Blue Jays Squander Steven Matz Gem
Josh Palacios dove, stretching out with leather as his chest crashed into the outfield grass.
The object Palacios sought — the ball — was not in his glove. Instead, it snuck under his mitt and skittered into the cavernous Comerica outfield. Corey Dickerson began a relay, but Tigers outfielder Victor Reyes was already rounding the bases.
As the Blue Jays hucked the ball in, Detroit's game-winning run slid across home plate for an inside-the-park home run. One swing of the bat and one defensive mistake erased the previous seven innings of crisp Toronto pitching and defense. Steven Matz's latest strong outing was wasted by the Blue Jays, who scored just one run and lost their seventh game of the last 10.
“There’s no room for error,” manager Charlie Montoyo said after the game.
In the fourth inning, Matz stumbled off the mound as the ball struck his ankle. Unflinching, the lefty turned and bolted for the bag. As Vlad Guerrero Jr. palmed the ball and side-armed a throw to first, Matz located himself, caught the pass, and slapped a tag on Jonathan Schoop for the first out of the inning.
It was one of a couple fine defensive plays that backed Matz during his six-inning gem. He mixed three pitches, inducing soft contact with his sinker and generating swings and misses with the change (four whiffs).
"Fastball command and changeup is everything," Matz said. "Keeping them off balance — speeding them up, slowing them down. I think I can continue to build off that."
Matz’s changeup dove at the last second with two outs in the fifth, sneaking under Derek Hill’s bat to end the frame. At just 85 pitches, Toronto's starter navigated six innings of one-run ball, dropping his season ERA to 3.81. In his last eight starts, Matz has lowered his ERA almost a full point, allowing over two earned runs just once and completing six innings three times.
But every Matz frame was matched by his opposition. In four starts coming into Friday night, Tigers starter Matt Manning allowed 30 combined hits and 16 runs. He’d never struck out more than four batters in a game in his short MLB career and had never allowed one or fewer runs. On Friday, Manning did both.
Toronto's lineup flashed a breakout with a five-run inning last night against Chicago, but facing a pitcher with an ERA over six tonight, they continued to scuffle. Despite an offense with the second-best team OPS in baseball, the Blue Jays have scored the fifth-fewest runs in the last two weeks.
"I think it's more on our offense than what the other teams are doing," Montoyo said. "We're just not swinging the bats right now, everybody's struggling at the same time."
Toronto had the opportunity to back up Matz early but finished one-for-eight with runners in scoring position. The only teams in the American League with a worst RISP OPS this month than the Blue Jays are three of the worst teams in baseball: Kansas City, Texas, Baltimore.
It's become a familiar tale, of late. The question mark coming into the season — starting pitching — has become the strength, and the core of the team — a deep and explosive lineup — has fallen into a collective slump.
“Everyones just gotta continue to do their part," Matz said, “and tides will turn.”
Mitch Bannon is a baseball reporter for Sports Illustrated covering the Toronto Blue Jays and their minor league affiliates.Twitter: @MitchBannon