DENVER – When Kevin Gausman jogged to the mound for his Sunday afternoon start, his focus was on limiting damage by the Colorado Rockies, not the few dozen friends and family in attendance at Coors Field or the teammates playing behind him.
But if he’d looked around while he warmed up for a critical game in his home state of Colorado, this is the infield he would have seen:
C: Tyler Heineman
1B: Spencer Horwitz
2B: Davis Schneider
SS: Ernie Clement
3B: Cavan Biggio
It’s not how the Blue Jays drew it up when the season began. In fact, it’s not how the Blue Jays drew it up when the day began. Their initial lineup included Brandon Belt, but he was scratched with lower back tightness minutes before first pitch. And yet that’s how the Blue Jays started a game that had major implications for their playoff chances.
Four hours later, as rain fell amidst another Justin Lawrence meltdown, the Blue Jays put the finishing touches on a 7-5 win thanks in large part to that supporting cast. Horwitz hit his first MLB home run while adding two singles; Mason McCoy scored the go-ahead run on a Whit Merrifield RBI single; Clement drove in an insurance run with his third hit of the game.
“It’s been huge,” Gausman said of the Blue Jays’ depth players. “They’ve been a good shot of energy. They’re playing with their hair on fire and excited for every opportunity that they’re getting.”
“They’re not taking it for granted at all,” Gausman continued. “It’s been fun to watch these guys. They kind of dominated the whole series, so it’s really fun to watch those guys have success.”
About 20 minutes before first pitch, Belt’s back locked up and the Blue Jays told Horwitz he’d be starting. After the game, his teammates celebrated the milestone with a beer shower in the visiting clubhouse.
“It was a surreal moment,” said Horwitz, who got the home run ball and gifted it to his older brother, Ben. “A moment I’ll never forget … for him to be able to see my first homer is extremely special.”
From manager John Schneider’s perspective, those contributions have been welcome – especially as injuries have piled up.
“It’s been really remarkable to see those guys come up and be right in the middle of it,” Schneider said. “From not knowing you’re playing and then going out, having a game, like that, it’s pretty cool.”
Once Jordan Romano had closed the game out, the Blue Jays had taken the series from the Rockies and improved to 75-62 on the season. Because Texas won, the Blue Jays didn’t gain on the team directly above them in the Wild Card standings, but they could still gain on the Astros, who play the Yankees Sunday night.
The result was much-needed for the Blue Jays, but this one was uncomfortably close for much of the afternoon. Despite a 425-foot home run from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the Blue Jays trailed by a run when rain delayed the game for 59 minutes. The weather chased Gausman from the game early, forcing the Blue Jays to lean heavily on their bullpen.
Trevor Richards faltered, but Tim Mayza, Jordan Hicks, Chad Green and Romano all pitched scoreless baseball en route to the win.
Yet there’s sometimes an incongruity between the way the Blue Jays talk and the way they play. Publicly, there’s talk of playing with urgency but when one of your franchise players admires a double with his team trailing by one, it just doesn’t add up.
After the rain delay ended, Cavan Biggio drew a two-out walk to bring Guerrero Jr. to the plate. The 24-year-old crushed a pitch 110 m.p.h. toward the left field bleachers, but instead of hustling, he admired the ball as it hit off the wall and Biggio scored. That would have limited him to an RBI single, but when the throw bounced away from second base, Guerrero Jr. advanced – nearly getting caught.
Set aside the result, the baserunning lacked effort, urgency or focus. Those are all things the Blue Jays can and should control. Embracing those aspects of the game might not guarantee anything, but to ignore them when the stakes are this high is to invite trouble along for the ride. By now, that should be clear. Yet for some reason, that message hasn’t reached everyone on this team.
Afterwards, manager John Schneider approached Guerrero Jr. in the dugout and spoke to him briefly while the latter nodded in apparent agreement.
“Between me and him,” Schneider said. “Handled that. He’s fine. I was really proud of his game today overall.”
Asked whether there was a lack of urgency on the play, Schneider chose to back his first baseman.
“No, you’re here at Coors Field and you think everything’s a homer,” he said. “No. Me and Vladdy talked about it. It’s all good.”
Ultimately, it’s results that matter most this time of year and the Blue Jays don’t win this game without Guerrero Jr. At the same time, it’s reasonable to expect improved focus and effort when the margins between winning and losing are so narrow.
From here, the Blue Jays’ tour of last-place teams continues. Having faced the NL’s worst team, they now head to Oakland where they’ll play the AL’s worst team. In other words, the opportunity for meaningful gains still exists, as long as the Blue Jays can play well enough to take full advantage of it.
“It would have been huge to somehow come back and win (Saturday) and walk out of here with sweep,” Gausman said. “We’ve just got to keep playing good baseball and we can keep this thing going.”