TORONTO — Maybe this is little more than Hyun-Jin Ryu feeling the effects of a shortened spring training, the by-product of a pitcher force-fed into the regular season while still in build-up mode. That’s certainly a plausible hypothesis for his lack of crispness and the forearm soreness revealed Saturday after he had a noticeable dip in velocity.
If ever there was a time to be on guard for small sample size randomness, well this April is it.
The thing is, once you factor in the veteran left-hander’s final 10 starts of 2021 — 46 innings, 38 runs, 10 homers and a boffo .296/.342/.524 opposition batting line — there’s reason to wonder if this is more trend than blip.
Whether they need to address the former or ride out the latter is an important question for the Toronto Blue Jays, who erased an early deficit left by Ryu but fell 7-5 to the Oakland Athletics on Christian Pache’s two-run homer in the ninth off Julian Merryweather.
“Of course I’m concerned,” manager Charlie Montoyo said of Ryu, who mentioned the soreness in his left forearm after allowing five runs over four innings. Ryu will be re-evaluated Sunday. “We’re going to see how he feels after the news that I got.”
Word of Ryu’s discomfort added to a tough afternoon for the Blue Jays, who were largely kept in check through five innings by starter Paul Blackburn, before rallying in the sixth. Lourdes Gurriel Jr., sparked a rally with a two-out single before back-to-back homers by Matt Chapman and Zack Collins, who had three hits, tied the game 5-5 against Domingo Acevedo.
Their bats went quiet from there, helped along by home plate umpire Jeff Nelson’s erratic strike zone, which led to Montoyo’s fifth ejection as Blue Jays manager in the eighth inning. Nelson made two outrageous strike calls that led to a Gurriel strikeout, a crowd of 32,330 booed vociferously as Montoyo vented to Nelson and the umpire then rung up Chapman on an even more egregious offering the next batter.
A look at the called strikes on Baseball Savant’s pitch charts suggested Oakland pitchers had 14 balls outside the zone called strikes compared to six for Toronto hurlers.
Little wonder Montoyo lost it.
“You have to give our guys credit — we’re a team that doesn’t really argue that much,” he said. “I’m watching the game and feel like I have to protect my players and that’s just what it was.”
Lou Trivino worked around a leadoff walk to Alejandro Kirk in the ninth, including a strikeout of pinch-hitter George Springer, who didn’t start on a maintenance day, to lock the win down.
Bigger picture, though, the most pressing issue is how to get Ryu right.
The Blue Jays did all they could to put him in a position to succeed Saturday, giving swingman Ross Stripling a spot-start Friday so Ryu could get an extra day of rest (they were already considering Stripling for another start next weekend in Houston before the forearm soreness came up). They also lined Ryu up for this decisively underwhelming iteration of the Athletics.
Neither helped, as Ryu averaged only 88.7 m.p.h. on his fastball, down from 90, while his curveball sat at 70.7, more than 3.2 m.p.h. off his usual. An inability to really let the curveball rip could very well be linked to forearm soreness.
Nothing was particularly crisp or well-located, either — another possible consequence of soreness — and the A’s jumped him for three in the second and two more in the third on a 114-m.p.h. two-run homer by Sean Murphy.
To be fair, Ryu suffered some tough luck in the second, as Sheldon Neuse followed a Murphy double by chopping an RBI single through a right side left open by the shift and Raimel Tapia allowed him to take second on a pointless throw home.
Kevin Smith cashed him in with a double rocked at 106.2 m.p.h. off the bat and Christian Bethancourt followed with another two-bagger that opened up a 3-1 Oakland lead.
After Murphy’s homer in the third, Ryu rebounded with a clean fourth to keep the score there and after a Collins RBI single in the bottom half, Trent Thornton delivered two clean frames to let the Blue Jays climb back into the game.
Still, if Ryu isn’t able to spot his pitches and carve up a team like the Athletics right now, how is he going to get through the meat-grinder lineups of the Astros, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees looming on the Blue Jays schedule?
“I’m not sitting here to tell you about track record any more. He’s just struggled these last outings,” said Montoyo. “We’re just hoping he makes an adjustment and finds his command.”
Ryu may need to find his health, first, another potential complication in an increasingly complicated start to the season for the Blue Jays.