TORONTO – Despite starving for slug, the Toronto Blue Jays pushed back Addison Barger’s expected return from the injured list from Friday to Saturday. With lefty Reid Detmers starting for the Los Angeles Angels, to be followed by righties Jack Kochanowicz and Jose Soriano in this weekend series, the delay was perhaps understandable. But there was a little more to it, as well.
“He played a few games in a row, just give him a day to kind of recoup and travel, and then assuming that he travels fine, he should be ready to go (Saturday),” explained manager John Schneider. “The extra day was kind of all right, when he gets here, I'm not going to run him out there every single day, but we can get him going pretty good.”
Whatever the case, his arrival will be welcomed, even after a 2-0 victory before a crowd of 41,923 ended their four-game losing streak.
Dylan Cease put the game under his thumb by retiring the first nine batters he faced and struck the right balance between whiff-inducing dominance and efficient outs over seven shutout innings, while the offence eked out just enough while going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
The entirety of their output came in the third inning, on an RBI single by Kazuma Okamoto and sacrifice fly by Ernie Clement. But the ongoing absence of the big blow was underlined by only one of the six walks they worked off Detmers coming around, the offence fulfilling only half of the pre-game plan to grind the starter and get to damage.
That meant a high-leverage finish for the bullpen, with Jeff Hoffman topping out at 99.5 m.p.h. while working around a Vaughn Grissom double in an impressive eighth and Louis Varland handling the ninth for his fifth save.
The Blue Jays are now 17-21 after winning with less than three runs for the first time this season. They scored only seven times during their four-game losing streak.
Barger’s return should help that offence, adding another threat to a middle of the order that needs one. The Blue Jays began the day 23rd in both home runs and slug and none of their three hits went for extra bases, although pinch-hitter Jesus Sanchez drove a ball foul in the eighth that would have changed that.
Still, the lineup as a whole isn’t performing well enough for piecemeal production to be enough, and getting to power, outside of a few brief spurts, has been an issue. Okamoto is the lone exception, responsible for nearly a third of the team’s home-run total of 34.
In turn, that puts immense pressure on the pitching staff, which Cease, Hoffman and Varland were up to Friday.
Cease, in particular, was a beast in this one, allowing only five hits while striking out 10 on 97 pitches. He mixed in his changeup, curve, sinker and sweeper alongside a usual diet of sliders and four-seamers, keeping the Angels on their back foot.
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