Blue Jays takeaways: A 4×4 first inning against the Rays — four strikeouts and four runs

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This article was published 23/04/2021 (1663 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Friday’s Blue Jays-Rays game:

Tampa Bay starter Tyler Glasnow struck out four Blue Jays in the top of the first inning, which is a very impressive feat indeed.

The big righty struck out Cavan Biggio on three pitches to start the game, then won an eight-pitch battle with Bo Bichette, ringing up the Jays’ shortstop with a 99 miles-per-hour fastball on a 3-2 pitch.

He also struck out the final two batters he faced — Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., who reached first as catcher Francisco Mejia couldn’t corral a wild strike three, and Danny Jansen.

But what the Jays did to Glasnow between the strikeouts was an impressive beginning to a 5-3 win over the Rays.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. started it with a hard single up the middle with two out and nobody on, then Rowdy Tellez jacked a 100-m.p.h. fastball off the wall in right centre, driving in Guerrero with a double. Randal Grichuk followed with a four-pitch walk and Marcus Semien cranked a three-run homer to left-centre, tying Bo Bichette for the team lead with five big flies.

Glasnow became the first pitcher in more than a century to strike out four hitters and allow four runs in the same inning, and the four runs were enough to tag him with a loss.

• Something’s gotta give: It was another game in which it felt as though you had to grit your teeth on every ground ball hit to the left side of the infield.

Bichette continued his shaky defensive start to the season, making two more errors to bring his team-leading total to five. He hung back on a two-out grounder by Joey Wendle in the fifth that wound up coming up on him, so he couldn’t field it cleanly. With two out in the third, Bichette fielded a routine grounder by the speedy Manuel Margot and sailed the throw toward the plate-side of first base. Guerrero had to come off the bag to secure the throw and tried a swipe tag on Margot as he went by, but Margot’s momentum knocked the ball out of Vladdy’s glove.

It’s far from the first time that Guerrero has had to move into the path of the baserunner to try to make a play, and it’s scary every time he does. The mind immediately flashes back to 1995, when the Expos’ Cliff Floyd reached into the baseline to snare a wild throw from Gil Heredia. Floyd’s arm and the Mets’ Todd Hundley got there at the same time, and the collision resulted in Floyd’s wrist basically exploding. Floyd missed the rest of that season, and wasn’t an above-average hitter again for another two years.

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Bichette again sailed a throw that moved Guerrero into the path of the runner on the final out of the game, but Guerrero was able to avoid a collision and place the tag on Yandy Diaz going by.

The Jays are playing with fire with these bad throws, but there’s no easy solution. Bichette is the shortstop, and while it would be fair to ask him to move off the position if there was a better long-term solution, it’s not likely that they’d have him switch spots with the more accomplished defender in Semien, who is only here for the one season.

Joe Panik, a former Gold Glover, was charged with one error on the night — a poor throw that bounced past Guerrero right after Bichette’s first error — but should have had two. He misplayed a Diaz grounder leading off the bottom of the first that wound up being generously scored a double.

Putting Guerrero at third would improve the overall defence at this point, but that doesn’t appear to be a solution the Jays are willing to consider.

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