TORONTO – For 6.2 innings, it was the most innocuous pitcher’s duel you’ve ever seen. Two finesse arms calmly providing hitters with the most comfortable 0-for-3’s they’ll ever take. And then something gave way.
Toronto Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada was within a strike of getting through a seventh shutout inning when his old battery mate, Dioner Navarro, shot a triple to the wall that scored two runs and gave the Chicago White Sox all they’d need in a 4-0 victory over the reeling Jays.
“I threw him a good change-up down and away and he hit it. You just tip your hat to that. There’s nothing else I could’ve done,” Estrada said. “I threw the ball exactly where I wanted it and he put a good swing on it. That’s just a good hitter.”
Until that seventh, Estrada was his usual, efficient self, patiently neutralizing Chicago’s batting order with an onslaught of perfectly-located pitches they couldn’t make good contact with. He allowed just four base runners through his first six innings – three of them via walks – as he induced lazy fly ball after lazy fly ball.
“I think tonight was the most I’ve elevated this year so far. I was happy with it,” Estrada said. “I guess they didn’t really square up too many pitches until the end. I was happy. I felt really good. It just kind of got away from me.”
That happened in the seventh, when Todd Frazier notched the White Sox’s second hit of the night, one of the few well-struck balls Estrada allowed. Frazier was eliminated by a Melky Cabrera fielder’s choice, but Brett Lawrie walked behind Cabrera to put Estrada in a tough spot.
After he struck out Avisail Garcia with a devastatingly fading change-up and got to 0-2 on Navarro, Estrada went back to that change, the best pitch he throws, to try and get out of the inning. But perhaps no hitter in the majors knows Estrada better than Navarro – he was Estrada’s personal catcher last season – who swung down at the pitch and roped that triple to the right-centre field gap.
“I knew in that situation I needed to make something happen,” Navarro said. “He was throwing the ball extremely well today. He did a great job. We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game and whoever struck first was going to take the upper hand. Fortunately enough, it was us.”
Blue Jays manager John Gibbons quickly lifted Estrada, who had thrown 118 pitches, but could only watch as Jesse Chavez came in and immediately surrendered another triple to Austin Jackson as Navarro jogged home with Chicago’s third run.
Maybe that was the last straw for Gibbons. Maybe it was the strike zone of home plate umpire John Tumpane, which had been leaving Blue Jays hitters shaking their heads all night. Or maybe he was just fed up. Fed up with another inherited runner allowed by his bullpen; fed up with his team’s sputtering offence; fed up with another winnable game slipping away.
Whatever it was, Gibbons went off, earning his first ejection of the season as he went face-to-face with Tumpane and crew chief Dan Iassogna for a good two minutes, ranting and raving.
“I said something to the third base umpire about a checked swing. To me, it looked like he was almost at full swing,” Gibbons said. “And then the home plate umpire hopped in. I think the guy at third can probably handle himself. That’s what that was.”
Such is life when your team has scored just a run in its last two games. Something has to give. Of course, any team in the majors would be hard pressed to score runs against the two left-handed pitchers the Blue Jays faced to finish this series sweep: Chris Sale, who can make a very strong case for being the best pitcher in the American League, and Wednesday night’s starter, Jose Quintana.
While he doesn’t get the credit he deserves pitching in Sale’s shadow, the 27-yrear-old Quintana has three straight seasons of 200 innings pitched at an ERA of 3.51 or lower. That’s really, really good. And he showed how he’s done it Wednesday night, living on the edges of the plate as he racked up ten strikeouts thorough his six innings.
“The kid’s good. He’s one of the top pitchers in baseball. He really is,” Gibbons said. “He’s got a good arm. He makes his pitches very well. And he moves it around. He does everything the good ones do. And they can give you fits.”
Quintana pitched inside aggressively all night and located his fastball when he needed to, sinking it at times when he wanted to get under the Blue Jays bats. He threw his curveball for called strikes early in counts and sprinkled in a change-up every once and a while to give Blue Jays hitters something else to think about.
He mixed and matched his pitches so effectively that he was able to get Edwin Encarnacion to swing through a flat, 93-mph fastball for a strike out in the third inning, and to get Jose Bautista to look at two called third strikes in the first and fifth. That’s far from ordinary.
But ordinary is perhaps the perfect way to describe the Blue Jays offence in this series, as they scored just six runs in the three losses, falling to a disappointing 10-13 record in the process.
The only Blue Jay to have any kind of success against Quintana was Josh Donaldson, who went 2-for-2 with a walk. After the game, he wasn’t accepting any excuses for his team’s effort against the tough lefties.
“Quintana was locating today. But honestly, I don’t feel like there should be a left-handed pitcher, especially two days in a row, who should be able to go through our lineup like that,” Donaldson said. “We need to reevaluate some things.
“I think some people need to evaluate their approach. Chris Sale’s Chris Sale. But we have a lot of big time right-handed bats in this lineup that should be able to handle Quintana,” Donaldson continued. “He’s had a good start to the season. But it looked to me like he was throwing a lot of heaters. And I don’t believe there’s anybody that should be able to come in through here and throw a lot of fastballs and have that kind of success he had against us.”
He’s right. Sixty-nine of the 104 pitches Quintana threw Wednesday night were fastballs, and only three of them were put in play without making an out. Quintana didn’t leave many out over the plate, hitting his spots well around the edges of the strike zone. And like Donaldson said, Sale is Sale. But the Blue Jays are typically better against pitchers throwing from that side.
In 2015, the Blue Jays greatly enjoyed facing left-handers, as they hit .278/.354/.463 against them. But 2016 – still in its early days, it should be noted – has been quite different, as the club is batting just .235/.285/.410 when facing southpaws.
“It’s very surprising,” said Blue Jays centre fielder Kevin Pillar. “But Quintana’s very competitive. He always has been. He’s got good life on his fastball. And in this game, if you can locate pitches, it doesn’t matter who you roll up there. They’re going to be tough at-bats. And that’s what those two guys are able to do.”