Shuffled Blue Jays order does enough to beat error-prone Nationals

WASHINGTON — There were tactical reasons for Saturday’s Blue Jays batting order shuffle, which pushed Bo Bichette down to fifth and bumped Daulton Varsho up to the two-hole.

Getting a left-handed hitter like Varsho up high against Washington Nationals starter Jake Irvin, who’d held righties to a .650 OPS and .288 wOBA throughout his 30-start career, made sense. With Varsho having hit 62 of his 67 career homers against right-handed pitching, and the Blue Jays starved of big swings lately, why not move him up there to potentially take three shots at Irvin?

Also, the Nationals aren’t carrying a left-hander in their bullpen, meaning Blue Jays manager John Schneider didn’t need to worry about them targeting a pocket of lefties — four out of six hitters from Daniel Vogelbach in the sixth spot through Varsho up top — late in the game.

But there were vibes reasons, too. Baseball’s such a relentless, monotonous grind — it’s easy, and often good, to fall into an auto-pilot routine day after day. But when you’re in a team-wide offensive funk as the Blue Jays have been, inertia becomes a real thing. That consistent rhythm can work against you.

“We’re such creatures of habit,” Schneider said before Saturday’s game. “Varsh knowing he's going to hit in the first inning is just a little bit of a different feel for him. Bo, too, not knowing if he's going to hit in the first inning or not. It's just a little bit of a different feel, really.

“There is thought, there is rhyme and reason to it. But I think sometimes just seeing your name in a different spot can be a good thing.”

It would be a logical leap to say that’s why the Blue Jays won, 6-3, evening a series with the Washington Nationals. That had a lot more to do with Washington’s infielders haphazardly launching balls around the diamond and committing two errors in the first inning, as the Blue Jays cashed four early, unearned runs. But as Schneider alluded, sometimes feel matters.

An extended, 112-pitch Kevin Gausman start mattered, too. After the Blue Jays bullpen melted down a night prior, and with Yimi Garcia unavailable again due to lower back discomfort, Schneider needed innings from the workhorse right-hander. And Gausman got as deep as he could against an opposition working a pesky-yet-patient approach, holding the Nationals to no runs on three hits and two walks over 5.1 innings while striking out eight.

“I went into this game knowing that I was going to need to go deep and that they might push me a little bit,” Gausman said. “I would have liked to have gone seven today, for sure. But to get into the sixth was important.”

Evidently, Washington’s gameplan against Gausman was to wait him out, swinging at only six of the 25 pitches he threw in the first, and eight of 19 in the second. But something changed in the third, as the Nationals began their second trip through the order and started hunting fastballs more aggressively. That let Gausman get his splitter going when he was tunnelling it effectively, leading to him racking up 11 of his 14 whiffs in his final 3.1 innings.

“I was pretty sporadic to start the game. I think they saw me missing by a couple feet and honed in on, 'Hey, let's try to really make him throw strikes,’” Gausman said. “I felt like every split we threw early in the count, unless it was a called strike, they were spitting at it. And I need my split to carry the zone. So, I just told [catcher Danny Jansen,] 'Hey, I'm going to try to carry the zone a little bit more with it. So, just keep calling it and we'll get there.' And you could see as the game went on, they started swinging a little bit more at it.”

After the Nationals finally accomplished their goal and drove Gausman from the game with one out and one on in the sixth, Brendan Little took over and struck out two — a righty and a lefty — to get the lead to the seventh.

That’s when things got hairy, as the Nationals loaded the bases against Little and Nate Pearson for CJ Abrams, who smoked a ball 393 feet to right-centre that sounded like a homer off the bat but fell into Kevin Kiermaier’s glove at the wall for a sacrifice fly.

Two pitches later, Nick Senzel served a run-scoring single into centre and drove Pearson from the game. But Tim Mayza put out that fire, and Kiermaier — activated off the IL earlier in the day — recovered the ground Toronto’s bullpen ceded in the eighth with a first-pitch, two-run shot off Derek Law, who was facing his ninth batter of a relief appearance.

“Huge at-bat from Kev there in the eighth with a home run,” Schneider said. “Nice to add on there at the end.”

Trevor Richards worked around an error and wild pitch in the eighth, turning things over to Jordan Romano, who allowed a run in an eventful ninth but ultimately found a way to carry the Blue Jays across the finish line. As was the case Friday, Toronto’s disordered bullpen bent — but this time it did not break.

“We're asking some guys to get some big outs. Perfect example is Little today coming in and getting the outs he did,” Schneider said. “Guys are grinding. I thought Timmy did a great job coming in and killing that inning. And Jordy was pitching today no matter what. So, I think getting enough outs today was the key.”

On the other side of the ball, the Nationals appeared committed to helping the Blue Jays out of their offensive rut. The top of the first started with Senzel committing a two-base throwing error on George Springer’s leadoff groundball before Irvin walked Varsho on five pitches. When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed with what should have been a routine double play, Luis Garcia Jr. airmailed his throw to first, getting only the one out at second.

A pair of singles from Justin Turner and Bichette later, Vogelbach grounded into what should have been an inning-ending double play, but the Nationals ham-fisted it once again as Trey Lipscomb chucked a throw intended for second into left field. Danny Jansen followed with a double and suddenly the Blue Jays had put four unearned runs on Irvin’s line.

Hey, the way things have been going, these Blue Jays will take all the extra outs they can get. Especially as old habits refused to die from that point on.

In the second inning, Toronto put runners on first and second with none out for Guerrero and Turner, who each hit double-play grounders — the second of which the Nationals finally managed to turn successfully. In the third, three Blue Jays grounded out while seeing only 11 combined pitches.

In the fourth, Springer reached with two outs on yet another Washington error. But Varsho, in his third look against Irvin, flew out reaching for a full-count sinker away.

In the fifth, the Blue Jays went three-up, three-down and lost their shortstop in the process, as Bichette slammed his helmet after getting rung up on a borderline, full-count strike and was ejected by home plate umpire Jonathan Parra.

In the sixth, Jansen’s one-out walk was stranded with a couple strikeouts by Cavan Biggio and Kiermaier at the bottom of the order. In the seventh, runners reached second and third with one out but remained there thanks again to a pair of strikeouts, this time from Turner and Isiah Kiner-Falefa — he entered for Bichette — in the heart of the order.

This, of course, gets at a much more important issue for the Blue Jays than who’s hitting where — getting to gettable pitchers such as Irvin and not letting them off hooks. Remember, we’re talking about a lineup that was contained Friday by Patrick Corbin, whose 5.81 ERA since the beginning of 2021 is the highest of 108 qualified starters over that span.

And it didn’t have to be that way — the Blue Jays got off to an early, three-run lead against Corbin, pushing him to the ropes. But then, suddenly, momentum ground to a halt and the Blue Jays didn’t score another run over the final seven innings. Toronto had only one hit after the fourth and nine of its final 17 plate appearances lasted three pitches or less.

“I think that we took our foot off the gas a little bit,” Schneider said of Friday’s loss. “The at-bats with a three-run lead have to be just as urgent and locked in as a three-run deficit or a one-run whatever it is. You've got to keep going with what you're doing.

“It's not being passive by any means. It's really focusing on getting a good swing off on a pitch you can handle. And if it's not there, just wait for the next pitch, wait for the next pitch. I thought we were a little bit quick in those middle innings with our at-bats.”

Toronto’s middle-inning at-bats Saturday were at least more grinding, as they forced Irvin to throw 26 pitches in the fourth and 20 in the fifth. But the result was the same — a crooked number on the board against a shaky starter early followed by a succession of scoreless innings. Getting smothered by Cole Ragans and Tyler Glasnow is one thing; letting Corbin and Irvin do it is another.

“Yeah, when you score four in the first, you want to try to keep going. And today it didn't happen,” Schneider said. “It's a work in progress. It was eerily similar there for a little bit until KK's homer. But, yeah, you want to try to keep forcing that pitch count to get up and having good at-bats as a starter goes.”

Still, a win’s a win. And although it’s more correlation than causation, the batting order shuffle preceded a positive result.

Schneider’s done feel-based stuff like this in the past as a minor-league manager. When he sensed his team needed its rhythm interrupted, he’d take his worst-performing hitter and bat them leadoff to get them engaged in a game early and potentially force them out of their funk. Of course, it’s a lot easier to do stuff like that with teenage prospects than it is with millionaire big-leaguers.

That’s why Schneider had a talk with Bichette on Friday night, informing the slumping shortstop he’d be dropping in Sunday’s lineup. Bichette has been vocal about his desire for a consistent batting order position in the past. But the Blue Jays reached a point where they had to try something new to break the offensive stagnation that was threatening to sabotage their season. 

“Everyone gets it. It's not about one guy. It's not about Bo or Vlad or George or Jano. It's about us,” Schneider said. “I'm just trying to do what's best for us. It's not set in stone. It's not, 'OK, this is how we're going to roll out for the rest of the season.' I think having the ability to change it is part of my job — part of us collectively as a staff, too.”

To that end, don’t be surprised to see the Blue Jays revert to a more familiar lineup on Sunday when they face left-hander MacKenzie Gore. Putting Varsho and his .664 career OPS against lefties up top against Gore would be malpractice. But maybe now that the band-aid’s been ripped off, the righties at the top of the order can be shuffled around further. After all, the Blue Jays had conversations about batting Jansen second on Saturday before settling on Varsho.

We’ll see. Ultimately, tactical judgment ought to be prioritized. But, for a day at least, the Blue Jays went with what felt right, what felt necessary. And found the outcome they were looking for.