TORONTO – The question for the Toronto Blue Jays is not whether they have it in them to regularly enjoy these types of offensive days – they do, in spite of their erratic performance thus far – but in how to make the way they dismantled Jameson Taillon on Sunday more sustainable.
Led by Daulton Varsho’s three-run homer in the second and two-run single in the fourth, strong at-bats were rewarded by good results up and down the lineup in an 11-4 rout of the Chicago Cubs that averted a three-game sweep.
Taillon had allowed only nine earned runs over his previous six starts dating to July 7 but got tagged for eight by a lineup that had only scored 13 times in its previous six games combined. While the right-hander born in the United States to Canadian parents was in the middle of the zone far more often than he’d have liked, credit goes to the Blue Jays for forcing him there and taking advantage.
“The goal all the time is to get to a spot where we make the pitcher come to us. It’s something I work on continuously throughout the entire season,” said Brandon Belt, who helped set the tone with three walks and a single off the right-field wall that helped build a three-run fourth.
“At times we probably put a little bit too much pressure on ourselves to get the job done. It’s one of those things where we’ve just got to rely on each other so that if it’s not me, I’m relying on the guy behind me.”
The Blue Jays did that, heading to the plate with a plan and then executing.
Whit Merrifield turned two sweepers into base hits; Vladimir Guerrero Jr., delivered RBI singles on a cutter in and a sinker away; Varsho unloaded on a middle-up heater against Taillon before tagging a middle-down sweeper from Hayden Wesneski; Cavan Biggio got a centre-cut heater and didn’t miss; Brandon Belt didn’t give in during two walks before sending a middle-up curveball off the wall; George Springer slashed a middle-middle sinker to right for an RBI single.
The steady pressure on Taillon and the four relievers behind him was suffocating.
“Everybody just had really good at-bats, being able to lay off his pitches and we squared ours up when we needed to,” said Varsho. “For me, obviously, it was getting the ball that’s in my zone and not missing it.”
The outburst ended a week of frustration at the plate before a Rogers Centre crowd of 41,960 and allowed the Blue Jays (66-54) to finish a stretch of 17 games in 17 days at 9-8. On Monday they’ll enjoy their first of three off-days in the next eight days as they enter a softer portion of schedule through Sept. 10 that includes only two powers in the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday and Wednesday – with closer Jordan Romano expected back from the injured list for the opener – and the Baltimore Orioles on Aug. 22-24.
It’s the perfect time for them to lock down their approach before they close out their season with three weeks featuring nothing but the Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays.
“We’re at the point of the season where we’ve got to grind out every single at-bat, we’ve got to continue to fight every single at-bat and then we’ll just look at it at the end of the year and see how it turns out,” said Belt, who feels signs the Blue Jays are putting too much pressure on themselves in the batters box include “when we start to swing at pitchers’ pitches, swinging out of the zone, maybe get too big on pitches that if we would just stick with our approach and stay short on, we could handle a lot better. But for the most part, swinging at pitches that we shouldn’t be swinging at is probably one of the biggest problems.”
Manager John Schneider sounded a similar note when asked what from his team’s approach Sunday can be sustainable, saying “it just starts with pitch selection.”
“Taking pitches that are borderline strikes, for one,” Schneider added. “It’s getting big hits in big spots. Three-run homers are huge and then two-run singles with two outs are huge. I think it’s just really being selective with what you want to do and knowing what you can handle. … Pitchers are attacking certain areas and it’s a game of adjustments. So it’s being ready for that and how you’re going to pivot whenever you have to.”
What became a good day got off to a rocky start for Hyun Jin Ryu, as after a one-out walk to Nico Hoerner in the first, an Ian Happ chopper skipped over Belt’s glove for an error that led to a pair of unearned runs on Dansby Swanson’s two-run double.
Unfazed by the early deficit, the Blue Jays seized control of the game in the second when Cavan Biggio singled, Danny Jansen was hit by a pitch for the fourth time in seven games (he’d be hit again in the eighth) and Varsho turned the score around with his 14th homer.
Two outs later, Merrifield extended the inning with a single, stole second and after Belt walked for the second time, scored on Guerrero’s first RBI single. Springer followed with his single before a Biggio rocket to right was caught by the wall for a third out.
“We were able to get guys on, over and in a lot more consistently than we have,” said Springer. “There’s obviously a lot of familiarity with (Taillon) since we faced him before and know what the ball does. It was kind of be aggressive but also be patient at the same time and we were able to string some stuff together.”
The Blue Jays kept adding on from there, Taillon giving up an RBI single to Guerrero in the fourth and leaving two on for Wesneski, who served up Varsho’s two-run single.
They then tagged on three more in the eighth on RBI singles by Santiago Espinal and Paul DeJong – who ended an 0-for-20 slide – and a run-scoring double by Merrifield.
Ryu, meanwhile, settled in nicely after the first, allowing only a single and a walk over the next four innings. He didn’t allow an earned run over five frames and showed no ill effects from the liner off his right knee that cut short a gem in Cleveland last time out.
With Alek Manoah’s demotion to triple-A making Ryu’s spot in the rotation all the more essential, the left-hander’s continued progress coming off Tommy John surgery is vital.
“I’ve been throwing all my pitches since my last outing with command and everything was pretty much there. So I think I’m back to where I wanted to be,” Ryu said through interpreter J.S. Park. “Ever since I started my bullpen pitching, I felt good. I haven’t actually been shut down or had to be held back during my rehab process. Everything went pretty smoothly and I’m pretty satisfied about that, too.”
Also vital is more days at the plate like this one.
The runs won’t always be as plentiful, but the process behind them can help ensure they won’t be as sparse as they were in the week beforehand, either.