TORONTO — Five days after mystifying the Boston Red Sox over eight dominant innings at Fenway Park, Kevin Gausman and his mesmerizing splitter once again had them swinging through air.
Another gem, this time six innings of four-hit, nine-strikeout, one-unearned-run brilliance, reinforced how his repertoire will not only play in the American League East meat-grinder, but that familiarity will do little to help opponents do damage against him.
Really, what the Toronto Blue Jays must do is make sure they take advantage of what Gausman gives them, something they did in dramatic fashion Tuesday night, rallying with three runs in the ninth before a Ramiel Tapia sacrifice fly in the 10th beat the Boston Red Sox 6-5.
Like so many other wins in their 12-6 start, it was a trip.
“This team, they just come at you and they never feel like they’re out of the game,” said Gausman. “It’s tough on teams, for sure.”
The same applies to the right-hander, who handed a 2-1 lead over to the bullpen that Yimi Garcia coughed up during a four-run eighth — the first earned runs against him in nine outings so far.
But Jake Diekman couldn’t lock things down in the ninth, when consecutive doubles by Tapia and Santiago Espinal made it 5-3 before George Springer’s fourth homer of the season and the 200th of his career sailed over the left-centre field wall to force extras.
Jordan Romano, facing the heart of the Red Sox lineup, followed with a zero in the top of the 10th, calmly recovering after a Xander Bogaerts comebacker hit him in the upper leg to get the out at first before striking out J.D. Martinez to end the frame.
The Red Sox then intentionally walked Vladimir Guerrero Jr., to open the bottom half, Alejandro Kirk worked another walk after falling behind 0-2 to load the bases and after Matt Barnes caught Matt Chapman looking, Matt Strahm came in.
Tapia battled him for nine pitches before driving a slider over a five-man infield to left field, allowing Bo Bichette to trot home and trigger bedlam among a crowd of 22,611.
“It’s like I celebrated my first birthday — very, very happy to help my team win a game like that,” Tapia, who after falling behind 0-2, saw five straight sliders, fouling off four of them, before eventually getting one he could drive, said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “You’ve got to stay ready for the fastball. In the back of my mind, I thought about the slider. But if I look for the slider, then I won’t be able to hit the fastball.”
The three-hour, 47-minute affair was the latest exercise in resilience for a Blue Jays team that has played seven one-run games in the last nine outings, winning five of them. Even after the Red Sox rallied in the eighth and nothing was doing in the bottom half, the offence ignited in a flash in the ninth.
“It’s who this team has been ever since I got here,” said Springer. “There’s no real panic. There’s always a belief that we’re one at-bat away, one big play on the field, one pitch away from being back in the ballgame. …
“We’re a very, very good team from top to bottom,” he added. “We all kind of complement each other, understand each other’s role, understand our role individually. We all play as a team and we’re all heading in the same direction.”
Gausman led the way through the leverage tightrope.
The only Boston run off him came in the top of the fourth, when Bogaerts bounced a ball against the shift, stole second and took off for third when Zack Collins’ throw ended up in centre field. Kike Hernandez cashed him in with a sacrifice fly on a liner brilliantly chased down by a diving Bradley Zimmer.
Other than that, the Red Sox managed precious little against Gausman, who had 19 swinging strikes, 14 of them on his splitter. His fastball, dotted around the zone, touched 97.5 m.p.h. and sat 95.6, up from his season average of 94, as he attacked relentlessly.
He didn’t issue a walk while striking out nine, with his pitch usage almost identical to the one five days earlier.
“To be honest, I wasn’t going to make many changes,” said Gausman. “I was going to pitch to my strengths, see what they were going to do and then kind of adjust my game plan. They definitely took more first-pitch strikes. I don’t know if that was the plan going in, but overall, I still threw fastballs and splits. I just had to be a little bit more fine with some of them in certain spots.”
That’s easier said than done, but is reflective of the calibre of pitcher he is.
The Red Sox would have him fresh in their minds from last week, knew what to expect from him and it didn’t make a lick of difference.
“It just shows you how good he is, the command of the stuff that he has,” said Springer. “He is who he is for a reason. I mean, there’s some familiarity if you just saw a guy but every day is new and you don’t know how he feels that day, the velocity, all that stuff. He came out and I very much thought he was himself and he gave us a chance to win the game.”
That he did, and even after things went sideways, the Blue Jays found a way, as they have so often in the opening month of the new season.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
