3 Up 3 Down for Blue Jays at Athletics

The Toronto Blue Jays kept a good thing going this weekend, following a series win on the road over the Minnesota Twins with a three game sweep against the Oakland Athletics.

The Blue Jays bats continued where they left off against the Twins, pumping in 20 runs over the weekend set. The pitching was nothing to turn your nose up at either, holding the A’s to six runs. Good pitching, good hitting, good baseball.

Here are three positives and three takeaways from the series against the Athletics.

3 Up

Breakouts - After looking pretty lost in the wilderness throughout the first month of the season, Brandon Drury had himself a series. He picked up six hits — including home runs in back-to-back days on Friday and Saturday — to lead the charge of Blue Jays bats that needed to break out in the worst way.

It’s incredible how quickly things changed from “Drury can’t be more lost at the plate” coming into the series, to “Drury is confident enough to tag up and score from 3rd against the most dangerous arm in baseball” by the end of Sunday. Confidence is a powerful thing.

Drury wasn’t alone. Danny Jansen looked a lot better at the plate, Billy McKinney had two multi-hit games, and even Sócrates Brito ended his frozen spell — breaking his franchise record hitless streak that he carried with him to start his tenure with the team.

No streak - hot or cold - lasts forever, and it was a great relief to see some of the players who really needed a bounce back series have it happen in spades.

Stroman’s swagger back - Love him or hate him, Marcus Stroman wears his heart on his sleeve. Few players in baseball have more visible fun on the field when they are feeling it, and ‘Stro’ was certainly feeling it on Friday.

He’s been locked in to start the season and he hit a new height with his start on Friday, pitching into the 9th inning while striking out six, and scattering six hits.

When he’s rocking, he’s extremely fun to watch, mixing pitches and switching up his delivery and bouncing around all over the place. That was especially true on Friday, where he was shimmying and twitching his leg and bouncing all over the infield on balls in play. It’s an infectious energy and the surest sign that his confidence is matching up perfectly with his play.

He’s now sporting a 1.76 ERA and 2.38 FIP through five starts, which is as good a reason as any to dance out there.

Bolstered by the bullpen - Other than Stroman, the other Blue Jays starters both had their days end early with injuries. We’ll get to that in the bottom half of the piece, but what was comforting was the performances put on by the relievers called on to finish long innings.

On Saturday, after Matt Shoemaker went down with a knee injury, Sam Gaviglio threw four no-hit innings with five strikeouts to smooth over the middle of the game and allow the offence to post a no-doubt blowout win. Thrown into a tough spot and in an increasingly low-leverage situation it would’ve been easy for him to let up a little, but he stayed focused and may have earned a spot start as the injuries pile up.

Then, on Sunday, after Aaron Sanchez left early, Daniel Hudson threw a clean five outs (with three strikeouts) and Joe Biagini picked up four outs of his own. Ryan Tepera nearly rendered this entire point obsolete on Sunday with a three-run 8th inning, but Ken Giles came in to calm things down and seal off a series sweep.

3 Down

Losing a Shoe - Matt Shoemaker has been one of the better stories of the first month of the season, looking like found money as a veteran piece of the rotation. He’s posted a 1.57 ERA over his four and a half starts, throwing plenty of strikes and looking as strong as he had in at least three seasons.

Unfortunately things got ugly for him on Saturday, as he went down with a knee injury during a fairly innocuous rundown. This was a tough one to see, considering all the injuries he has had to overcome just to return to pitching.

He was visibly upset on the field after going down, and was immediately placed on the injured list. The team officially called it a knee sprain initially, but post-game news came down that he suffered a torn ACL, effectively ending his season.

It’s a huge loss for the team, as the Blue Jays starting depth is not a strength and Shoemaker has been as steady as they come in the rotation. Moreover, it’s hard not to feel extra terrible for Shoemaker himself, who overcame a fractured skull and two different forearm surgeries over the last three seasons to finally look like his old self again on the mound.

Here we go again - Less than a day after watching Shoemaker go down with a knee injury, Aaron Sanchez ran into his old nemesis: his fingernail.

Sanchez lasted four innings on Sunday, leaving after throwing just 59 pitches and surrendering a lone run before having to exit with what the team is calling a broken fingernail on his right middle finger.

It’s exactly what you don’t want to hear for Sanchez, who has had issues on and off with blisters and fingernails for the last two seasons. It looked like those things were behind him this season, but it appears that optimism was premature.

With Shoemaker done and now Sanchez back to being a daily question mark with the impossible to predict nature of finger and blister issues, the Blue Jays starter depth is about to get an even bigger test.

Thomas Pannone and Sam Gaviglio have looked excellent in long relief roles, but are they ready to step into the rotation? And who takes their bullpen spots if they do? Sean Reid-Foley has a 13.94 ERA in three appearances with the Buffalo Bisons, and there aren’t many options beyond that capable of inspiring a lot of confidence in two rotations spots.

With Shoemaker, Sanchez, Ryan Borucki, and Clayton Richard already on the shelf, the Blue Jays may be looking at using the opener to start games sooner than later.

LOL this double play - It’s hard to be too critical when the Blue Jays looked so good over the course of the weekend. So, sometimes you’ve just gotta pick something funny that happens and enjoy it.

To that end, I give you: This Ramon Laureano double play.

Amazing.

It has so much: a home-run robbing grab, a throw from the warning track that sails past first base by a mile and a half, a crazy backup of the play by the catcher, and a random out at second base.

This throw would’ve been ten rows deep into the stands at basically any other stadium in the world. Only in Oakland would this end in a double play.

Nobody was really at fault. It was simply a hilarious combination of efforts.

It’s a sweep! You’ve gotta love it.

Up next, a two-game set against the San Francisco Giants as fan favourite Kevin Pillar comes back to town.

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