TORONTO – Kevin Gausman looked like his usual self against the Los Angeles Dodgers in what was his most complete outing of the year. The Toronto Blue Jays aren’t quite there yet at the plate, although they managed to eke out just enough offence to survive a couple of late-game scares and end a five-game losing streak.
For good reason, then, there was plenty of exhaling all around for the Blue Jays after a 3-1 victory Sunday averted a sweep at the hands of the National League West leaders. Their ace, after a truncated spring training led to an uneven stretch, found his timing on the mound and the elite fastball command and impossible splitter followed. Combined with some good bullpen work and even better defence, they made do with the pittance of runs the lineup offered to end a trying stretch.
“It’s one of those series where it’s hard for us to get some runs,” said centre-fielder Daulton Varsho, who made two game-changing catches and opened the scoring with an RBI groundout. “But we did everything we could to try to win that ball game.”
Added Gausman: “We kind of just played with our hair on fire today and you can see that.”
While the Blue Jays didn’t break the five-run threshold for a 20th straight game, the way they put up a three-spot in the second off opener Michael Grove work before a crowd of 39,053 was a prime example of the above.
An infield single by Justin Turner started the rally, followed by a double from Davis Schneider with none out. Varsho’s barely fair chopper up the first-base line was read well by Turner to open the scoring while Schneider smartly charged in on Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s little roller up the third-base line to make it 2-0. Alejandro Kirk followed with a solo shot, the first of his three hits, to extend the Blue Jays’ breathing room.
“Confidence,” Kirk, speaking through interpreter Hector Lebron, said of the inning’s impact. “It helped us getting those three runs early in the game, it was huge. And obviously, our pitching again stepped up and it was great.”
Gausman, Yimi Garcia, Tim Mayza and Jordan Romano did the stepping up as the Dodgers locked the Blue Jays lineup down from there and turned up the heat in the eighth.
Austin Barnes worked a 10-pitch walk and Mookie Betts followed with a double to open the inning against Garcia, who then had to navigate a gauntlet of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez. With first base open, Garcia had options but the way to proceed was clear to him.
“For me, it was we have to go inside to Ohtani,” he said, which he did, inducing a pop-out to second for the first out. At that point, the Blue Jays walked Freeman intentionally to load the bases before Garcia rallied to strike out Hernandez.
“I was trying so hard to get out of that inning,” said Garcia, “I had to make good pitches to Teoscar.”
Manager John Schneider then turned to Mayza for Max Muncy, who fell behind 0-2, worked the count full and then turned on a third straight slider, sending it out 370 feet where Varsho made a leaping grab against the right-centre field wall for the final out.
“Not going to repeat what I said off the bat,” said John Schneider. “Glad I’m not wearing a WHOOP bracelet monitoring your heart rate.”
“Big relief,” said Kirk.
Both Varsho and Springer tracked the ball to the wall, the former calling for it just before latter, allowing the right-fielder to peel off so the play could be made.
While initially it looked like the drive might clear the wall, “he hit it high enough to where it wasn’t still going, it was actually falling straight down,” said Varsho. “So I got to the wall and I’m like, ‘Man, I might hit the wall here,’ so I jumped a little bit because you just don’t know at that time where it was going to hit.”
The drama didn’t end there, as Andy Pages opened the ninth with a 96 m.p.h. liner to the right-centre field gap where a leaping Springer tracked it down for the first out. Romano settled right after with consecutive strikeouts to secure his fourth save.
“Little things like that can flip the script a little bit,” Varsho, who also ran into the wall chasing down an Ohtani smash in the first, said of how the strong defensive plays factored into the win.
Gausman, meanwhile, allowed five hits over his seven innings, the only damage coming on a Freeman homer in the sixth. He walked none and struck out five, fully in control of an outing from start to finish more so than at any point this season.
After his last outing, a 3-2 loss at Kansas City in which he allowed three unearned runs over 6.2 innings, Gausman felt he was fighting through some timing issues between his toe-tap trigger and front leg kick out, which impacted his fastball command.
On Sunday, “I thought it was night-and-day better, staying behind the ball, staying behind the rubber, not trying to leap towards first at all,” said Gausman. “I was really falling towards first way more than I ever had last year. Trying to keep my head in that window, I guess, per se. So, all my pitches are a lot sharper and later when I do that. That was a big sign. I could kind of feel that warming up and felt like I was on the right track so it was good to go out there and have the success.”
All five hits against him came on the fastball, while the Dodgers also made 10 outs on heaters, underlining how effective both it and his splitter were in keeping them off balance.
That’s the version of Gausman the Blue Jays desperately need, especially with Yariel Rodriguez facing workload management this year after not pitching in 2023 and piggy-back partner Bowden Francis currently on the injured list.
Rodriguez is slated to start Monday’s series opener against the Royals and Gausman knew he needed to get deep to help save the bullpen after a long weekend.
“It’s nice to feel like I’m getting back to who I can be and who I want to be for this team,” he said.
Also nice would be if the offence came around and didn’t put so much heat on the Blue Jays to have to win this way time and again. Until it does, this is the way they have to win, executing to the fullest whenever the smallest of opportunities arise.
“Great way to end the week,” said Varsho. “No, it wasn’t our best week, but there’s a ton of baseball ahead. Being able to get through this week and knowing that it’s going to happen, be able to come out next week, firing on all cylinders and trusting what we do really well.”