NEW YORK – As the rain started to blow sideways, outrageous fortune felled the Blue Jays.
Before the weather and the game turned ludicrous, the Jays had played admirable baseball, just as they did on opening day, making the most of a modest offence and riding remarkable pitching to a late-inning lead in Yankee Stadium.
Then, into the teeth of a game-long wind came the rain, and then the popup that changed everything. After that, bad pitching and bad luck doomed the Jays, who saw their 3-1 lead evaporate into a maelstrom of inevitability.
The Yankees sent nine batters to the plate in the eighth inning, hit only one ball hard and scored three times to win 4-3.
It might have ended with a second straight Toronto victory but for the popup lofted by pinch-hitter Chris Young, the first Yankee batter in that inning. The ball reached its apex above and just behind first base. Three good fielders converged. Rookie second baseman Devon Travis appeared to have the best chance, and for a split second, he seemed poised to catch it at the foul line. But the wind took it away, and dropped it just fair. Young had a double, and the Yankees were on their way.
“The wind was kind of whipping, and I guess I took the tighter angle, and right at the end the ball just kind of kept going on me,” Travis said. “It blew back a little bit.”
A bit of ebb and flow followed, mostly flow for the Yankees, who benefited from a hit batter to load the bases (thank you, Aaron Loup) and a run-scoring wild pitch and bases-loaded hit batter (ditto, Brett Cecil), and then a potential inning-ending double-play grounder that caromed off Cecil’s wrist and into left field for the hit the gave the Yankees their only lead of the night and the only one that mattered.
“We just imploded,” manager John Gibbons understated.
So the Jays are 1-1 entering Game 3 Thursday night, when the weather is supposed to be chilly again but perhaps not so moist. The sky is not yet falling on the Jays and their fans, as it was on the Yankees and theirs, if you bought into the hyperbole wrought by the New York media after the hosts lost 6-1 on opening day.
Game 1 filled Jays fans with hope – the pitching, the opportunistic offence, those bright and shiny kids acting like they belonged – and so did Game 2 until the eighth inning turned into a theatre of the absurd.
R.A. Dickey always says his knuckleball is a “feel” pitch, and he throws it with his fingertips, and on this night most everybody else in Yankee Stadium had their fingertips shoved deep into their pockets. But Dickey soldiered through a difficult 6 1/3 innings in remarkable fashion, throwing far too many pitches early because every ball felt slick and different from the others. He allowed only one run and four hits, and picked off a runner, and came back from a 3-0 count on Brian McCann in the seventh to strike him out on two sinkers – yes, back-to-back sinkers – and a knuckleball that left McCann still and staring.
“I had to make three really good pitches, and thankfully I did, but that was a microcosm of most of the night,” Dickey said.
More good stuff for the Jays: just look at that Miguel Castro, 20 years old and already in his second game, relieving Dickey with a runner on and getting two quick outs, Alex Rodriguez on a fly ball and Stephen Drew on a called strike and two whiffs.
Castro’s buddy, Roberto Osuna, made his big-league debut with the bases loaded and mercifully ended the eighth inning by catching A-Rod looking at a changeup (after throwing him mid-90s heat) and retiring Drew on a fly ball.
“He’s gonna do just fine,” Gibbons said of Osuna, and Castro too. The manager made it clear he will not hesitate to keep using the kids in high-pressure situations.
Travis, who homered in his debut on Monday, drove in the first Jays’ run and scored the second, his speed a factor in both events.
There was also reason for a little concern regarding Cecil, who missed a chunk of time in spring training with shoulder soreness. He admitted that his pitches are not as sharp as he would prefer for the start of the season.
“I feel good, but I’ve got to keep reminding myself that I’m about two weeks behind everybody else,” he said. “The feeling-great part, that’s all there, but everything is on its way up and not all there yet.”
Cecil is the putative closer for this team. Gibbons allowed that he and his coaches are still “figuring some things out” about bullpen roles. It will take awhile longer, he said.
But after two games, he sure does like those two cool 20-year-olds.
