Hernandez returns, but Blue Jays lose offensive momentum to end 12-hour work day

CLEVELAND — In case you missed it: Teoscar Hernandez is back. Ryan Borucki is, too. Julian Merryweather’s off to triple-A, where Hyun Jin Ryu just returned to the mound. And Gosuke Katoh’s a New York Met.

Kevin Gausman’s still rolling. Ross Stripling, not so much. A scuffling offence came to life for a moment. Then it quieted down again. Alejandro Kirk’s heating up. Bo Bichette keeps hitting balls hard. George Springer’s still George Springer. And the Toronto Blue Jays split a doubleheader Saturday against the Cleveland Guardians, winning the first game by five and losing the second by six.

That was all in a 12-hour day’s work at Progressive Field, where the Blue Jays will return Sunday seeking a series split to cap that long, gruelling, 30-games-in-31-days stretch you’re so sick of hearing about.  

“At least we were off yesterday and we found out early. So, that helps,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo. “And now we’ve just got to give it all [Sunday.] And then we have a regular, normal day off on Monday.”

The first game of the day was the good one for the Blue Jays, as Gausman cruised through his latest strong outing on a day he didn’t feel his best, continuing to push the Cy Young award winner he replaced in Toronto’s rotation further and further into distant memory. And Toronto’s offence finally showed signs of emerging from its early-season malaise, thriving in a matchup with 2020 Cy Young winner Shane Bieber of all people.

With two out in the second inning, the Blue Jays strung together a four-run rally, their best in some time, as Matt Chapman doubled, Santiago Espinal walked, Kirk walked, Raimel Tapia singled, and Springer doubled to clear the bases. And the same segment of the order rallied again in the fourth, stringing together five singles in the span of six hitters to plate three more and chase Bieber from the game.

The Blue Jays were on everything Bieber threw, putting seven balls in play at over 100-mph against the 2021 all-star who entered the outing with the AL’s eighth-best ERA (2.45). Of course, generating hard contact hasn’t been Toronto’s issue this season — sequencing has. The Blue Jays began the day with MLB’s fifth-highest hard-hit rate and second-highest average exit velocity, but it’s lowest batting average with runners in scoring position.

And so, going 4-for-10 with runners in scoring position as they did in Game 1 made a significant difference. Of course, opportunities were still missed. The Blue Jays left 10 runners on base. But the doubleheader opener was a fitting example of how a timely knock here and there can make the difference between the 3.78 runs Toronto was averaging coming into the day, and the eight it plated Saturday afternoon.

"I thought that they did a really good job against a really good pitcher in Bieber. Worked some counts, got on base, and had some key hits with guys in scoring position. That was a difference maker,” Gausman said. “It's nice to see the offence erupt. It's such a potent lineup that they're always one or two swings away from really changing the game.”

And that was without Hernandez, who was activated from a three-week IL stint due to a strained oblique, but sat out the first game of the day. The two-time Silver Slugger’s return ought to be an impactful one on a lineup that has so far struggled to produce big hits in big moments. Every time Tapia or Zack Collins — acquired during spring training to serve bench roles — have come as Toronto’s clean-up hitter in crucial spots over the last several weeks, it’s been a reminder of how much the Blue Jays have missed Hernandez.

“No baseball player wants to get hurt — especially when your team isn't going in a good way,” Hernandez said. “But it happens, it's part of baseball. And I'm just happy to be back.”

Hernandez was originally expected to need only two rehab games with the single-A Dunedin Blue Jays this week before rejoining the big-league club in Cleveland. And with three hits — two doubles and a homer — over eight plate appearances on Tuesday and Wednesday, everything seemed to be going according to plan. But Hernandez stuck around in Florida for one more tune-up on Thursday, homering again, drawing a walk, and stealing a base while playing nine innings of outfield.

Hernandez asked the Blue Jays for that extra game after feeling a little tight in his first two. He may have been shooting laser beams around the yard off 20-something A-ballers, but his midsection and timing at the plate still didn’t feel quite the way he wanted them to.

“The last day I felt regular — the way I used to feel in a normal season,” Hernandez said. “I made sure I feel 100 per cent. I don’t want to go back to the IL."

“My timing is not 100 per cent. It’s not the same when you face those minor leaguers. When you come back here and face big-leaguers, they’ve got good pitching. But it's in there, it's getting close. And I think it's not going to take me a lot of time to get it back.”

That was the case last season, when Hernandez missed three weeks with Covid-19 and returned with singles in each of his first three games back from IL. He didn’t tap into his power until about a week later when he homered in Houston. A couple days after that, he began a string of four straight multi-hit games, including a two-homer day in Atlanta.

And then it was off the races. Hernandez missed only three games over the remainder of the season — on the paternity list for the birth of his second child — and finished the year batting .296/.346/.524, winning a second consecutive Silver Slugger award in the process.

“It just shows you that you still have time to have an excellent year,” Hernandez said. “But my goal right now is trying to not get back to the IL. So, I'm not thinking about numbers or anything. I'm just thinking about staying on the field and being there for my team.”

And he was back in his customary clean-up spot for the second game of Saturday’s festivities, manning right field where he had to contend with winds of 40-50 km/h blowing in from Lake Erie and turning every fly ball into an adventure.

"It was a nasty day. It's pretty windy out there," Gausman said. "You could see every pop fly was a big question mark with where it was going to actually end up and who was going to end up catching it,"

Those conditions hurt Stripling, who, like Gausman before him, wasn’t as crisp as he’s been his last couple times out, allowing four runs on five hits and a walk over four innings. It was the third time in his last four starts that Stripling has faced exactly 18 batters, which speaks to Toronto’s reticence to let an opposition lineup face him a third time.

That puts pressure on Stripling to earn outs quickly early in his outings if he wants to stay in games for long, which was an issue Saturday as Cleveland brought seven hitters to the plate in a 26-pitch first inning.

To be fair, Stripling deserved better. His night started with two groundballs before he was burned by Jose Ramirez and Owen Miller for back-to-back doubles — Hernandez had a chance to haul in Ramirez’s ball in right but misplayed it in the wind — off a pair of changeups that landed outside the zone. Miller’s likely would’ve been caught on a less windy night, as well, but was carried just beyond Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s reach in left.

Ramirez’s double carried a .160 xBA; Miller’s, .050. But the balls dropped in. And that extended the inning for Franmil Reyes, who was caught looking at a well-located fastball, and Andres Gimenez, who took a not-so-well-located changeup the opposite way for a run-scoring single.

The second inning went smoother, but Stripling gave up a bomb in the third to Reyes, who crushed an elevated fastball 391-feet over the wall in left. Stripling’s fourth inning was by far his smoothest and most efficient — it just so happened to come against the bottom of Cleveland’s order on his second trip through the lineup. Which means that’s the end of his line whether it’s the second inning or the sixth.

“It's a tough ball on Teo, where it's hit kind of right at you and the wind is either going to knock it down or maybe not knock it down, and it ends up over his head,” Stripling said. “And then the next one, the ball was hit like 88 off the bat, it felt like it was in the air for a lifetime, and the wind just took it to the perfect spot where Lourdes couldn't get to it.”

The wind also impacted Stripling’s stuff out of his hand. Throughout his start he looked up at the videoboard after pitches and saw fastballs labelled sliders, and sinkers labelled changeups. This is not a good day to look at Stripling’s TrackMan data and make any judgments. Even his curveball was off because the wind was pushing it towards the plate before it had a chance to break.

“When I went back and watched the outing, really the Franmil homer is the only pitch that I can be like, 'That was just an awful mistake that I got punished for,'" Stripling said. "I'm not beat up about this one thinking I didn't throw the ball well or anything like that. I do think it was a mixture of conditions, good hitting, some bad luck, just baseball being baseball."

And baseball being baseball, the Blue Jays offence that put up an eight-spot against a veteran Cy Young winner in the first game was nullified by a 24-year-old sophomore in the second, mustering only two runs on four hits and two walks against Tristan McKenzie. The wiry right-hander’s fastball-curveball-slider mix kept Toronto hitters off balance throughout the evening, as did Cleveland’s bullpen. The final 17 batters the Blue Jays brought to the plate made outs, erasing whatever positive momentum had been generated only hours earlier.

“I don't think anybody's really that worried about it. Obviously, it's a narrative and they probably aren't performing the way that they want to and all that. But I think that we all know that it's going to come. I feel like across the league it's going to come. It's just starting off slow,” Striplling said of Toronto’s offence, which has mirrored a depressed run-scoring environment across MLB this season. “Having Teo back there in the middle, start getting him some at-bats, that's going to make them pitch to Vladdy. And only good things happen when you've got to throw strikes to Vladdy. So, I think everyone's confident about where the offence is headed.”

Stripling, meanwhile, is likely headed back to Toronto’s bullpen next week as Ryu nears an activation from the injured list. The veteran left-hander allowed five runs — only two of them earned thanks to a throwing error that would have ended an inning — on five hits over four innings during a triple-A rehab outing Saturday. And if he recovers well from the outing, Ryu’s next start is likely to come in the majors.

From a distance, Ryu’s outing appears to have been a bit of a weird one. He gave up a couple line drives in the first; he breezed through the second; he got burned by not only the error but a borderline fair/foul call on a run-scoring triple in the third; he cruised through the fourth. He struck out six; he didn’t walk any; he gave up a homer to the deepest part of the ballpark. It was a little all over the place.

But what’s most important is that he got the work in he needed to – Ryu was budgeted for 75 pitches and threw 74 — and felt physically well doing it. It’s likely he’ll meet up with the Blue Jays on the road this week and return to the club’s rotation during next weekend’s series in Tampa. And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him doing so in a tandem scenario with Stripling, who would be available as a safety net out of the bullpen should Ryu run into trouble early or burn through his pitch count. 

That’s a tough result for Stripling, who’s logged quality innings as a starter in Ryu’s absence. But the career swingman’s versatility is both his gift and his curse. Shifting Stripling to the bullpen may not be the meritocratic path, but it is the one of least resistance. Ryu doesn’t have the experience or adaptability to transition so seamlessly to a relief role. What he does have is $20-million salaries this season and next, making it imperative that the Blue Jays find a way to put him in positions to be successful and try to recapture his earlier-career form.

Of course, it’s only early May. And since MLB’s regular season started a week late, it’s more like late April. Stripling’s opportunities to start will no doubt come. As will Toronto’s offensive thump and its ability to sequence hits with runners in scoring position. A lot happened in a 12-hour day’s work at Progressive Field Saturday. And a lot’s still to come over the final 82 per cent of the season. But first, on Sunday, they play again. And on Monday? Monday they rest.