Woof
On Manoah's ace-like performance, a joke of a seventh inning, umpires, Vlad, blunders, the bullpen, a heartwarming moment for a Yankees fan, Dexter Fowler, Derek Holland, prospects, and more!
The Blue Jays lost for the second straight game on Tuesday night, marking the first time they’ve done so all season. The loss also guaranteed that they will lose a series for the first time in 2021. And it all came at the hands of the big, stupid, and unfortunately pretty good New York Yankees. Yuck.
I went to the café yesterday to get started working on this post and instead my computer decided, unprompted, to do a massive update that took like an hour-and-a-half, so I had a few drinks while I waited and… well… you didn’t really want to read about this game within minutes of it being over anyway, did you?
Here’s two up and one large, nearly all-encompassing down!
⚾ But first let me take a second to try to earn a living. Because if you’d like to receive an immediate email every single time I post something on the site, or would like to upgrade to a paid membership in order to support what I do and help keep these posts free for everybody, you can do all that with just a couple of clicks and I’d be eternally grateful if you did! ⚾
Up: Alek Manoah
It’s rare that the starting pitcher for the losing team in a 9-1 game ends up being his team’s most praiseworthy player of the night, but that was absolutely the case for Alek Manoah in this one.
Manoah gave the Jays’ six incredibly strong innings, allowing just three hits and one walk, while striking out seven. His lone blemish — and we’ll have more on that below — was a game-tying solo blast from Aaron Judge in the sixth. And even though he managed to burn him when seeing him a third time in the game, Judge came away impressed with the Jays’ youngster — as did, I would assume, literally everybody else.
Manoah's fastball was up more than half a tick in this one, averaging 94.8 mph compared to a season average of 94.2. Last year, it's worth noting, his average was 93.5.
That slider of his was especially effective, generating four whiffs on 10 swings, four additional called strikes, and producing an average exit velocity of just 78.6 mph on five balls in play. The sinker was less of a swing-and-miss pitch (one whiff on seven swings) but froze batters well, producing six called strikes. There was some hard contact on the fastball (98.2 mph average exit velocity), but only four balls in play, as compared to nine fouls, four called strikes, and six whiffs on 19 swings (32%).
You really can't ask for better than that!
Were there other people involved in this game that you could have asked better from? Oh absolutely yes.
Down: The umpires, the fielding, the bullpen, pretty much everything else
I’d wonder where to even begin with this nonsense, but I think Ben Nicholson-Smith has done an outstanding job grappling with it already in his write-up of the game for Sportsnet. You should probably just read that!
But since you’re already here, let’s review.
For starters, Vlad’s foot was clearly on the bag when he stretched for Bo’s rushed throw after fielding Giancarlo Stanton’s rocket to start off the seventh inning.
The initial call of safe was somehow upheld upon review, which cost the Jays their ability to challenge — an important issue that would come up later. Things wouldn’t exactly get better from there.
Stanton would score to make it 3-1 on a double from Josh Donaldson that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was unable to cut off — despite an awkward slide — in left field. Donaldson would score on a Marwin González double that ended Adam Cimber’s night (his fourth appearance in six days, and second of back-to-back games, all of which were pressure cookers), and may have been caught by a better outfielder than Gurriel (54th percentile sprint speed, 35th percentile Outs Above Average; the ball had a .450 expected batting average off the bat).
Enter the confounding Julian Merryweather, who continued to throw impressively hard, and continued to struggle to get outs. This was far from his worst performance, though. Isiah Kiner-Falefa started off with a soft grounder to short for an infield hit. Then, with runners now at first and third and the infield in, Jose Trevino bounced one to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at first base, who fired home to trap the lead runner, González, in a rundown. Enter umpires being terrible once again!
Alejandro Kirk took Vladdy’s throw and ran toward González who backpedaled toward third base. Eventually Kirk flipped the ball to Matt Chapman, who received the ball and proceeded running to tag González starting here:
Now, I’m no umpire, but I do know that the “out of the base path” rule is not quite as simple as it seems. It’s not about simply staying on the dirt near the chalk line.
The way I understand it, the runner creates their own base path, which is a straight line between where they are and the base they're attempting to get to. In a rundown, a new base path is created each time the runner changes direction/the fielders exchange the ball. The runner may not go more than three feet out of this path — which in the above image is a straight line between Gonzalez and the plate.
Here is where Gonzalez ended up moments later:
Bear with me here a second, OK?
The running lane that starts halfway to first base is three feet wide, and extends from the chalk line to where the grass starts on the foul side of the dirt. Given the symmetry on the other side of the field, we can say that from the line to the grass on the image above represents three feet.
Is González three feet outside of his base path, as established in the previous image, there? I actually think it’s awfully close.
Was he three feet out of his path by the time of the following image, which shows the scene just as Chapman flipped the ball to Vladdy, who was covering home plate? I find it harder to say no here!
Of course, all this should have been moot, because as Ben clearly demonstrates with the following image from his piece, Vlad absolutely tagged the runner!
In real time, I can understand missing that call. Vlad nearly ran past González, and had to lunge back on his way by in order to just barely put the tag on. But that is indeed exactly what he quite clearly did.
Making matters worse, the Blue Jays had already (incorrectly) lost their challenge earlier in the frame, and were somehow not able to compel the umpiring crew to review this one. Umpires can initiate challenges themselves, and often do when a team has already burned their challenge but a massively important close play comes up later on. This crew chose not to do that. Utterly ridiculous and indefensible, especially given the way they blew the call at first base earlier.
Sure, the Jays hurt themselves plenty in this inning with their sloppy defence and five rockets off the bat at over 95 mph. But giving the a team like the Yankees five outs to work with is very likely to always end in exactly the way that this inning did. Brutal.
Things somehow continued to get worse for the Jays on the night, but let’s maybe just move on, eh?
Up: That heartwarming moment
Ahh, yes. Back to Judge’s blast, which ended up in the second deck, and — for a brief moment — in the hands of Jays fan Mike Lanzillotta. Sitting behind him was nine-year-old Yankees fan Derek Rodriguez. Named after Derek Jeter thanks to his dad, Cesar, a lifelong Yankees fan who came to Toronto from Venezuela five years ago and was beside him in the stands, the youngster was in full Yankees regalia, including a ballcap and a brand new Yankees shirt with Judge’s name and number 99 emblazoned on the back.
You probably don’t have to guess what happened next.
Oh, wait, wait. Sorry. Wrong tweet. Here’s what happened.
My friend and former colleague, Kaitlyn McGrath of the Athletic, tracked down Lanzillotta and the Rodriguez family after the game. It's a great piece about a great moment that I also, you know, kinda hated with every fibre of my being!
Other notes
• Another one walks out the door, another one comes in the door. On Tuesday TSN’s Scott Mitchell reported that outfielder Dexter Fowler, who managed five singles and one walk in 21 plate appearances for Buffalo since joining the club as a minor league signing late in spring training, had requested his release from the Blue Jays and is now a free agent.
It's a bit of a shame that this marriage didn't work out, but it was a long shot to work anyway — and made longer by the club's acquisition of glove-first outfielder Bradley Zimmer on opening day. There was maybe a chance to see Fowler on the 40-man after Danny Jansen went down with an oblique injury early on, which forced the Jays to add a player to their 40-man (catcher Tyler Heineman) and designate Josh Palacios for assignment, and then with Teoscar Hernández hitting the IL not long after. But the outfield has held since then, Teoscar is on his way back very shortly, and understandably Fowler feels like he'll find a better path toward big league playing time elsewhere.
• Worth noting here: Unfortunately for the Jays, Palacios has been hitting the cover off the ball in Triple-A for the Washington Nationals, slashing .356/.442/.556 in 52 plate appearances, with seven walks to just nine strikeouts. He had a good spring, too! Might have been useful!
• Coming in the door, apparently, is 35-year-old lefty Derek Holland. Jays fans probably remember Holland best — and most fondly — for getting his ass handed to him in Texas in Game Four of the 2015 ALDS. (You know, the one where David Price somewhat inexplicably came in to relieve R.A. Dickey after just 4 2/3 innings despite the Jays being up 7-1 — and that ultimately forced the series back to Toronto for the iconic bat flip game, which, of course, gives this site/newsletter its name.)
Holland had been on a minor league deal with the Red Sox, but chose this week to opt out. His deal with the Jays is also of the minor league variety — and somewhat curious, given that the club’s bullpen already features lefties Tim Mayza and Andrew Vasquez, with Ryan Borucki nearing a return and Tayler Saucedo currently on the shelf. That said, I suppose it’s fair of Holland to think that he could find his way to the big leagues out of that mix, given Vasquez’s struggles this year, Saucedo’s injury, and Borucki’s struggles/constant battles with injuries/out-of-options status. Still, like Fowler before him, it seems like a long shot.
Holland pitched out of the Tigers' bullpen in 2021, averaging 93 mph on his fastball and sinker (his primary pitch), while throwing sinkers and curves to lefties, with a four-seamer and changeup mixed in against right-handers as well. It's a high spin fastball, ranking in the 74th percentile last year (with the sinker coming in slightly higher than the four-seamer), which may be something that has intrigued the Jays here. He also did a good job of keeping the ball off the barrel of opponents' bats last season, and, perhaps thanks to the rather spacious Comerica Park, avoided the home runs that have plagued him since about 2017 (save for a season in San Francisco in 2018).
His minor league numbers this year have been ugly, but are a bit skewed by a blow-up against Lehigh Valley in mid-April, in which he allowed four of his eight earned runs on the season, and issued three of his seven walks, despite logging just a third of an inning. (His total on the year is 11 1/3).
A lefty who can give you multiple innings sitting in Buffalo as a depth option? Sure. Why not? But I certainly don't think this move is any more than that.
• Over at FanGraphs, Eric Longenhagen got eyes on a bunch of Blue Jays prospects recently, and has a pretty great piece with scouting notes on a bunch of them. The bad news? He doesn’t see much to get excited about at this point regarding either Eric Pardinho or Manuel Beltre — the latter might be especially surprising to some, as Beltre was the Jays’ highest paid international signing just a year ago.
The list of good news, fortunately, is much longer. Last year's fifth round pick, Irv Carter, "showed three potential impact pitches" during the outing Longenhagen saw (fastball, changeup, slider), though he says there is a lot of work still to be done in terms of executing them consistently.
Ricky Tiedemann has obviously been on a lot of prospect-watchers' radar this year, and Longenhagen very much liked what he saw — though he notes that the slider is recognizable as a breaking pitch out of his hand, and "finding a viable version of this pitch is going to be key for Tiedemann to hit his mid-rotation ceiling."
Nick Frasso, who had Tommy John surgery last June, is called a "revelation" in the piece. He's already back throwing in the mid-90s, touched 97-98, and has improved on a "loopy, low-80s slurve," which has become a mid-80s slider that Frasso showed a good feel for. Longenhagen says he now looks like "a solid big league reliever."
He also offers up Ben Baggett as a name to watch. A 26-year-old underafted free agent who has barely pitched over the last seven years due mostly to injuries, "there's enough fastball here that Baggett has a real shot to reach the big leagues," Longenhagen says. Would be a great story!
• Great stuff from Evan Diamandas of Sports Illustrated, as he catches up with Nate Pearson — who was briefly in Toronto over the weekend, throwing bullpen sessions at Rogers Centre before heading to Dunedin in order to continue building up his arm after being out with mono for much of the last month or more.
• This seems, uh, less than ideal. Though it’s probably a thing that will happen when you face the Yankees and Red Sox and Astros so much!
• Worth noting. And worth wondering if the Jays don’t just go straight back to Berríos on Tuesday after the off-day on Monday! I suspect Yusei Kikuchi’s performance tonight against the Yankees may have some kind of a say in that.
• Lastly, Nick and I have officially put this week’s live Blue Jays Happy Hour episodes on the schedule. We’ll be podcasting — and taking your calls and questions — at the conclusion of Thursday’s game in Cleveland (6:10 PM ET first pitch), and again at the conclusion of Sunday’s finale with the Guardians (1:40 PM ET first pitch). Come join us!
Head to our Callin page to download the app and start following us. And check out this post for all you need to know about where you’ll be able to find every episode after the fact, including a handy RSS feed you can use to get our shows on any podcast app. (The shows go into a different feed now, so you’ll have to switch!!)
Next up: Wednesday, 7:07 PM ET: Jays vs. Yankees (Yusei Kikuchi vs. Nestor Cortes), TV: Sportsnet One, Radio: Sportsnet 590
⚾ Be sure to follow me on Twitter // Follow the Batflip on Facebook // Want to support without going through Substack? You could always send cash to stoeten@gmail.com on Paypal or via Interac e-Transfer. I assure you I won’t say no. ⚾
Manoah was fantastic. I kept thinking that if he hadn't thrown a lot of pitches in the first, he probably would have come out in the 7th. Still, he was only on 91 pitches and sometimes I wonder just how rigid teams have to be with pitch counts. On the other hand, pitchers arms are so fragile. Great story with that young fan - I wonder if to top it off, somebody arranges for him to meet Judge. That would be the best!