Blue Jays take-aways: Higashioka goes Babe Ruth, Cole outduels Ray

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/04/2021 (1673 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Monday’s Blue Jays-Yankees game:

WORTH THE WAIT

Robbie Ray, the first free-agent signing of the off-season by any team, bruised his left elbow in a fall down the stairs while carrying his child earlier this spring, derailing the Blue Jays’ plan to hand him the ball for the second game of the season, in the Bronx.

After missing the first nine games of the year, the lefty’s first start wound up coming against the Yankees anyway, and it went pretty well.

Ray was untouchable early. He didn’t give up a hit through the first four innings, keeping hitters off-balance with a fastball that touched 97 miles per hour and an often-filthy slider that got him a couple of early swings-and-misses to set the tone.

There were three walks, but one was erased by a double-play ball that followed immediately after.

Free passes are always going to be an issue for the southpaw, but as long as they’re not completely out of control like they were last year, he’s got the stuff to work around them. When the Jays traded for Ray at the deadline last season, he was leading the majors with 31 walks in 31 innings. He got that walk rate down to 5.7 per nine innings after the trade, and walked fewer than one batter every other inning in spring training.

The Yankees only gave Ray trouble in one frame, his last. Ray gave up three straight hard-hit balls to the bottom of the New York lineup in the fifth, two singles sandwiched by a long Kyle Higashioka home run to the opposite field. He left on another ground-ball double-play, a very strong start to what the Jays hope will be his best year since 2017, when he was an all-star.

IF YOU DON’T GET HIM EARLY …

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole allowed four of the first seven hitters he faced to reach base. After scoring a run in the first inning, the Jays had runners at first and second with nobody out in the second, threatening to blow the game open, but the hard-throwing righty slammed the door shut right then and there.

Rowdy Tellez had the Jays’ second-inning single, which followed a leadoff walk to Lourdes Gurriel Jr., back in the lineup following a couple of days on the sidelines as he dealt with some side effects of receiving the COVID vaccine.

Tellez’s single, an absolute missile right up the middle at 108.7 miles per hour off the bat that almost Charlie Brown’d the pitcher, was his first hit of the season, snapping an 0-for-28 that went all the way back to last year. It was also the last sniff the Jays would get against the big righty.

Cole struck out the next three hitters he faced — Alejandro Kirk, Josh Palacios and Marcus Semien — to escape the second inning unscathed, then retired another 12 batters in a row before leaving after six with a one-run lead.

GETTING HIGGY WITH IT, AGAIN

Higashioka, the Yankees’ backup catcher, came into Monday night’s game a career .192 hitter, with 10 home runs in 198 big-league at-bats.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Dan Lett | Not for Attribution

Tuesdays

A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world.

Sign up for Dan Lett | Not for Attribution

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

So who else would be the hitting hero? He took Ray deep to get New York on the board, then belted his second homer of the game — and the season — off Ryan Borucki in the eighth to provide some insurance. He wound up driving in all the Yankee runs in their 3-1 series-opening victory.

Higashioka, who turns 31 next week, now has 12 home runs on his big-league resumé and five of them have come against the Jays, in only 43 at-bats.

He’s a career .279 hitter against the Jays, with an outstanding .674 slugging percentage. Against everybody else he’s hitting just .177, slugging a measly .354.

Higashioka isn’t a free agent until after the 2024 season, just in case you were thinking that it might be a good idea for the Jays to start recruiting now.

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