Blue Jays spoil Montoyo's return with win over White Sox in series opener

TORONTO – The last time Charlie Montoyo saw the Toronto Blue Jays in person, they were playing a lot more like his current team, the Chicago White Sox, than the way they are right now. Those were dire times last summer, the team coming off a dismal 1-9 stretch featuring a series of demoralizing losses along with sweeps by the Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners, prompting GM Ross Atkins to change managers and promote John Schneider. Eventually, the Blue Jays stabilized, got right, clinched the first wild card and, well, you know the rest.

Things aren’t quite as grim for the White Sox at the moment, even if the AL Central’s perennial underachievers arrived in Toronto having lost four straight and nine of 11. In that way, Montoyo, hired this winter as new manager Pedro Grifol’s bench coach, is once again trying to help his team escape a troubling funk, one the Blue Jays pushed them deeper into with a 5-2 victory.

Chris Bassitt threw 6.1 strong innings before leaving the game with right lower back tightness, Cavan Biggio capped a pivotal four-run fourth with a three-run homer and Matt Chapman added a run-scoring double as Toronto’s depth simply wore down the weaker White Sox.

Not even Luis Robert Jr. leaping over the eight-foot wall in centre field to rob Chapman of a homer earlier in the fourth could prevent the eventual outcome, punctuated afterwards by some relief with Bassitt saying he doesn’t expect to miss a bullpen, let alone his next start.

“I don't even really know what it is. My right side was just kind of tight all game,” said Bassitt, who first felt the tightness warming in the bullpen. “Never felt in threat of an injury the whole game. It was just that long (sixth) inning where they had a mound visit, it got a little more tight I would say. Then I yanked that one changeup (to Robert with one out in the seventh) and I was like … let's just be smart and not do something stupid right here. I just erred on the side of caution a little bit.”

Montoyo’s thoughts on what happened last summer, where his old team is at now or the state of his current club remain unknown, as he traded pleasantries with a number of familiar faces but declined interview requests, as is his prerogative.

On the field pre-game, his exchanges were limited to hugs with a small handful of Blue Jays staffers and signing some autographs for fans who called out to him, making for a muted reunion. Otherwise, he focused on the White Sox’s work, hitting grounders to the infielders, chatting with baserunners by third base, working his way to the outfield and putting his arm around players who may very well need a little love at the moment.

“He’s got a calming presence,” Grifol said of Montoyo. “He doesn't let situations like this affect him or anybody around him. He just brings a sense of comfort and calmness to all of us that we've needed. He's a big piece of this thing. I'm lucky to have him here next to me.”

Montoyo provided the Blue Jays with similar guidance through the tumult of 2020’s pandemic summer in Buffalo and the three-home-city, one-game-short-of-playoffs heartbreak in 2021 before his firing last summer. He managed many of the growing pains the club endured in pursuit of the more mature whole it’s trying to become this season, personnel changes helping on that front.

Bassitt, signed to a $63-million, three-year deal this off-season, delivered a fourth straight solid outing, allowing a two-run double to Andrew Vaughn in the third and nothing else before a crowd of 26,293.

He cruised from there until the seventh, when he spiked that changeup, signalled to the dugout and came out of the game. Schneider said that Bassitt “hanging out in the dugout after was encouraging” and they’ll re-evaluate him Tuesday.

“I thought he was really efficient, he really mixed his pitches well, kind of a typical Chris Bassitt outing,” Schneider added. “He was keeping them off-guard, taking advantage of their aggressive approach. I thought he was outstanding.”

After Chapman was robbed of a homer in the fourth, Whit Merrifield ate into a 2-0 White Sox lead with an RBI double and Biggio followed by ripping a 1-2 Lance Lynn curveball into the party deck in right field for a three-run homer.

The utilityman, in an 0-for-15 rut before the homer, watched the pitch break right onto his barrel, having spit on a changeup the pitch before after three fastballs to start the at-bat.

“You look at my role with this team, it’s in and out of the lineup and obviously I'm not where I want to be with my swing and whatnot,” said Biggio. “I’m constantly working in the cage, constantly working on my swing and I have to learn to separate the two, going into the batter's box looking to compete. That’s really what my mindset was, see the ball and compete.”

Chapman added an RBI double in the seventh that made it a 5-2 game but the heavy lifting was done by the bottom half of the Blue Jays lineup as Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Daulton Varsho and Chapman went a combined 3-for-17 with a walk.

“We feel that our lineup is one of, if not the best lineup in baseball,” said Merrifield, who also walked twice and has reached in all 17 of his games this season with hits in the past 10. “We've got depth, we've got power, we've got speed, we've got bat-to-ball ability, we've got guys that can walk. … Bo and Vladdy, Bo's not going to get five hits a night, even though he thinks he should, Vladdy isn't going to hit three homers a night, even though he thinks he should. When those guys aren't having their best game, we've got other guys that can pick them up. That's what good teams do.”

It was, in a sense, a vision of what Montoyo expected the Blue Jays to be last year, and a blueprint for a White Sox team missing key players including Tim Anderson but still less than the sum of its parts, too.

Grifol said Montoyo was “the only guy I thought about,” for the bench coach role, adding “he checked every box that I wanted.”

“I knew him a little bit, but when you're in the game a long time, over the years, in the positions that I've held, you always write down good names of people that you'd want to work with in the future,” Grifol continued. “He was on every list I ever had, whether I was farm director, field co-ordinator, whatever. When his name came up and I knew he was available, it was an easy decision.”

One that gave Montoyo a new beginning on a divergent path from that of the Blue Jays.