Blue Jays takeaways: Vintage Hyun-Jin Ryu and just enough offence take care of the Tigers

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This article was published 21/08/2021 (1524 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 3-0 win over the Detroit Tigers at the Rogers Centre on Saturday:

The last time the Blue Jays faced teams from the American League Central at the dome, they won six of seven and barely broke a sweat doing it.

That was the Return Home homestand, when the Jays swept the Royals and beat up on Cleveland as part of a 12-3 run, and though only three weeks have passed it seems like it was forever ago.

Having limped home after a brutal 3-6 road trip, the starting pitching at least has picked up right where it left off.

Robbie Ray threw a brilliant eight innings of one-run ball in the series opener Friday night, but got no offensive support. Hyun-Jin Ryu followed Saturday afternoon with an outstanding outing, going seven shutout innings. The big lefty got one more run of support than his teammate did, and this time it held up.

It was another example of the almost clinical dominance that we had gotten used to seeing out of Ryu. Never overpowering — his best fastball of the day clocked in at 93.5 miles per hour, the 53rd-hardest pitch thrown in the game — the southpaw mixed in a heavy dose of changeups with a bunch of cutters and curveballs and limited hard contact. The Tigers only hit two balls harder than 100 m.p.h. off him.

This was the Ryu the Jays signed up for, and one they haven’t seen as often as they’d hoped this season.

Over his last two outings, Ryu had allowed 11 runs on 13 hits in just 10 innings. He’s given up four runs or more in seven starts this season, which equals the amount of times that had happened in the previous three years combined.

As great as the Jays’ offence has been, it has hit a serious speed bump over the past fortnight, so they’re going to really have to ride what should be a tremendous starting rotation in order to make a playoff push. For Ryu, this outing needs to be his jumping-off point for the stretch run.

• Hits wanted: Two big blasts, both to left field, were enough for the Jays to even up the series and that’s a good thing, because the offence didn’t do anything else.

Randal Grichuk belted a first-pitch slider into the seats with two out in the second inning to provide all the runs his team needed. His 21st home run of the season was a welcome sight for a guy who has hit just .196 in August, the home run just his second of the month.

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It stayed 2-0 all the way until the eighth, when Marcus Semien provided some second-deck breathing room, smacking his 30th of the season with two out. It’s the second time in his career that Semien has reached the 30-homer mark. He hit a career-high 33 in 2019.

Grichuk and Semien’s teammates combined for just three singles, only one of which left the infield.

After Friday night’s 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, manager Charlie Montoyo mentioned that some of the hitters might be trying to do too much, something that never leads to baseball success. That showed very clearly in the third inning, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. swung at a 3-and-0 sinker that was in on his hands and hit a ground ball to third for an inning-ending double play. The young slugger, who homered Friday, slammed his bat into the ground in frustration as he ran up the first-base line. It was the sixth double-play hit into by a Jay in a span of 13 offensive innings.

They didn’t hit into a double-play from the third inning on, but then they didn’t have any more runners reach base with less than two out.

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