Blue Jays takeaways: Monster day for long balls in win at Fenway

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This article was published 12/06/2021 (1618 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Saturday’s 7-2 Blue Jays win in Boston:

The Blue Jays spent most of Friday night trying to knock down Fenway’s famous Green Monster with line drives. Saturday, they figured going over it would do more good.

Four home runs against Nick Pivetta, each one of them over the 37-foot-high left-field wall, cashed in the first six runs in their series-evening win.

The barrage, which came a day after Jays hitters pelted the Monster eight different times for five singles and three doubles, included Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s major-league-leading 20th home run of the season and a 468-foot blast by Bo Bichette, the longest of his career.

Cavan Biggio, in his second game back from the injured list, and Marcus Semien also went deep to help the Jays build a 6-0 lead through five innings that still wasn’t especially comfortable, given the struggles of a bullpen that has been the worst in the game over the past three weeks.

Reese McGuire added his first of the season in the ninth off Brandon Workman, wrapping it around the Pesky Pole down the right-field line.

The five homers weren’t all that surprising from the Jays, given that they’re second in the American League in that category, having now hit 91 over their 62 games. It was a bit of shock that Pivetta was the one who gave up the first four, though.

The Victoria, B.C. native was making his 13th start of the season and had allowed only five home runs, so the Jays almost doubled his season total.

It was the first time that Bichette, Biggio and Guerrero all went deep in the same game.

• Long story short: While the Jays’ rotation has come around very nicely over the course of the past three weeks, pitching to a 3.31 ERA over the last 19 games after Steven Matz’s 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball on Saturday, what they haven’t been able to do is get deep into games with any kind of regularity at all. With the bullpen currently in dire straits, it’s something upon which the starters need to improve.

Over those 19 games, a Jays starter has made it to the seventh inning only three times, while seven times a starter has come out of the game without even making it to the sixth.

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Matz pitched well Saturday, to be sure, but he was remarkably inefficient. Over the first five innings, the lefty had allowed just two hits and walked a pair, but needed 92 pitches, all but guaranteeing he wasn’t going to make it past the sixth, something the Jays could really have used from him.

The fewer outs this bullpen has to get right now, the better, and the best way to keep the relievers out of the game is for the starters to get as deep as they can into games. Hitting the 100-pitch mark two batters into the sixth inning is not the way to do it.

• Biggio connects: After going 1-for-4 with an intentional walk Friday night in his return from a three-week stint on the IL with a strained ligament in his neck, Biggio had his swing working Saturday, smacking a double and an infield single to go with his Monster shot homer. In his final at-bat, he flied out to deep centre, 393 feet away.

Biggio got off to a slow start to the season, to put it mildly, but posted a .373 on-base percentage in the two weeks prior to hitting the IL, while fighting the sore neck a lot of the time.

The offence hasn’t been the problem for the Jays as they’ve fought to stay above the .500 mark the last little while, but there hasn’t been much production from the bottom of the lineup all season long. A return to form by Biggio could help a whole lot.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness