Jays’ bats celebrate holiday by taking it off
Loss to Astros drops team’s Canada Day record to 16-29
The sky was crystalline blue. The jerseys were vivid red. The sun was warm on upturned faces. A military band rocked out the crowd. And there was poutine in the media dining room!
The crowd was in the mood to celebrate Canada Day, in a stadium bedecked with holiday bunting.
But the Blue Jays just aren’t any good at this. Make that 16-29 for Canada Day games after Monday afternoon’s 3-1 loss to the incoming Houston Astros. An eye-glazer of a game to boot.
Turns out we were covering the wrong sport, gosh darn. All the interesting news was coming out of Maple Leafs Land on Day 1 of free agency. And Joel Quenneville was reinstated by the NHL. If only the Leafs had waited a little longer … I digress.
Cast your mind back to the beginning of April, when the Jays and Astros first met this season at Minute Maid Park. Toronto was blanked 18-0 through two of three games and only plucked a 2-1 win out of their middle match arses on a two-run blast from Davis Schneider with two out in the ninth.
And that’s when the Astros were bad. Now they’re turnaround good, sizzling with nine wins in their previous 10 games as they arrived for this July 1 engagement, bucking for a wild-card position. In fact, after finally getting over the .500 hump, the Astros are very much what the Jays still aspire to be, if in dwindling likelihood for a sharp volte face, craning up now from 15 games way, way back.
It didn’t help Toronto’s fortunes when twice they loaded the bases and failed to bring anyone home. Of course, until recently the Jays weren’t hitting squat and, in Houston starter Hunter Brown, they were facing a pitcher on a 4-0 June roll, with a major-league best 1.16 ERA across the month. While Toronto has lately rediscovered a bit of its hitting mojo, Monday was a return to hitting barrenness with runners in scoring position. The Jays were held to four hits and just the one run, a parabola over the left field wall by Ernie Clement with two out in the bottom of the ninth.
The Astros, however, could manage no more than four hits either and only two of them off starter
Yariel Rodriguez, who was the bright spot from a Toronto perspective.
The blue-eyed Cuban made just his sixth start. He continues to be treated somewhat cautiously as he is stretched out, a process delayed by a seven-week stint on the injury list with a thoracic spine inflammation.
Yet a pitch limit of 80 to 85 — he came in at 83 — saw him through six-and-two-third innings, such was the right-hander’s efficiency; he never faced more than four batters in an inning. Manager John Schneider called it Rodriguez’s best game of the season, which of course would make it the best game of his MLB career. He is looking like a solid middle-of-the-rotation guy, depending what the Jays look like on the other side of the trade deadline.
“I understand that it’s a huge day for the fans, for Canada,” the 25year-old said afterward, through an interpreter. “I just wanted to go out there and do the best that I could.”
Which was fine enough, and acknowledged by the crowd, which gave him a nice ovation when he departed the bump, Rodriguez doffing his cap in return.
“They’re a very aggressive team,“he explained of the Houston lineup, which actually worked to his advantage, he claimed, inducing swing-and-misses. “I was locating my pitches, also being aggressive, attacking the strike zone. That was part of the plan and we got quick outs.”
Jays hitters had Brown working hard early — he threw 46 pitches across the first two innings — and loaded the bases with one out in the second after George Springer singled and stole second, with walks to Daulton Varsho and Davis Schneider. But Clement popped a straightup geyser and Kevin Kiermaier struck out.
Ditto in the eighth, nada to show from a Horowitz double, walk and hit batter, with one out.
“The hit in the right spot where we needed it,” said Schneider of what the Jays were lacking.
Yordan Álvarez walloped a tworun shot off Zach Pop in the top of the ninth.
The only blemish on Rodriguez’s day was that one long ball in the fifth to Jeremy Pena, a curveball that landed in the Toronto bullpen. “It was a first pitch. I was just trying to throw it for a strike. I guess he was smarter than me.”
Toronto was without Isiah KinerFalefa, a late scratch, who felt soreness in his knee after stretching. The Jays were waiting on MRI results. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was not such a late scratch — his fingers were still achy from being hit with a pitch Sunday — but his absence was announced late enough not to hinder walk-up sales.