Fresh off an encouraging 5-2 homestand, the Toronto Blue Jays open a 10-game road trip against the New York Yankees on Friday night looking to exorcise their longstanding demons at Yankee Stadium.
The 16-game losing streak in the Bronx is sure to be right in their faces as Mark Buehrle takes on Hiroki Kuroda in the first of three, when sole possession of second place in the American League East will be on the line.
The last Blue Jays victory against the Yankees in New York came on Aug. 29, 2012, when Yunel Escobar hit a homer with three doubles and five RBIs to help J.A. Happ beat CC Sabathia 8-5.
Since 2011, they are just 4-27 at the Bronx, so how do they change that karma?
“It’s definitely lopsided, but we’re only 0-3 there this year,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “Now if it goes much further than that … Bottom line, New York is always a tough place to win anyway but I never remember it being this difficult, you know?
“And it’s strange because we’ve always played pretty well at Fenway, for the most part. The coaches, we talk about it all the time, those guys are aware of it, but I don’t know that you can have a team meeting over it. I don’t know what that’s going to do – go out and play harder?”
Once change the Blue Jays are considering ahead of Friday’s contest is hitting in the cages instead of on the field during batting practice.
“So we don’t have to look at that propaganda (on the videoboard), the Yankee-ography,” Gibbons quipped. “See if that works.”
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Marcus Stroman’s dominance on Thursday is documented nicely here by Ben Nicholson-Smith and interesting is the prominent role his developing two-seamer played in his effectiveness.
The 23-year-old right-hander came up with a four-seamer, slider, curveball and changeup, but he’s long messed around with different grips on a sinker. Recently during a bullpen, something has clicked and on Thursday it was an important weapon for him.
“I just found a grip that works for me,” explained Stroman. “I throw it just like my four-seamer, it gets really good movement and has good action in the zone. That’s the biggest thing, I could never really control the two-seamer and I just found a grip after playing with it in several ‘pens. I’m not going to get away from my four-seam, I’ll still use my four-seam the majority, but I’ll definitely start using the two-seam.”
How did it come to pass?
“I’d show it in the game a couple of times, thought it had pretty good action on it and Navvy (Dioner Navarro) liked it a lot so he started calling it more,” replied Stroman. “I’m always playing with the baseball, always looking for new grips, seeing what the ball is going to do if I grip it this way or hold it this way. Just one of those things I was playing around with.”
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The defence is as stellar as ever from Ryan Goins, but crucially for the second baseman he’s made offensive contributions in each of his three games since rejoining the Blue Jays.
On Thursday his double in the second inning made it a 2-0 game, he scored on Melky Cabrera’s double, and later he added another single. He’s now 4-for-12 with three RBIs and three runs scored since his return.
“That’s encouraging, just to come up here and have success the first few days,” said Goins. “But it’s only three days, I’ve got to keep working, don’t get complacent and keep going.
“The main thing is it feels good to contribute to winning efforts.”
Goins batted just .150 over 24 games back in April before being optioned to triple-A Buffalo, and his struggles at the time wore on him. Getting quick results will help him avoid a similar pitfall.
“Just overall I feel better,” he said. “My head is more clear, you know what I mean? I’m just trying to come up here and have fun, play the game I’ve always played, kind of like last year when I came up, and not put any kind of added pressure on myself.”
Goins also provided his usual graceful defence, robbing Mike Napoli of a hit to open the second by charging hard to his left, sliding to snare the sharp grounder and then popping it to throw the runner out.
“Your whole life you practise the diving plays, honestly, I just try to get to every ball I can and somehow put a glove on it and make a throw,” he said. “Your instincts just take over.”
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Brandon Morrow is back throwing off a mound. Details on that and more in the Blue Jays notebook.