hit there.”
The Blue Jays have been doing more of that since the trade deadline, with Varsho’s departure opening regular reps for Straw, who has 10 hits and reached base in seven of the 10 games since, along with playing time for newcomers Bateman, who has hits in five of his six games, and Smith, who’s had a three-hit game and a homer since arriving.
In turn, they’ve helped the lineup function a little differently.
“Looking back even a couple of weeks ago, a couple months ago, it felt like we were pretty stagnant, where you're just waiting for somebody to do something,” said Schneider. “Right now, with who we have, you can kind of force some action. Even Ernie taking a stolen base there (in the second inning), just little things like that to where I think you can put pressure on the other team and get them on their heels a little bit and hopefully make some mistakes. It's a different feel and we’re trying not to wait around for something to happen, we're trying to make something happen.”
They made enough happen Wednesday that Schneider tried to rest Louis Varland, who was up and warming while the game was tied, in favour of Matt Waldron in the ninth. But after a Caleb Durbin RBI single and Jarren Duran RBI double, the Blue Jays brought in their all-star closer to shut things down.
Soriano did the type of heavy lifting the Blue Jays so desperately need from their starters earlier in the game, holding the Red Sox to a run, on Contreras’ solo shot leading off the fifth, while striking out four. He continued to up the usage on his sinker, throwing it 41 times at an average of 96.6 m.p.h. versus 21 four-seamers which averaged 97, while mixing in his splitter and curve.
“Sometimes we have to use one pitch a lot, sometimes we use other pitches,” said Soriano. “Today it was the sinker I used a lot and had good results.”
All of which helped keep things rolling for the Blue Jays, who didn’t have to overburden their bullpen as they wait to see if Sewald can strengthen the group.
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