TORONTO – The best laid pitching plans of the Toronto Blue Jays fell apart at roughly 2 a.m., when Alek Manoah reached out to head trainer Jose Ministral and said he was struggling with what interim manager John Schneider called “a stomach bug.”
Since the ace right-hander was due to start the opening game of a day-night doubleheader against the Tampa Bay Rays, that wasn’t ideal. The club’s strategy for the day hinged on Manoah going deep in the first game with a bullpen game built around Mitch White carrying some bulk in the second. A late night/early morning scramble followed.
“It’s a tight group that communicates on the phone and then meets when we get here,” Schneider said of the sudden reset. “You have a lot of different options that are mapped out. It’s nice that we have the depth that we have at the major-league level on a lot of sides of the ball, so it’s trying to put the best pieces together as best you can.”
Their construct, Julian Merryweather ideally going two innings as an opener for White, whom they hoped to extend, didn’t go to plan, with some sloppy play in the field also contributing to what finished as a 4-2 loss to the Rays on Tuesday afternoon.
Merryweather allowed consecutive singles to open the game and Yandy Diaz eventually crossed when Randy Arozarena beat out a potential inning-ending double play at first base, while White was burned by a three-spot in the third that was fuelled by some avoidable mistakes.
White did manage to throw six frames, matching a season-high, pivotal with uncertainty around whether Manoah would be well enough to start the back-end, which he will after recovering during the day. But two moments in the third inning were tough to stomach for the Blue Jays:
•Vladimir Guerrero Jr., not getting his foot set on the bag to receive a relay from Santiago Espinal after the second baseman made a great diving play on a Jonathan Aranda grounder, and then not getting a toe on the base in time, loading them up with none out;
• Arozarena slowing up as he went first-to-third on a Manuel Margot single that deflected off Matt Chapman’s glove, lulling Teoscar Hernandez to sleep as he walked the ball back to the infield, and then dashing for home, leading to an airmailed throw to the plate and a demoralizing fourth run.
Played better, the Blue Jays only allow one run that inning instead of three, a key reason Blue Jays (79-62) fell a half-game behind the Rays (79-61) in the wild-card race.
“That’s how (the Rays) play and you have to try to stay ahead of it,” said Schneider. “Hopefully people learn from it and it doesn’t happen again. But we’re familiar enough with that team to where we know that when you give them extra outs, they usually make you pay. Hopefully, we just tighten it up starting tonight and the rest of the series.”
Opportunistic execution led to all four Tampa Bay runs as they went up 2-0 when Arozarena beat out another potential double-play ball after Aranda reached to make it 2-0 and David Peralta followed with a fly ball to left that plated Wander Franco.
Arozarena was a full chaos agent in that third inning, twice having steal attempts negated by batter interference calls before cleverly exploiting Hernandez on Margot’s base hit.
“Sometimes he’s his own third base coach, manager and he’s invisible,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said of the dynamic outfielder.
With Rays starter Jeffrey Springs picking the Blue Jays apart over six innings – an important contribution for a Tampa Bay bullpen that’s carried a heavy load the past three days – there wasn’t much for a crowd of 23,497 to get hyped about until a two-spot in the seventh.
Shawn Armstrong, having escaped a two-one, one-out jam in the seventh unscathed, wasn’t as fortunate in the eighth when Guerrero and Bo Bichette opened the inning with back-to-back singles and Alejandro Kirk’s comebacker brought a run in and Matt Chapman’s base hit another.
Cash turned to closer Pete Fairbanks at that point and he got Danny Jansen on a sharp grounder to short to end the inning before wrapping things up in the ninth for his seventh save. The laser-firing righty hasn’t allowed a run in his last 18 outings after working around a one-out Raimel Tapia single and catcher interference on George Springer by striking out Guerrero and winning a high-drama, 11-pitch duel with Bichette, inducing a game-ending grounder to first.
“He has been on a tear and it’s been impressive to watch,” said Fairbanks. “And so there, I’m trying to attack in the strike zone for as long as I can. One of us is going to win it eventually. Today we get a groundout to get out of it.”
The effort from White, who hustled to the stadium after getting a 10 a.m. call about the pitching change, meant the Blue Jays needed to use only two relievers and marked an important turnaround from the 18 runs allowed in his three previous starts that led to his demotion. He was brought back as the 29th man for the doubleheader and will have to be sent down again after and, barring an injury, won’t be eligible for recall until Sept. 22.
The Blue Jays have a hole in the rotation Friday – another bullpen game is likely – but then won’t need a fifth starter again until Sept. 24 at Tampa Bay. Either way, White’s work with pitching coach Pete Walker and Kevin Gausman, whom he said “has been great,” should help him the next time he’s needed with a focus on “just kind of simplifying things.”
“What (Gausman) has been saying is 80 per cent. Nice and smooth and easy,” White continued. “I got myself in trouble trying to overthrow in that last outing and the few previous ones, too, trying to do too much. Today was all about tempo and rhythm, nice and easy 80 per cent. …
“Most of it is just mindset. That’s what gets me out of whack mechanically,” he continued. “When I’m smooth and in rhythm and attacking the zone, then it’s fine. Maybe a handful of two-strike pitches I’m going to expand, but every single pitch was like, all right, I’m throwing this in the zone.”
His longest outing since joining the Blue Jays at the trade deadline largely erased the possibility they might have to pitch some relievers in both ends of the doubleheader, though Schneider said beforehand that “those plans have kind of already started, if needed.”
Bullpen coach Matt Buschmann said using someone from the bullpen twice in a day was very feasible, especially since relievers do daily pre-game throwing. Given how that takes place roughly 4-5 hours ahead of their work in the game that follows, “it’s not unusual for them to experience throwing, relaxing and then building back up to throw in the same day,” he explained.
Between games the Blue Jays planned to review everyone’s throwing load, “which we can track in various different ways,” said Buschmann, and if someone was green-lit, “you’d go through the outing, get some recovery and then basically go out to the second game as if the first game inning was like playing catch.”
Manoah wasn’t in the clubhouse before the first game, as the Blue Jays sought to “give him a little bit extra time to get hydrated up, rest, and hopefully get ready for Game 2,” Schneider said in the morning.
That’s what happened.
“He’s feeling fine,” Schneider said after the loss. “I expect a normal outing for him. Feeling a lot better so just ride it out like we always do.”
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.
