Blue Jays takeaways: Battered bullpen delivers in series-opening win over Marlins

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This article was published 22/06/2021 (1868 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 2-1 win in Miami on Tuesday night:

The beleaguered Blue Jays bullpen rose to the occasion rather dramatically on Tuesday. Called in with the game tied 1-1 after starter Ross Stripling was pinch-hit for in the top of the seventh, Tyler Chatwood and Tim Mayza pitched a hitless inning each, maintaining the tie before back-to-back doubles by Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. put the Jays on top in the ninth. Then Jordan Romano slammed the door.

Chatwood appears to be past the miserable two-week run that saw him post a 29.70 ERA in four appearances, over which opponents hit a disturbing .529/.692/.725 against him with nine walks allowed in just 3 1/3 innings.

Tuesday’s hitless and walk-free seventh inning means that opposing hitters are now 0-for-their-last-15 against Chatwood, with no walks. He hasn’t allowed a run in any of his last seven appearances.

Mayza was dominant in the bottom of the eighth, needing only eight pitches to get a groundout and strike out a pair. The lefty appears to have turned a corner as well with a 1.17 ERA in June, allowing a minuscule .185 batting average against, after those numbers were 14.73 and .344 in May.

• Erased on the bases: When Starling Marte beat out a slow roller to shortstop to lead off the bottom of the ninth with the Marlins down by a run, everybody on the field — as well as all 6,291 people in the stands — knew he wasn’t going to be at first base very long.

Even at a baseball-old 32 years of age, Marte still has serious wheels and had 10 stolen bases this season coming into the game, having been caught only once. What made it even more obvious that he was going to take off in an attempt to get the tying run into scoring position was the man on the mound.

Not once in the major-league career of Jordan Romano had a runner attempting to steal a base been caught: 11 times they’d tried, and 11 times they’d made it.

That has nothing to do with Romano’s exaggerated swiveling and bouncing as he gets into his set position, and everything to do with his long delivery: reaching back once he’s into his motion, and a higher-than-average leg kick. The Markham native doesn’t often give his catchers much of a chance to throw runners out.

Marte took off on Romano’s first pitch to the next hitter, Jesus Aguilar, and catcher Reese McGuire never got up from his crouch, planted his right knee on the ground and fired a strike to second base in more than enough time for Marcus Semien to put the tag down for an absolutely huge out.

It was the fifth runner McGuire has thrown out trying to steal in 14 tries this season, putting the Jays’ backstop well above the league average of 23 per cent caught stealing for catchers.

• Springer re-sprung: George Springer’s re-debut was an uneventful one, both on the plate and in the field.

The centre-fielder, who signed a six-year, $150 million (U.S.) contract in the off-season, played 3 1/2 games in late April and early May, but had missed the rest of the season with first an oblique and then a quadriceps injury.

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He declared himself fully healthy and ready to come back to the big leagues and returned in Miami, which means he still hasn’t played a game for the Jays against an American League team.

Springer hit fifth in the order, not wanting to break up what Semien, Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez have been doing in the top four spots, and went 0-for-4 with a fly out, a pop-up and a couple of groundouts.

Playing centre field for the first time this season, not once did Springer touch the ball on defence the entire game as four Jays pitchers combined to allow only five balls out of the infield.

Tune into Mike Wilner’s weekly Blue Jays podcast, Deep Left Field, wherever you get your podcasts.

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