Blue Jays takeaways: Robbie Ray didn’t need much help in sweeping aside the A’s — but he got it anyway

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This article was published 05/09/2021 (1509 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 8-0 win over the Oakland A’s at the Rogers Centre on Sunday:

With the world’s greatest athlete looking on, the Blue Jays scored early and often and laid waste to Oakland, completing a three-game sweep that pulled them into a virtual tie with the A’s in the wild-card standings, one game ahead in the loss column.

London, Ont.’s Damian Warner, fresh off an Olympic gold medal in decathlon in Tokyo, delivered the ceremonial first pitch and then sat back and watched as the Jays sent Oakland rookie-of-the-year contender Cole Irvin to the showers in the third inning following a seven-run barrage.

All the damage was done in the space of a dozen hitters in the second and third. It started with Lourdes Gurriel Jr. playing hero again.

With two on and one out, the red-hot slugger hit a line drive deep to right field and Mark Canha went into the wall pretty hard in pursuit. By the time he’d caught his breath, raced to get the ball and threw it in, Gurriel was standing at third and Alejandro Kirk had scored all the way from first.

The Jays left-fielder has five hits in his last 10 at-bats — a single, double, triple and two homers — and has driven in eight runs.

Randal Grichuk followed with a ground-rule double and the rout was on. Home runs by Marcus Semien (a solo shot) and Kirk (a three-run job) chased Irvin in the fourth and, for the first time in a very long time, the Jays sat back and put it in cruise control the rest of the way.

• Cy Ray? The beneficiary of all the offensive support was none other than the guy who couldn’t buy a run from his hitters for most of August.

The eight runs while starter Robbie Ray was on the mound Sunday were two more than they’d scored for him in his first five starts of August combined, over which time Ray posted a 1.59 ERA and zero wins.

Having a healthy cushion to work with is something Ray is definitely not used to, but he kept putting up zeroes regardless, taking a no-hitter into the fifth inning and leaving to a massive standing ovation from the crowd of 14,988 — the largest to watch a Jays home game anywhere this season.

After 6 2/3 innings of one-hit shutout with 10 Ks, Ray leads the American League in ERA, innings, strikeouts and Baseball Reference’s version of WAR for pitchers. He’s second to the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole (who will face the Jays in the Bronx on Tuesday) in WHIP, Ray’s 0.99 trailing Cole’s 0.97.

So far, that’s a very strong case to be the Jays’ fourth-ever Cy Young award winner.

• Gold glove Grich: While Ray was unquestionably brilliant, he got a little help from his friends, specifically Grichuk in the top of the first inning.

After a pop-up by Josh Harrison to start the game, Ray gave up an absolute rocket to the next hitter, Starling Marte.

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Having been set up just to the right of the 400 marker on the outfield wall, which is already to the right of dead centre, Grichuk got on his horse and sprinted hard toward the gap in left-centre. As he stepped onto the warning track, he reached out, made the catch and tumbled to the ground, crumpling into the padded wall where he was met with a big bear hug from Gurriel.

“I almost fell on the mound, I was so excited,” Ray said after the game. “When he caught that ball, I was just ecstatic.”

The spectacular catch — maybe the best we’ve seen a Blue Jay make all season — was reminiscent of an outstanding grab by George Springer back on July 24 against the Mets off the bat of Brandon Nimmo. The difference is that Marte’s ball was hit harder and about 30 feet deeper, giving Grichuk more ground to cover in less time.

Marte’s 102-mile-per-hour drive had an expected batting average of .750, making the numbers match the eye test.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness