BOSTON – Marco Estrada knows Friday night was his final start of the regular season. He just hopes it wasn’t his final start of 2016.
“You’ve got to tell yourself to stay positive,” Estrada said after throwing five innings of one-run ball in the Toronto Blue Jays’ 5-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox on a rainy Massachusetts night. “We’ve just got to keep battling, keep playing our game and hopefully these next few days go our way.”
Estrada’s post-game session with the press was a somber one, reflecting the morose clubhouse around him – a room so quiet that the only sound made was cutlery scratching plates. Although Estrada pitched well, as every Blue Jays starter has for the last two weeks, it wasn’t good enough to win, which is something the Blue Jays desperately need to do this weekend at Fenway Park. That’s why Estrada didn’t have many upbeat things to say about the solid season he’d just finished off.
“It was okay,” Estrada said of his year. “You always want to do better. Things happen. I know I missed a few starts because of my back. I’m not too happy about that. I don’t want to miss any starts. We’ll get this thing taken care of for next year and hopefully I don’t have to deal with it anymore.”
A herniated disk in Estrada’s back troubled the right-hander for most of the season, after he injured it performing core exercises during spring training. Estrada pitched through the pain for practically the entire year, and quite effectively at that. The ailment only hindered him in July, shortly after he aggravated the injury while swinging a bat during interleague play. Estrada made just three starts that month, and was held out of the all-star game, which he was chosen to play in for the first time in his career.
That was a frustrating period for Estrada, as was the series of starts in August when he struggled with his command and the feel for his change-up. It’s those two phases that likely held Estrada back from putting together a truly elite season, as the 33-year-old was remarkably consistent throughout the rest of the year. Even still, his 6.7 hits per nine innings is tied for the lowest in the American League, and his 3.48 ERA ranks among the top 12 AL starters.
While he doesn’t rack up strikeouts, and doesn’t overpower hitters, he has been one of the best pitchers over the last two seasons when it comes to suppressing hits and limiting runs. And if the Blue Jays do rally and qualify for the post-season, Estrada would be a fixture of Toronto’s rotation.
Friday night’s outing is a terrific example of why. Although he was pitching in cold, wet conditions, and although he was facing the best offence in baseball, Estrada still found a way to keep his team in the game through five. He was throwing so well that the team would have liked to keep him in longer, but the plucky Red Sox did such a good job of fouling off tough pitches and working deep at-bats early in the game that Estrada’s pitch count soared, reaching 100 in the fifth.
“That’s the reason they got his pitch count up. He was out of the game probably before we would have liked him to be. He was throwing the ball so well,” Estrada’s catcher, Russell Martin, said. “Boston’s tough. They’re going to battle. They have some scrappy guys who can be tough outs and foul pitches off.”
Estrada didn’t have his best swing-and-miss stuff on Friday, earning just 10 swinging strikes in the game, a low number by his standards, but he still found a way to get outs, earning six on the ground, four with strikeouts and one in the air.
His only damage came in the first inning when David Ortiz worked a long at-bat, fouling off five tough pitches, before reaching down below the zone to take an 89-mph fastball the other way against the shift and cash a runner from second.
“I was trying to elevate and I went down. And he just went with it and put a good swing on it,” Estrada said. “I threw the ball pretty well today, but it’s hard to get outs, you know? They’re a tough lineup over there. They fouled a lot of pitches off today and it got me out of the game early unfortunately. But it’s the way it goes sometimes.”
And, like so many of his other starts this season, that was it. Estrada otherwise neutralized a very dangerous Red Sox lineup before the Blue Jays bullpen gave the game away late. It was the 11th start this season in which Estrada gave up one earned run or less. In only six of his 29 starts did he allow four earned runs or more.
That’s pretty good. And, with the benefit of perspective and some time to reflect, Estrada will likely look back on this season fondly. It was the first half of the two-year, $26-million pact he signed with the Blue Jays this past winter, which seems like a tremendous bargain for the club in hindsight, and it was a continuation of the late-career renaissance he began when he arrived in Toronto two years ago.
Despite an unfavourable final result on Friday, Estrada still has plenty to be proud of.
“You just kind of have to forget about today. Obviously, it was a tough game. We needed it. We need every game. It makes it tough not pulling this one off, but we’re still in it. We’re right there. You’ve just got to keep battling,” Estrada said. “But, hey, I did okay I guess. It was a good year for all of us, and we’re not done. We have two more games and hopefully we have more after that.”