Former Dodger Ross Stripling Looks Familiar in Blue Jays Debut

Former Dodger Ross Stripling Looks Familiar in Blue Jays Debut

From Dodger Blue to powder blue, Ross Stripling made his debut for the Toronto Blue Jays Friday night at Boston's Fenway Park.

Would the popular right-hander show his former team that it was a mistake to trade him away? Would he have a poor showing after going from the best team in MLB to a club fighting for a wild-card spot?

One start into his Blue Jays career, the answer is... none of the above?

Stripling wasn't terrible in his American League debut. Nor was he anything close to spectacular. Pitching 4 1/3 innings, Stripling allowed three runs, six hits, and two walks with four strikeouts.

In a sight familiar to Dodger fans, Stripling gave up his first run on a curveball in the middle of the strike zone for Tzu-Wei Lin to crush to centerfield. The deep drive would've been a home run in most major league parks, but bounced into the Fenway Park triangle for an RBI ground-rule double.

However, those two walks hurt Stripling the most. A two-out pass to Christian Vazquez in the third inning allowed Michael Chavis to drive him in for Boston's second run. And a walk to Rafael Devers in the fifth eventually resulted in what turned out to be the game-winning run in a 3-2 loss.

(For a deeper dive into ex-Dodgers playing in this game, Stripling faced Alex Verdugo three times Friday night. But the matchup didn't go so well for the former top prospect. Verdugo went 0-for-3, flying out three times.)

Did Stripling pitch well enough to stay in the Blue Jays' rotation? After the game, he was encouraged by not giving up a home run for the first time this season.

Manager Charlie Montoyo said he expected Stripling to get at least one more start in what's now a six-man rotation, likely Wednesday against the Yankees. But he didn't pitch the kind of game that will make the Dodgers regret trading him.

Ultimately, Stripling's best moment this week was posting a classy goodbye to his former team, Dodgers fans, and the Los Angeles community shortly before moving on to the next stage of his career.

Ross Stripling says goodbye to the #Dodgers organization, teammates, the city of LA, and fans. 😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/lzlD01pO2o

— Michael J. Duarte (@michaeljduarte) September 2, 2020

Ian Casselberry watchdogs sports media for Awful Announcing. He's covered baseball for SB Nation, Yahoo Sports and MLive, and was one of Bleacher Report's first lead MLB writers. Please follow Ian on Twitter @iancass and give him a listen at The Podcass.