TORONTO — Ernie Clement is many different things for the Toronto Blue Jays including team leader in … slugging percentage?
Renowned for his gifted glove around the infield and remarkable contact skills at the plate, he’s now also providing some much-needed pop for an offence searching for extra-base hits, delivering a crucial three-run homer along with his first triple in Saturday’s 6-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles.
Complementing his six homers are 19 doubles among a team-high 76 hits, while his .464 slugging percentage now leads the club, just clear of Brandon Valenzuela, who doubled twice and cashed in Clement’s triple with a sacrifice fly in the fifth, at .456. Jesus Sanchez is next at .444, followed by Kazuma Okamoto, who had a two-out RBI single in the second inning, at .435.
Those contributions are especially vital while George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Daulton Varsho, who didn’t start Saturday due to left wrist soreness, and others expected to carry the offensive load work to lock in at the plate.
“We must be doing really bad as a group, which we're not,” Varsho quipped about Clement having the highest slug on the club. “What he's doing is unbelievable. He's taking that playoff run and he's doing it every day, which is a really hard thing to do. It's a very impressive thing to do. He's playing his butt off.”
The Blue Jays can still grind pitchers out with their contact — the way they did Thursday in beating Atlanta ace Chris Sale 7-2 — but piling up the hits on a continuous basis is difficult.
They need to more regularly find big-damage swings like the one Clement provided Saturday, following a Guerrero walk and Sanchez single by lining a hanging slider from Kyle Bradish over the wall in left field for a 4-1 Blue Jays lead.
That his triple in the fifth came to the opposite field was the subject of some ribbing in the dugout, as it was his first extra-base hit to right this year. His pull-percentage of 45.5 per cent is up from 40.1 per cent a year ago, by design.
“I'm looking for pitches that I can pull and do some damage on,” Clement explained. “I don't hit a lot of homers or doubles in the middle of the field. I don't know if I have the juice for that, so I've got to find a way to do that and my extra-base hits go to left field. I'm pretty aware of that.”
He's doing it without sacrificing batting average, as he’s up to .306 after the 2-for-4 day. Understanding that most of his hits will come to left field, “I have to be OK with rolling over a ball every once in a while,” Clement said, and he recognizes that “if they execute a really good off-speed pitch down and away, that's sometimes the result.”
“Sometimes you tip the cap,” he added, “but I feel like more often than not, when I'm aggressive and intentful there, I can put a good swing in and hit it to left.”
AS THE ROTATION TURNS: Braydon Fisher, serving as an opener for the fourth time this season, started the latest Blue Jays bullpen game and this one could be their last for the foreseeable future.
While nothing is settled, John Schneider said Dylan Cease and Max Scherzer “getting the pitch count where they did” during rehab outings at triple-A Buffalo, combined with “where their stuff was,” means that “if the next couple of days go all right, their next (starts) could be with us.”
Cease is eligible to be activated from the injured list Tuesday against the Philadelphia Phillies, when one rotation vacancy pops up, while Scherzer could slot in to the next opening for Friday’s series against the New York Yankees. If the Blue Jays wanted to keep Scherzer on four days' rest, they could potentially line him up Wednesday for the Phillies while pushing Trey Yesavage back to Friday, giving him two extra days.
Tommy Nance, meanwhile, could rejoin the Blue Jays as soon as Sunday, helping to refresh a heavily taxed bullpen, which entered Saturday’s play fifth in the majors at 269.2 innings logged.
Mason Fluharty made his big-league leading 35th appearance when he pitched the seventh, with Fisher right behind at 34. Three of Fluharty’s outings have been as an opener, while Adam Macko has also opened once, although that makeshift staffing may soon be coming to an end.
MAXIMUM MILES: Roughed up by the Orioles last Sunday, Spencer Miles rebounded in impressive fashion Saturday, allowing two runs in 4.1 innings while striking out five in his latest bulk outing.
He took over from Braydon Fisher in the second and carried the Blue Jays into the sixth, leaving with one out, one on and a 6-1 lead. The second run against him came in on Pete Alonso’s two-run homer off Jeff Hoffman, and pushed the rookie righty up to 40.2 innings logged this season, largely amassed in six starts/bulk outings over 17 games.
“Just attack and get strike one,” Miles said of what he’s locked in about pitching at the big-league level. “It sounds cliche, but if you fall behind, 1-0, 2-0 that's two pitches wasted. Now you've got to get back, you could have thrown three straight strikes and gotten a strikeout or something in play, double them up, something like that. So throwing strike one, keeping the pitch count low and then just going from there.”
The Blue Jays have asked a lot of the Rule 5 pick and the potential return to a full rotation in the next turn means what comes next for Miles is uncertain. True to form he said, “whatever they need, I’m here for,” and now that’s he’s built to 73 pitches, he gives the Blue Jays all types of options moving forward.
“That's going to be valuable however we need to use him,” said manager John Schneider. “When we kept him out of spring training, we liked the upside of a guy with really good stuff for one inning and the potential to stretch him out a little bit, if needed, which we needed to do. So he's in a good spot regardless. And the fact that he's built up is an added bonus.”
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