TORONTO – John Schneider went out of his way to dispel the notion that Sandy Alcantara intentionally directed a changeup at Kazuma Okamoto — his fourth (!!!) hit batter of the night — during the Toronto Blue Jays’ 8-1 win Tuesday. He pointed out that none came on a fastball and spoke of his respect for the Miami Marlins ace and his manager Clayton McCullough, who started his coaching career in the Blue Jays system.
“I think balls just got away from him. It just looked worse right after Jesus Sanchez’s grand slam,” said Schneider. "Alcantara is a Cy Young Award winner, and me and Clayton go way back. I know how much of a pro he is.”
Solid reasoning for the benefit of doubt there, but by Wednesday afternoon, when a 97.1 m.p.h. sinker from Eury Perez slammed off Okamoto’s back with one on and two out in the fourth inning, Schneider’s patience had worn thin. So when he saw the Marlins right-hander look into the Blue Jays dugout afterwards, he yelled a request at him to not do that and then told him to return to the mound, with a few indelicate words mixed in. Perez did so, struck out Yohendrick Pinango to end that inning and then came out of the game with right hamstring spasms.
Tension diffused, the Blue Jays rallied to tie the game in the fifth on Nathan Lukes’ RBI double and went ahead on Okamoto’s solo shot in the sixth, with the bullpen making the advantage stand up in a 2-1 victory that capped a 4-2 homestand.
Mason Fluharty, Jeff Hoffman, Louis Varland and Tyler Rogers, handling the ninth for his second save, covered the final four frames behind Kevin Gausman and were helped along by four Marlins outs on the bases, including two in the sixth inning. That limited the damage of 11 Miami hits, while the Blue Jays rode their five knocks to a win that pushed them to 27-29.
“It's six in the series and five in a game-and-a-half guys getting hit. Like I said (Tuesday), Sandy's not trying to hit anyone with breaking balls, but collectively as a group, you get tired of it when Oak takes 97 in the back,” said Schneider. “It's the old thing, if you're going to throw in, throw in if you can control it. But I think, too, whenever players kind of respond and things like that, you just get lost in the heat of the moment...
“Kind of nice [that] the guy that was taking some pitches in the back and in the arm got the winning run in for us.”
Schneider’s sensitivity to another hit-by-pitch — Lukes took a 94.1 m.p.h. sinker from Andrew Nardi off the side of the helmet Monday — is understandable given the club’s recent attrition amid a stretch of 17 games in 17 days.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., whose right arm went numb after getting hit by Mitch Keller on Sunday, only returned to the lineup Wednesday but had two singles and an intentional walk. Meanwhile, Lenyn Sosa needed a day after getting hit on the hand by Alcantara.
They’re so beat up that Myles Straw took grounders at second with Brandon Valenzuela at first before the game, just in case.
“That kind of leads to some of the reactions in the dugout when guys get hit,” said Schneider. “Myles has played a little infield, and so has Valley at first. Just trying to cover all of our bases with the way everyone's feeling.”
Rightly so, as the Blue Jays are already working overtime to overcome the toll of injuries and churn on their pitchers, selecting Austin Voth and acquiring Connor Seabold from the Detroit Tigers.
On the position-player side, they’re still missing Alejandro Kirk, who is working toward a rehab assignment, and Addison Barger, who is due to resume throwing in the next day or two and will need a week of build-up before he can start playing in rehab games, so they can ill-afford further attrition with depth already stretched.
“It's frustrating,” Tyler Heineman — who was credited with four runners caught stealing to tie Jose Molina’s club record and walked and scored on Lukes' double — said of all the batters hit. “The most important thing you want to make sure of is that everybody's all right. Lukey got hit in the head and he's all right. Vlad had to miss a couple days, but he's all right. Sosa is banged up a little bit, but he's all right. It sucks. It's part of baseball. I understand that throwing inside is important. And we definitely have guys that you need to pitch inside. We need to do it to the opposing team, too. But to have a bunch of balls miss arm-side and hit our guys is frustrating.”
Okamoto bore the marks of that frustration post-game, with one icepack wrapped around the right forearm struck on Tuesday and another on his back where he was hit on Wednesday. He described getting hit as part of the game, and when asked how he felt, he politely bowed and said, through interpreter Yusuke Oshoma, “as good as it can be.”
But he managed to fight through the discomfort to deliver his 11th homer of the season and third to right field, as he continues to pull out of a recent funk. Schneider said focusing on the opposite field for power hitters tends to get “the mechanical part of the front side where it should be,” and combined with Okamoto’s recent adjustment to raise his hands a little at the plate, has seen some positive results in recent days.
“Obviously it was good to barrel it up and see the ball fly that way,” he said. “Recently it's been a bunch of swings and misses and rolling over on pitches. Just glad that ball went that way for a homer.”
So, too, were the Blue Jays, who have won six of their last eight, three of them while only scoring two runs.
Their pitching has been key there, but so too has their defence, with small plays like Lukes cutting off an Otto Lopez single in the third quickly to prevent Xavier Edwards from scoring to extend a Miami lead. Gausman then induced an inning-ending double play from Kyle Stowers, one of two twin-kills that got him out of trouble over his five find-a-way frames.
“That was huge,” Gausman said of the Lukes’ work in right. “Anytime you can keep the double play in order, as a pitcher, you feel very thankful.”
Between that and Heineman’s remarkable day throwing out runners, “that's how you've got to win a 2-1 game,” said Schneider, something to help soothe a battered and bruised team.
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