TORONTO – From an identity standpoint, the Toronto Blue Jays are built to be an offensive ball club, first and foremost, featuring a deep lineup with power to spare. That’s why the way they took two of three from the New York Yankees during the season’s opening series in the Bronx was as important as the wins themselves.
“We didn't score a lot of runs and we won two games,” shortstop Bo Bichette said of the series that featured a collective score of 9-8. “Everybody knows we can hit. Being able to pitch and play defence in those types of games is huge. And we did a really good job of that.”
The offence, of course, will come, the way it did in Monday’s 6-2 victory over the Texas Rangers, highlighted by back-to-back home runs from Marcus Semien and Cavan Biggio in the decisive second inning. But it’s the Blue Jays’ pitching and defence which will ultimately decide the club’s fate this season, which is why Steven Matz’s debut was so notable.
The left-hander allowed just one run on two hits and a walk while striking out nine Rangers over 6.1 innings before a near-capacity crowd at Globe Life Field, where 38,238 tickets were sold for the home opener because Texas has apparently cancelled COVID-19.
Matz averaged 95.3 m.p.h. with a fastball that generated six of his 15 swinging strikes, and a changeup that led to five more whiffs kept opposing batters off-balance throughout the afternoon. Along with a sprinkling of 11 curveballs and eight sliders, there was no chance for the Rangers to eliminate pitches, especially with how he filled the zone.
“I told our team in spring training, if we're going to win games in the American League East and if we're going to go deep or something, or have a good year, it's going to be pitching and defence,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “Everybody talks about our offence and rightly so. But pitching and defence wins games in the major leagues. That's what we've done the first four games and it’s great to see.”
Coming off a dismal 2020 season that prompted the New York Mets to dump him to the Blue Jays for three roster-fringe arms, Matz came over looking to regain his past form. Along with the way Robbie Ray pitched before his injury, the 29-year-old’s success in the Grapefruit League was an important development for a team seeking stability for its rotation.
Monday’s outing represented both a glimpse of his upside, along with some validation that the spring-time performance will translate to the regular season.
“Yeah, definitely,” Matz said of taking positive reinforcement from the outing. “Now that the season is underway, obviously having a lot of fans in the stands, you've got that extra adrenaline – it really counts. So it was definitely good, another good outing to build off of, and just going to try to continue to get better each time. Definitely good to get the first one.”
The Blue Jays gave him immediate margin for error, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., delivering an RBI single in the first before Semien cashed in a Randal Grichuk walk in the second with his second homer followed by Biggio’s first homer of the season.
After Nate Lowe cashed in the only Texas run against Matz with a base hit, in the fourth, the Blue Jays tacked on another run in the fifth on Grichuk’s RBI single and one more in the sixth when third baseman Charlie Culberson couldn’t handle a Teoscar Hernandez smash.
There were opportunities for plenty more, too, as the Blue Jays went 3-for-11 with runners in scoring position. With George Springer inching toward a return – he’s slated to take some live batting practice Tuesday – the lineup will soon get deeper, and they’ll do more damage once more hitters get their timing down, too.
“It just goes to show how our lineup can beat you in so many different ways,” said Biggio. “When certain guys are struggling, our lineup is so deep we can hurt you with other guys. In New York, top three guys, me Sem and Bo didn't really have a great first game, but the middle of the order really picked it up. That's what makes this team so special. This lineup, I think we take the pressure off each other to not have to perform every single night, whether it's going to be win-or-lose. Overall, just really deep with that lineup. It's a lot of fun to play with and brings a ton of energy.”
Combine that with days when they get the type of outing Matz delivered and the Blue Jays should then enjoy plenty of low-leverage games.
Although Montoyo had Jordan Romano lightly warming behind Tim Mayza in the eighth and Rafael Dolis in the ninth, he was able to give his relievers a low-pressure day and keep his leverage arms – Julian Merryweather included – available for Tuesday.
Merryweather saved both wins in New York in electric fashion and how he gets used is an increasingly intriguing question. The Blue Jays had notions of stretching him out during spring training and then perhaps using him as a multi-inning option, but there’s certainly a case to be made for letting him air things out for an inning at a time.
"Our goal is to keep him healthy however we do it,” said Montoyo. “If it takes for him to pitch one inning at a time, that's what we'll do. Of course, he's looked pretty good in the one inning outings. There's a chance that we might do that. But we'll see. It's about communicating with him and seeing how healthy he is and we go from there.”
Notes: A foul tip caught Danny Jansen on the right knee directly in a gap between the padding and while he finished the sixth inning, he left the game in the seventh. “For Danny Jansen to get out of the game, it's got to hurt,” said Charlie Montoyo. “We've done all the tests and it should be day-to-day. He's doing better than when we took him out.” … Rangers pitchers hit four Blue Jays including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who got caught on the left pinkie but managed to avoid serious injury. “It's always scary when that happens anywhere on the hands because you know how fragile the hands are,” said Montoyo. “He's good, he's good to go.” … Texas lifted COVID-19 related operating restrictions and mandatory mask mandates at the beginning of March which made the massive crowd – often without masks – a familiar but jarring sight given the restrictions on gatherings over the past 13 months. For Steven Matz, the near-full house represented a dose of normalcy. “Definitely early on, warm up, started to kind of hear the buzz and stuff like that,” he said. “So it was really cool. Once you step on the mound and you're competing against the hitter, you kind of forget about everything else. But it was definitely cool, that extra little adrenaline warming up, getting into the game. It was fun. It felt really good to have fans in the stands.”
