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Joe Biagini takes next step in journey as starter

Sunday was a day of firsts and career highs for Joe Biagini.

The eccentric right-hander went six innings, turned over the lineup thrice, and earned a quality start for the first time. He earned career highs in strikeouts (7), batters faced (27) and pitches thrown (95).

Although the Toronto Blue Jays fell 3-1 to the Texas Rangers on the afternoon, the more important development for the club was seeing their starter throw 18 more pitches, get three more outs and punch out two more batters than ever before.

“It was important for me to see myself handle the workload continuing to expand,” Biagini, who rather harshly gave his performance a ‘C plus’ or ‘B minus,’ said of his day. “I think I worked 77 to 95 pitches last week to this week. I was surprised when I asked how many pitches I had at the end of the sixth inning. I felt like my arm was in better condition for it and I didn’t feel quite as much of a tanking.”

With three-fifths of the rotation currently on the shelf, Biagini is arguably the Blue Jays’ third starter right now and the team needed to see him take this step forward. While the 26-year-old had done a respectable job in his previous four starts, he managed just 17.1 innings in those outings – never providing more than five frames.

Joe Biagini was pushed one step further than he ever had before in Sunday’s start against the Texas Rangers. (Chris Young/CP)
Joe Biagini was pushed one step further than he ever had before in Sunday’s start against the Texas Rangers. (Chris Young/CP)

By and large he’d been effective, but he looked like a long reliever making spot starts, which is ultimately what he was. Biagini was tasked with the extraordinarily difficult mission of stretching out on the fly to vacate the only role he’d ever known at the big-league level. He deserves no criticism for how he performed.

However, Toronto’s injury questions should have him starting for some time, so the team needed to know that he wouldn’t be heavily taxing the bullpen every time he took the mound. After Sunday, the Blue Jays can be far more confident in the Biagini-as-a-starter experiment.

“He went six innings, they’ve got a good hitting team in there and he held them in check. That’s encouraging,” John Gibbons said of his starter. “Now [the pitch limits] are all behind him, he’s good to go and we can treat him like anybody else.”

It’s not just that the former Rule V pick pitched deeper that was encouraging for Toronto, it’s how he did it. Biagini’s seven strikeouts came on four different pitches, showing that diversity of repertoire is not a concern. Particularly impressive was his changeup, a pitch he rarely used out of the pen. The offering earned him three punchouts, including a game-opening strikeout of Shin-Soo Choo.

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Courtesy Sportsnet

He also didn’t wilt under the additional workload as the game went on. His last fastball of the day measured in at the exact same 93.0 mph as his first, and five of his K’s came in his final three frames. When Josh Donaldson booted a grounder to open the sixth, he responded by recording a pair of strikeouts and inducing a flyout to centre to end his day.

Biagini conceded seven hits, but his only true mistake was a massive opposite-field home run off the absurdly-powerful Joey Gallo.

“The home run to Gallo was a cutter that didn’t do anything and just spun,” Biagini said. “So he struck that quite well.”

None of the other six knocks were imposing and they included a bunt single, an infield single, and a groundball just past the outstretched glove of Troy Tulowitzki.

Out of context, the six-inning two-run performance would have been strong, but not spectacular, but for Biagini it was a matter of breaking new ground.

Even though he took a loss on the outing, he looks far more like a major-league starter today than he did yesterday.

For a Blue Jays team awfully short on those at the moment, that’s excellent news.