Uncertain of reception, Mariners' Ray toes familiar rubber in Game 2 vs. Blue Jays

TORONTO -- Robbie Ray will take the mound at Rogers Centre on Saturday for the first time since he left the Toronto Blue Jays. He earned a Cy Young while pitching for the club last year, was an integral cog in a team that fell just one game short of the post-season and yet, despite all that, Ray doesn’t know how the home crowd will welcome him as a visitor.

“I would think that it would be pretty positive, but this is a playoff [game], so there could be a lot of boos for sure,” Ray said with a laugh during his media availability on Friday at Rogers Centre.

The left-hander will start Game 2 of the wild-card series for the Mariners, who have a chance to clinch following a 4-0 victory in Friday’s opener of the best-of-three set. Right-hander Luis Castillo stifled the Blue Jays offence in that contest, while the M’s scored three runs off Alek Manoah in the first inning and never looked back.

As far as storylines go, Ray’s return is multi-layered and adds to what will already be a dramatic afternoon in Toronto. Not only is the 31-year-old going to stare down his former teammates and friends with a chance to eliminate them, but he’s also going up against right-hander Kevin Gausman, who the Blue Jays signed one day after Ray inked his deal with the Mariners.

Essentially, Ray is pitching against his replacement.

Ray — who received a five-year, $115-million deal compared to Gausman’s five-year, $110-million contract — was asked if the matchup added any intrigue to Saturday and responded with a simple, “No.”

He did elaborate on his decision to join the Mariners, though, saying that when the Blue Jays travelled to Seattle for a series in August of 2021, it opened his eyes up to the young, exciting ballclub, its fans and the atmosphere of T-Mobile Park.

Money was also a factor, he said.

“Obviously, the financials behind it were a big part of it too because I’m trying to set up my family for a long time,” said Ray. “I’m not going to sit here and lie to you. That was a big part of it... Those were kind of the two biggest factors for me.”

Ray was acquired by the Blue Jays in an August 2020 trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks and resurrected his career with the help of pitching coach Pete Walker and the Blue Jays’ staff. That culminated in his dominant 2021 campaign in which he led the AL in ERA (2.84), innings (193.1) and strikeouts (248) en route to capturing his first Cy Young award.

“Honestly, they allowed me to be myself and learn some things on the fly and learn a little bit about myself that I hadn’t known,” said Ray, a veteran of nine big-league seasons. “I think, for me, that was something that was missing. [With other clubs] it was always, ‘You need to do this, you need to do this.’ With the Blue Jays it was, ‘We are just going to let you be yourself as far as your workout routine, your pitches that you choose, game-planning, stuff like that.’

“They just allowed me to be what I needed to be and let me learn what it really means to be here and to take ownership of what I do,” he continued. “That’s exactly what I needed at the time.”

On-field success was one aspect to his time in Toronto, but Ray also cherished the bond he developed with his teammates during their vagabond, COVID-impacted 2021 campaign that saw the franchise play home games in Dunedin, Buffalo and, finally, Toronto.

“That second leg when we were all in Buffalo, we were all staying in the hotel together and it was like a bunch of brothers just hanging out,” Ray told Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi during an interview this past summer. “I talk about it all the time — that was a special group we had. It didn’t matter who it was, on a nightly basis it was five, six, seven, eight of us hanging out eating pizza, eating wings in Hyun Jin [Ryu’s] room or my room, just hanging out and just being guys. It brought us closer together for sure.”

Prior to Friday’s Game 1, Ray embraced Ryu with a hug when he ran into his former teammate outside of the Blue Jays’ clubhouse. He later said that he still keeps in touch with the South Korean lefty, calling and texting him, along with other Blue Jays players.

“Who doesn’t love Hyun Jin?” asked Ray. “He is a great human being. He is awesome. He took care of me. He always brings a smile to your face when you see him. For me, being able to see him today and give him a big hug was awesome.”

Sentimentalities aside, Ray’s focus is obviously fixed on the task at hand, which is to help the Mariners advance to the AL Division Series against the Houston Astros. The club is in the post-season for the first time since 2001, breaking the longest such active drought in North American professional sports.

Ray’s been inconsistent at times during his inaugural campaign with the Mariners, posting a 12-12 record with 3.71 ERA and 4.17 FIP across 32 starts and 189 innings. However, according to Mariners manager Scott Servais, numbers don’t paint the full picture of the left-hander’s contributions to his new club.

“He’s meant a lot to our team this year,” Servais said. “It really came out probably over the last month, two months more than it did earlier in the year [with him] taking on a little bit more of a leadership role with the whole group — not just with the other starting pitchers.”

Now, Servais will hand the ball to Ray for the most important start of his Mariners tenure and, arguably, the most important of his entire career.

“I think it’s going to be exciting for him,” said the manager. “I know his stuff is going to be really good tomorrow, and I know you’ll hear him grunting.”

Ray, for his part, knows what to expect when he toes the familiar rubber.

“It’s obviously going to be very loud here,” he said. “The roof is closed. [It’s] going to be packed. The fans here are loud, they love baseball, they love the Blue Jays.

“For me, it’s just understanding that we’re still playing baseball, and we just have to continue to play the way that we have that has gotten us here. Not letting the situation get too big, not letting the crowd control the narrative.”