First-inning woes continue for Blue Jays as Astros rough up Gausman

HOUSTON – These types of nights don’t really happen to Kevin Gausman. Through a bumpy entrance into the 2023 season for the Toronto Blue Jays starting rotation, the veteran right-hander has been a rock, delivering quality innings each time out as others around him work to get right, helping the bullpen stay ready without the usual fresh-arm-from-Buffalo churn.

In that regard, he’s picked up right where he left off last year, when he had more starts in which he allowed zero runs – seven – than he did five or more runs – six. That’s the kind of dependability a contending team needs at the front of its rotation. “He's been huge,” said manager John Schneider, “kind of stabilizing right there, every outing.”

All of which made the seven-run first inning he surrendered Monday in a 9-2 thumping from the Houston Astros so jarring. Taking the bump after Alek Manoah’s latest hiccup outing, on the heels of buoying starts from a resurgent Jose Berrios on Friday and Yusei Kikuchi on Saturday, the Blue Jays figured to be in a good spot heading into a three-game clash with the defending World Series champions. 

Instead, Gausman uncharacteristically walked two during that fateful frame, missed his spot on three fat fastballs that got spanked and left his team in a hole too deep to climb out from.

“Obviously they came out aggressive,” said Gausman. “They were taking pitches but it was more me throwing some uncompetitive splits early in the game, so I definitely fed into that. Getting into bad counts and having to throw strikes, they eliminated the off-speed pitch because I couldn't throw it for strikes and so I put myself in a hole there right out of the gate.”

To his credit, in spite of a 37-pitch first, he still managed to pitch into the fifth inning, departing with two outs before Corey Julks, who hammered a two-run double in the first and a solo shot in the third, could face him again. Still, that he managed to chew up innings underlined that his stuff wasn’t a career-high tying eight-runs-allowed bad, as he got 13 swinging strikes, nine on a splitter that wasn’t as nasty as his last time out against Detroit, but still good enough as he retired 13 of his last 16 batters.

“They had a very obvious approach with his fastball and split,” said Schneider. “They weren't budging on anything down. And before he made that adjustment with the fastball, he kind of got ambushed early.”

The issue was his fastball in a first that snowballed on him after a leadoff single by Mauricio Dubon and a one-out walk to Yordan Alvarez as Jose Abreu plated them both by lashing a heater atop the zone that was supposed to be down and away for a double. Kyle Tucker then walked, Jeremy Pena reached on catcher’s interference when his check swing knicked Danny Jansen’s glove and Julks ripped another two-run double on a middle-in fastball that was also supposed to be low and away.

The troubles compounded when Gausman again mislocated a fastball, this one intended to be up and away but left middle-middle, was slashed over the wall in right by Jake Meyers right for a three-run homer.

Gausman tends to read swings well and make adjustments on the fly based on what he sees, but grinding through an inning for the first time with the new pitch clock, “you don't have the time to gather your thoughts,” he said.

“One thing I didn't necessarily take advantage of is the amount of picks that we have,” Gausman added later. “You can pick to a base just to give yourself another 30 seconds. Those are little things that you can do as a pitcher. I was more focused on making pitches and didn't really think about that. But obviously, looking back, I wish I would have slowed it down a little more.”

By the time he reset, the Blue Jays were down 7-0 to the defending World Series champions and while they have pulled off some wild comebacks already this season, that’s pretty heavy lifting.

Still, they had their moments to make a game of this one, as Matt Chapman crushed his fourth homer of the season in the second and the Blue Jays proceeded to load the bases in the third before Cristian Javier struck out Chapman to keep things level.

“You feel like you're never out of it with this group,” said Schneider. “Chappy hits the homer and then we load the bases the next inning and then it just takes one more hit to turn the tide of the game a little bit and it didn't happen. These guys have been great all year.”

Julks’ homer in the third made it 8-1 and closed out the damage against Gausman, who allowed eight runs in an outing for the fifth time in his career and first since June 5, 2019 in Pittsburgh, lasting 4.2 innings with seven hits, two walks and five strikeouts.

While the ups and downs of others in the rotation have led to much consternation and debate among the chattering classes, Gausman’s blip should be much easier to shake off. A few bad pitches against a good team can add up to a result like that and sometimes there’s no more to it than that. As Schneider put it, between his consistency, “him in the clubhouse as a person, you feel really comfortable and confident with him on the mound every time. It's a luxury to have a dude like that.”

Manoah echoed that sentiment, chatting with Gausman about his performance Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rays – which bore some resemblance to this one. “I'm blessed to be able to have him as a teammate and be able to learn from some of his experiences and stuff like that,” said the young right-hander. “A couple of bad games doesn't define you as a player and definitely doesn't define you as a person.”

Apt words for a rotation still finding its way early in the new year.