CLEVELAND — With a bullpen that has thrown an MLB-high 76.2 innings this July, and a starting rotation that is averaging only 4.2 innings per outing in the same span, the absolute last thing the Toronto Blue Jays needed Saturday night was a short start.
And the absolute last thing any Blue Jays fan wanted to hear about was a blister, especially after Aaron Sanchez returned to the disabled list for the fourth time Saturday afternoon for exactly that reason.
But there Marcus Stroman was, on the mound at Progressive Field early in Saturday’s game, taking a long, hard look at his pitching hand. The Blue Jays starter, who developed a blister in an outing in New York earlier this month, battled a flare up of the ailment on a very humid Ohio night, and, at times, didn’t look comfortable at all.
But flash forward a couple hours and there he was again, bouncing up the dugout stairs to take the mound in the eighth inning of a tie ballgame. In spite of his blister issues, Stroman persevered, putting together the best outing from a Blue Jays starter in weeks as he went toe-to-toe with Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar, who was lights out himself.
Stroman threw 7.2 innings, struggling with his command at times as he walked five, and flashing wipeout stuff at others as he struck out seven. It was a gutsy outing, and Stroman pitched more than well enough for the Blue Jays to win, allowing just one run. The problem on this night was that Salazar had the game of his life, holding Toronto to only a single over seven innings while striking out eight.
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Justin Smoak homered to tie the game once Salazar was gone, but Toronto wasn’t able to score again. Cleveland, meanwhile, got to Blue Jays reliever Danny Barnes in the 10th inning, as Francisco Lindor crushed an elevated 93-m.p.h. fastball deep into the right-field seats, giving Cleveland a 2-1 victory, and letting Stroman’s effort go to waste.
“He grinded his butt off out there tonight,” Smoak said of Stroman. “He always gives us a chance to win ballgames. He pitches late into games. The blister thing started early in the game today and for him to be able to grind through that, it was a great pitching performance for him.”
Stroman cruised through his first three innings, facing the minimum while inducing five ground balls. But throughout those innings he frequently examined his fingers and wiped his hand on his pants between pitches. Between frames, he routinely retreated to the Blue Jays clubhouse along with a team trainer, re-emerging just in time to take the mound for the next inning.
Then, after a Lindor walk and Michael Brantley single put two on with one out in the fourth inning, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons and head trainer George Poulis came out to the mound to talk to their young starter. After a long discussion, Stroman remained in the game and got a scorched, 106-m.p.h. ground ball from Edwin Encarnacion with his very next pitch, which could have gotten him out of the inning with a double-play.
But the grounder ate up Josh Donaldson at third, who couldn’t close his glove on the ball and was able to get only one out as Cleveland’s first run of the game crossed the plate.
But that was all Stroman allowed on the night, as he fought through the blister issue and found a way to pitch deep into the game. Stroman did his best to keep his hand cool and dry in between innings, which helped, and even altered his grip on the baseball in order to alleviate pressure on the blistered area.
“I just found a way to manipulate the ball where I wasn’t aggravating it every pitch. And when I really needed to go to it and get on that seam, I’d go to it,” Stroman said. “It was definitely a struggle with command a little bit. But I felt like I was able to get through it and made some big pitches when I needed them.
“It was a really humid game. I was sweating a ton today. And when you sweat more your skin becomes softer, it breaks down a little easier. But I was doing everything in my power to stay cool and dry in between innings.”
Meanwhile, Salazar had truly devastating stuff Saturday in his return from the disabled list. He went right after hitters, striking out the side in the first inning on only 12 pitches and continuing to mow down Blue Jay after Blue Jay from there, facing the minimum through seven.
Salazar’s fastball sat at 96.5 m.p.h. on the night, and he ramped it up to 98 when he wanted to. He used it more than 70 per cent of the time, and while he also featured a wicked change-up and biting slider, he hardly needed anything else as Blue Jays hitters had no answer for his overpowering heater.
Salazar earned 10 of his 14 swinging strikes with his fastball, which says something about how dominant the pitch was. And he earned 9 of his 21 outs with three pitches or less, which says something else about how aggressively he was pitching.
“His fastball was jumping a little bit more than the last time we faced him,” Smoak said. “He threw a lot of heaters tonight, which is something that, as a team, we don’t normally see too often. He was tough with two strikes. He pitched a good game for them.”
The Blue Jays were so happy to see Salazar leave that they tied the game on the first pitch thrown after his exit. That pitch was from the hand of Andrew Miller and ended up in the right-field seats as Smoak turned around a 95-m.p.h. fastball for his 27th homer of the season.
“He’s a great pitcher,” Smoak said of Miller. “I was honestly just trying to get a good pitch to hit. And it went my way tonight.”
But in the 10th, Barnes left that fastball up, and Lindor rocketed it 438 feet to right just as a heavy rain began to fall, handing the Blue Jays their third walk-off defeat on their current road trip, and their sixth loss in nine games since the all-star break.
Now, the Blue Jays attention will turn to the health of Stroman. The right-hander has been Toronto’s only consistent starting option this season, taking the ball every five days and pitching to a 2.98 ERA with a terrific 62.4 per cent ground-ball rate over 126.2 innings. He’s thrown seven innings or more eight times this year. The rest of Toronto’s starting pitchers have combined to do that only nine times.
“My goal is to go nine every time. That’s the mentality,” he said. “That’s why I work like I do. That’s why I put as much work as I do in between each and every start. It’s to be able to go out here and go deep into games and be able to give that bullpen a rest. I take extreme pride in that. And I’ve been able to do that over the last couple of starts and I’m looking forward to doing it the rest of the year.”
The fact that Stroman pitched as deep into the ballgame as he did has to be encouraging — his 117 pitches were only two off his season high. And his velocity was consistent, as his fastball sat at 93 m.p.h. versus the 94 m.p.h. it’s averaged this season.
Stroman says he’s added some additional treatment to his routine between starts in order to alleviate the blister as much as possible and ensure he’s able to continue taking his turn in the Blue Jays rotation. But as Sanchez has demonstrated throughout the season, blisters are not to be messed with.
“It’s been up and down. It’s something I’ve had to deal with,” Stroman said. “We’ve added this element into it to do everything we can to make sure that my finger is ready to go. And the training staff and everyone around has been unbelievable in the process.
“It’s just something that I’m dealing with, and something that I had to battle all night. But I feel like I was able to get through it.”
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