TORONTO – A spot start like the one Scott Copeland gave the can-do-no-wrong-right-now Toronto Blue Jays is pretty much the dream scenario. Seven innings, one run, never even a hint of a big inning, no fuss, no muss. As Larry David might say, that’s pretty good Copeland, pretty, pretty good.
Of course that applies all around right now for the Blue Jays, winners of eight straight after Wednesday afternoon’s 7-2 thumping of the Miami Marlins completed a three-game sweep, and sent them out on a five-game road trip to Boston and the Mets over .500 at 31-30 for the first time since May 9.
Nothing right now, not even a bout of upper body soreness that led to Aaron Sanchez being skipped a start, can kill their vibe.
“I don’t know how you can do it any better than that,” manager John Gibbons said of Copeland.
Sanchez says the soreness isn’t “anything that concerned me,” and the Blue Jays believe it’s nothing that some extra rest won’t fix ahead of his next scheduled outing, Tuesday in New York. The 22-year-old pitched into the ninth inning against Houston on Friday night and when the “overall pitcher soreness everyone gets after a start,” lingered into his third recovery day, “they made the decision.”
“Obviously I wanted to be out there and pitching, but at the end of the day it’s not my call,” said Sanchez. “If this is Game 7 of the World Series, I’m out there pitching. It’s still early in the year, they decided to do this, it’s fine, I’ll be ready to go in New York.”
Copeland, a 27-year-old right-hander who impressed during spring training and made his big-league debut as a reliever earlier this year, made sure Sanchez wasn’t missed before getting optioned back to triple-A Buffalo after the game.
A sinkerballer and extreme groundball pitcher, Copeland recorded 12 outs on the ground, five in the air and four via strikeout in his first ever start in the majors. His poise and effectiveness, even against the free-falling Marlins, positions him well for such assignments in the future, while also moving him up the depth chart should an injury occur.
“You go out there and compete, hopefully the manager’s and the coaches’ eyes are open now and next time something happens I’ll be up,” said Copeland, who signed with the Blue Jays as a minor-league free agent after the Baltimore Orioles cut him in July 2012. “It builds confidence, definitely. A confident player is successful. That’s what I try to do, be real confident, go out there and do what I do.”
On top of doing the heavy lifting in his first big-league win, Copeland also gave the Blue Jays some additional comfort with what they have at Buffalo. His roster spot will be filled Friday, either by Ramon Santiago or fellow infielder Jonathan Diaz, with lefty Andrew Albers outrighted off the 40-man roster to make room.
“A sinkerballer like that – he really stood out,” Gibbons said of Copeland. “You see some of them in the game, and that late life in the zone makes all the difference in the world. He definitely opened up everybody’s eyes, everybody thought he was good, but to actually go out there and do it is only going to help him out in the future.”
The Blue Jays will have to hope Thursday’s day off won’t cool an offence that is beyond silly right now.
They scratched out a pair of runs in the second on a Russell Martin infield single that scored Edwin Encarnacion and a Kevin Pillar sacrifice fly for a 2-0 lead, added to it in the fourth on Justin Smoak’s two-run shot off the facing of the third deck and a Martin solo homer right after, and piled on in the seventh on back-to-back solo drives from Jose Reyes and Josh Donaldson.
“This lineup is unbelievable top to bottom,” said Smoak.
A lingering concern is the status of Encarnacion’s troublesome left shoulder. A day after he hit a walk-off homer to beat the Marlins, he left Wednesday’s game after a fifth-inning strikeout after the injury flared up on him.
Asked if the pain was as bad as before, he replied, “No, no, no. That’s what I don’t want, I don’t want it to get worse, that’s why I took it easy, we were winning the game, and it was better to rest.”
He’ll get that rest Thursday, as will his teammates, a well-deserved one amid their torrid run. The next steps for them are to start winning on the road, where the Blue Jays are just 11-18 this season, and to reset themselves properly once their winning streak inevitably ends.