‘He’s just a different bird.’ Blue Jay Robbie Ray is building a strong case for the AL Cy Young award

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This article was published 04/09/2021 (1510 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For most of this season, the American League Cy Young Award conversation has been a two-horse race.

New York Yankees right-hander Gerrit Cole, after a mid-season blip following baseball’s crackdown on foreign substances, is back at the top of his game with his club in pursuit of a playoff spot. He leads the major leagues with 215 strikeouts (12.5 per nine innings) and sits first in the AL with 14 wins, a 0.97 WHIP and 5.2 FanGraphs wins above replacement.

Chicago White Sox right-hander Lance Lynn, now expected to miss at least one start with a knee injury, tops all qualified AL pitchers with a 2.59 ERA and 163 ERA+ for the runaway leaders in the Central Division.

Enter Robbie Ray, the Blue Jays’ under-the-radar ace and AL pitcher of the month for August.

Pitching coach Pete Walker says no one is hotter than Ray right now, while Pat Hentgen — who won the 1996 Cy Young as a Blue Jay — believes the left-hander has the right approach to overtake the early favourites, with enough time to pull it off.

Like Cole and Lynn, the 29-year-old Ray — who signed a one-year, $8-million (U.S.) deal on the first day of free agency to little fanfare — has put up some eye-catching numbers: first among AL pitchers in Baseball Reference wins above replacement (6.1), and second in four other major categories that voters pay attention to: ERA (2.71), strikeouts (202), WHIP (1.01) and innings pitched (159 1/2).

Ray’s consistent, elite performance heading into another key start in Sunday’s series finale against the Oakland Athletics at the Rogers Centre is one of the main reasons why a young Jays team is playing meaningful baseball in September. Walker generally doesn’t talk about personal accolades, but made an exception for Ray.

“I’ve watched from afar the other guys and I’ve seen (Ray) on a daily basis, so I’m a little biased,” said Walker, “but I do think he is at the top of his game right now. And I think if you ask opposing hitters who the best pitcher in baseball is right now, I think they would say Robbie Ray.”

It was Walker who first touted Ray — acquired in a trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks last summer before re-signing — to Hentgen, now a special assistant to the Jays’ front office.

“I said, ‘Hey, what’s that Robbie Ray like?’ and he just said, ‘Oh, you’ll love him,’” Hentgen recalled this past week. “Getting a ringing endorsement like that from the pitching coach and then watching him go out there and perform. Heck, man, it’s just a raw athleticism, an aggressive style. His stuff is as good as anybody’s in the American League, you could argue, and he’s maintained it for a long time.”

Hentgen’s Cy Young race also pitted him against a Yankee — Andy Pettitte — and the vote was second-closest ever at the time (110-104). That’s why Hentgen believes September can change the course of the conversation.

“There’s a lot of baseball left,” he said. “It’s about finishing strong. Going down the stretch and having a really good, strong September, I think, leaves a really good taste in the voters’ mouths as the season ends.”

Something close to his August performance (1.76 ERA, 52 strikeouts, eight walks in 41 innings over six starts) would accomplish that.

Neither Hentgen nor Walker thinks the award race will have any effect on Ray’s performance the rest of the way.

“He’s just a different bird,” Walker said. “He’s humble. He doesn’t get rattled. He’s just going to be the same guy no matter what. That’s the only reason I’m talking about it. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t.”

One distinct element Walker would like Cy Young voters to consider is the fact that Ray had to pitch in hitter-friendly ballparks in Dunedin, Fla. and Buffalo before the Jays were allowed to return to Toronto for home games, starting July 30.

A knock against Ray’s campaign has been the hard contact he gave up earlier in the season. He conceded 11 home runs in nine home dates at the two minor-league stadiums, but has given up just two in five starts at the Rogers Centre.

“They’re finally in a decent pitcher’s park, and I think you’re seeing results that are more in the lines of where they should be,” Walker said. “I think some of the contact early was because of the situation we were in, to be honest with you.”

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Ray says being mentioned in Cy Young talk is humbling, but he isn’t too concerned with the hype.

“My main focus right now is to just try to block out all the noise, continue to go and put up zeros for my team,” he said Friday.

From there, everything else may just fall into place.

“He’s on a roll,” Walker said. “He knows who he is right now, he knows what he needs to do and I just get out of the way.”

Laura Armstrong is a Star sports reporter based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @lauraarmy