Blue Jays' Ernie Clement makes difference vs. Yankees with one key swing

NEW YORK — Sure, the Toronto Blue Jays offence arrived in the Bronx desperate for knocks after batting just .106, a mere 9-for-85, during a tough three-game series at the Houston Astros in which they were both no-hit and one-hit. Yet counterintuitively, they also walked 10 times in those games and left there second in the American League with 29 bases on balls, one behind the New York Yankees. Which is why while, yes, they do need more hits, the most glaring element missing from their offence at the moment is the instant impact only slug can bring.

Davis Schneider’s two-run homer in the ninth off Josh Hader on Tuesday night was Exhibit A for the difference one key swing can make, while Ernie Clement added more supporting evidence Friday with a pinch-hit solo shot in the seventh inning that keyed a 3-0 win over the Yankees.

Neither one of those wins is possible without some dominant pitching and Yusei Kikuchi, despite not having his best slider, certainly provided that to help spoil a Yankees’ home opener featuring the local debuts of Juan Soto and Marcus Stroman. Still, you can’t win 0-0, and as Blue Jays hitters continue working to get untracked, those big swings are a lifeline right now.

“We're grinding, it's no secret that we're trying to push runs across,” said Clement, who’d been hitting in the cage with assistant hitting coaches Hunter Mense and Matt Hague for a couple of innings before he entered the game. “All the guys on the bench are grinding underneath, doing anything they can to stay loose and stay ready, mentally. … So I was ready to go whenever they called my name and I was just glad to come through.”

The Blue Jays have scored just 25 runs through a 4-4 start, the vast majority of them coming in 8-2 and 9-2 wins during their season-opening series at the Tampa Bay Rays. Home runs have been instrumental in each of their wins but they’ve only hit eight of them all season and are slugging a tiny .307 (the big-league average is .391).

In time that should progress to the mean and allow them to better leverage their ability to work walks, with four more added to their tally Friday.

“It’ll come with guys on-base, just getting your pitch to hit and not missing,” said manager John Schneider. “Overall, the walks today, they're encouraging. I know that sounds a little redundant, but you know it's going to come, it's going to come with guys on base, too. But that's what you're looking for when you're ahead in the count.”

Clement’s drive helped ensure that a strong start by Kikuchi didn’t go to waste. The lefty held Soto hitless in three trips – Trevor Richards also got the slugger swinging during a crucial three-strikeout eighth – pivotal to his 5.1 shutout innings that included seven strikeouts.

That Kikuchi did it riding only a plus fastball and his curveball – he didn’t get a feel for his put-away slider on a chilly afternoon while his changeup was used three times in 96 pitches and was a total non-factor – made the performance all the more impressive. If he can maintain the type of fastball command he featured against the Yankees and pair it with the best version of his slider, he’ll really start rolling.

“Using that fastball in any count was what I was working on this off-season and spring training,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “The last couple of games I was able to throw that fastball really efficiently, in whatever count, especially when I'm down in the count, too. Really like where my fastball is at right now.”

He needed to be that good since the Blue Jays, despite twice threatening against Stroman, couldn’t find the impact blow they needed in the first, when they stranded George Springer’s leadoff double, and in the third, when Cavan Biggio’s two-out double put runners on second and third.

Then came the seventh, when Caleb Ferguson took over after Stroman’s six shutout innings, Clement came on for Biggio and ambushed a 1-0 fastball, sending it 407 feet over the wall in left. It was the first pinch-hit homer of his career and in an instant, gave the Blue Jays control of the contest.

“I'm not necessarily trying to hit home runs. I'm trying to impact baseball and get pitches that I can that I can drive,” said Clement, who remade his swing with Hague at triple-A Buffalo last year and this year is locked in on leveraging his swing decisions. “It has everything to do with pitch selection and knowing my strengths as a hitter. I've dove into that and matured and gotten a much better idea of what I can do damage on. That was one of those pitches that I can definitely hit.”

Swings like those are the ones the Blue Jays missed most last year, when they routinely created innings they never fulfilled, and what they’ve been chasing this season, understanding the challenge of consistently stringing multiple hits together in the same inning.

“We're still taking our walks, which is a good thing, we’re just not doing much damage,” Schneider said before the game. “Tough series (in Houston), really, but I don't think it's so much approach, per se. As long as you're swinging at the right pitch, that's what we're shooting for. “You've got to get balls in the middle of the plate and be kind of stubborn, which I think we didn't do a great job of in Houston. But when you get your pitch, you've got to do some damage.”

When those hits don’t come, the Blue Jays will need to be opportunistic, the way they were in a messy top of the ninth, when they loaded the bases with one out and scored twice on wild pitches by Nick Burdi, but couldn’t deliver another impact blow.

Capitalizing on the Yankees’ mistakes helped give Chad Green, pitching the ninth for his first save, some breathing room, but counting on opponents to gift them runs isn’t a long-term strategy.

Slug, swings that produce damage, is what they’ll need to take advantage of their walks and make sure the innings they do manage to build, really count. The Astros fed the Blue Jays lineup a lot of spin and off-speed, as colleague Arden Zwelling noted here, while Stroman rode sinkers and cutters mostly to keep then at bay.

“It could be sitting on that pitch, you know what I mean?” Schneider said of adapting the approach. “Each guy is going to be a little bit different. I know Donnie (Mattingly) talks about having a team approach, but every guy is going to be pitched differently. And everyone has to stay convicted with what they're looking to hit. And you have to adjust in-game.

"You look at those three in Houston and it was a little bit different than what we were expecting from (Ronel) Blanco and kind of what we were expecting from the other two. Everyone's going to be a little bit different. And if you start sitting on pitches, you start sitting on them. It's tough to do at times, but you've got to keep evolving what you're seeing.”

It's the pathway to more slug, the pathway to the impact the Blue Jays need.