Any time the Toronto Blue Jays are led on to the field by Hyun Jin Ryu, kitted in those powder blues the big South Korean left-hander insists they wear on his start days, you can expect a few things. Composure, certainly. Few pitchers control the pace and tempo of play like Ryu does, bending games to his will rather than the other way around. Craftiness and unpredictability, too. The epitome of any pitch in any count. And strike-throwing, of course. Since 2019, only one MLB starter — the virtuosic Zack Greinke — has a lower walk rate than Ryu’s 3.9 per cent.
But the club’s coaching staff has come to expect something much simpler than all that, yet no less important — sheer innings pitched. Ryu entered his start against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday riding back-to-back seven-inning outings, giving him three on the season. On a club with a rotation that’s been in partial flux since opening day, and a bullpen that’s been forced to shoulder a punishing innings volume as a result, Ryu’s dependability has been a welcome reprieve every five or six days.
“Early on in the season, with some holes in our starting rotation, I believe we did go deep in our bullpen — we had them throw longer innings and more pitches than we normally would expect,” Ryu said. “So, as a starter, and with all of our starters, we want to throw at least six to seven innings, more than 100 pitches if we have to. And try to go long and deep into the games to protect our arms in the bullpen.”
It helps not having to force it, as the Blue Jays have been cautiously doing with other starters over the last couple weeks. Robbie Ray went seven Saturday (his first seven-inning outing since June, 2019) and has now given the Blue Jays six innings or more in five of his last six starts. Ray has typically been lifted in the 90-pitch range since joining the club at last season’s trade deadline. But manager Charlie Montoyo has now pushed Ray past 100 pitches in consecutive starts for the first time since July, 2019.
Steven Matz is getting a slight nudge, too. He mitigated a healthy dose of early damage against the Atlanta Braves on Thursday to complete six innings, making three full trips through an opposition lineup for the first time since July, 2019. An outing prior, Matz exceeded 100 pitches in a five-inning outing against the Philadelphia Phillies, the first time he’d done so since his second start of the 2020 season.
It was no surprise, then, to see Ryu carrying right along in the seventh inning Sunday, surpassing 100 pitches for his first time in 21 starts as a Blue Jay, and his first time in consecutive outings since July, 2019. It was the fifth time in the last nine games that a Blue Jays starter crossed the century mark, something that didn’t happen once through Toronto’s first 36 games of the season. And when the left-hander allowed a one-out single to Taylor Walls with his 104th pitch of the game, Montoyo didn’t flinch. Ryu was getting all the outs he could.
“Yeah, I trust them,” Montoyo said of pushing his starters deeper into ballgames. “You know, Ryu is Ryu. He's probably one of the best pitchers in baseball. So, it's easy for me to send him back out over 100 pitches. And Ray has been one of the best pitchers in baseball. And then, of course, Matz has pitched well, too. So, it's easy for me to send those guys back for 100 pitches. That's how it used to be.”
Montoyo ultimately had no choice but to lift his ace at 107 pitches with two out in that seventh inning, as Randy Arozarena came up for a fourth look at Ryu having already laced a double to the left-field wall and lined out twice. But Ryu’s third-consecutive extended outing, in what ended up a 6-4 Blue Jays loss to the Rays, plainly demonstrated Toronto’s determination to get more length from its starters one way or another. And the way the game ended, with a ninth-inning bullpen meltdown in which Tyler Chatwood loaded the bases before Travis Bergen issued three straight run-scoring walks, plainly demonstrated the reason why.
Toronto’s bullpen is stretched to its seams. It’s thrown the sixth-most innings across MLB this season, and the fourth-most in May. Key contributors like Ryan Borucki, Julian Merryweather and David Phelps are currently out injured. Others, like Anthony Castro, Rafael Dolis and Jordan Romano, are being eased back in after their own stints on IL. And most of the rest, like Bergen, Chatwood and Tim Mayza, are pitching with diminished effectiveness after carrying heavy workloads through the season’s first seven weeks.
Anyone could have seen this coming. It was unsustainable for the Blue Jays to rely on relievers as much as they did this early in the season. But there was only so much Montoyo and his coaching staff could do without more reliable starting pitching. Ryu, Ray and Matz have done their parts — and they’ve each been extended even further over the last week. But the Blue Jays need more. The carry-over effect of longer outings from this club’s rotation can’t be underestimated.
“Oh, it's huge,” Blue Jays bullpen coach Matt Buschmann said prior to Sunday’s game. “It just sets the tone, regardless of workload at the bullpen level. It sets the tone for the whole team to see a starter out there battling and keeping us in the game.
“As a bullpen, it's great to see guys go deep into games and get guys some rest. But also, from a team standpoint, I think that's the thing — it's the momentum you get from seeing a starter go out and pitch well and keeping us in a game.”
Ryu certainly did that on Sunday, scattering eight hits and a walk to allow only two runs over his 6.2 innings, striking out seven. Mixing and matching as he does, Ryu played curveballs and changeups off fastballs and cutters, maintaining his season ERA of 2.53 which sits fourth among American League starters.
The problem for most of the day was offence, as Blue Jays hitters struggled to get much going against a combination of Michael Wacha and Josh Fleming. But that was only until Randal Grichuk got hold of a 1-1 Fleming changeup with the game tied and a runner on in the eighth, lining a homer off the batter’s eye for his second hit of the day and a two-run lead heading into the ninth.
Which is when the creeping realities of Toronto’s heavy bullpen usage materialized. Dolis got his four outs in relief of Ryu, allowing only a walk, but then handed things over to a shaky Chatwood, who walked his first batter and allowed a single to the next. Chatwood entered the day having thrown the third-most relief innings on the club (despite spending a week-and-a-half on IL) and was featuring far less effective stuff than he was earlier in the season, failing to record a swinging strike for only the third time in 17 outings, all of which have come in the last six days.
Chatwood got the Blue Jays to within an out of a win, but also to within a run of a tie. And after he watched Chatwood load the bases by walking Yandy Diaz on four pitches well outside the zone, Montoyo turned to the left-handed Bergen to match up with Austin Meadows.
But for as much as Chatwood didn’t have it, Bergen really didn’t have it, giving Meadows a free pass at the end of a nine-pitch battle before walking Manuel Margot on five pitches and Mike Brosseau on four. Bergen — who had to stay in to face the right-handed hitting Margot and Brosseau due to MLB’s three-batter minimum — finally got out of it with a flyout after that. But the damage was done.
“Early on, we could tell that [Chatwood] didn't have it — with the walks and then the left-handers all had good at bats,” Montoyo said. “And that's why we had Bergen [warming up] early on. If [Chatwood] goes all the way to Meadows, just get a lefty out. Of course, it didn't work. So, when it doesn't work, it's tough to sleep.
“You've got to trust the guys in the moments you put them in. And, of course, with the rules, you've got to face three guys. So, that's just what it is. … And you’ve got to give credit to Meadows, too. That at-bat that he had, 3-2, kept fouling balls off and stuff. They're hot right now. And that's how it goes.”
And that’s why the club’s been trying to tip the workload scales ever so slightly back towards its starters following the heavy toll the bullpen’s shouldered through the season’s first seven weeks. And considering what’s to come, that effort will need to continue.
Ross Stripling will make what feels an awful lot like a do-or-die start in the series finale against the Rays on Monday, with his future in Toronto’s rotation possibly hanging in the balance. Matz will then pitch the opener of a three-game set with the New York Yankees in the Bronx on Tuesday, ahead of a planned bullpen day Wednesday that might end up being a lot more interesting if Alek Manoah doesn’t pitch his scheduled outing for the Buffalo Bisons the night prior.
Whether Manoah’s summoned to make that start in New York or not, the Blue Jays will need a well-rested bullpen this week to cover for the always-realistic possibility of things going haywire at Yankee Stadium. If you think the Blue Jays caught the Rays — winners of 10 straight — at the wrong time, don’t look at New York’s recent record.
Rotation reinforcements such as Manoah, Nate Pearson and Thomas Hatch, whose fastball was up to 96-m.p.h. in a 43-pitch rehab outing last week and is eligible to come off IL late this month, will likely be wearing Blue Jays uniforms before long. But until then, Montoyo needs long outings like the ones Ryu’s been consistently giving him. Like the ones he’s been pushing Ray and Matz deeper into as he searches for length one way or another. Lest he keep needing to return to a bullpen well quickly running dry.
“They've been so good. And they're going to struggle once in a while. When you play close games, that's going to happen. And that's what's been happening lately,” Montoyo said of his bullpen. “But, man, I trust them. And they're going to be all right. That’s the one thing when you come out of the bullpen — if you struggle a little bit, and you're a closer or something and the game goes bad, it's always on you. So, yeah, I know they're going to be all right. But, yeah, these past four or five games we've struggled a little bit out of the bullpen.”
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiXmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9tbGIvYXJ0aWNsZS9ibHVlLWpheXMtcnl1LXByb3ZpZGVzLW11Y2gtbmVlZGVkLWxvbmctb3V0aW5nLWxvc3MtcmF5cy_SAV1odHRwczovL3d3dy5zcG9ydHNuZXQuY2EvbWxiL2JsdWUtamF5cy1yeXUtcHJvdmlkZXMtbXVjaC1uZWVkZWQtbG9uZy1vdXRpbmctbG9zcy1yYXlzL3NuLWFtcC8?oc=5
2021-05-23 20:43:00Z
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