Dose of throwback baseball brings Blue Jays to a halt

Whenever the 43-year-old Bartolo Colon takes the mound, it’s easy for a baseball game to feel like it’s taking place within a ripple in the time-space continuum.

On Monday, that feeling was amplified for the Toronto Blue Jays in a game that seemed rather short on what tends to define baseball in 2017.

For better or for worse, the dominant trends in the game right now are increased velocity, an accompanying jump in strikeouts, and a home run spike that has led to allegations of juiced baseballs. Those factors were conspicuously absent in the Blue Jays’ 10-6 series-opening loss to the Atlanta Braves that put an end to the club’s five-game winning streak.

The throwback aura surrounding the game originated on the mound. Not only is the man known as “Big Sexy” personally a relic of a bygone era, but working in the mid-eighties he’s also a stylistic throwback in a year where starters are averaging 92.2 mph on their heaters. Countering Colon for Toronto was Mike Bolsinger, who tends to live around 88.

“[Colon] basically throws fastballs at you and he picks the plate apart. So you know what you’re going to get, but sometimes you get a little too aggressive with that but you know there’s probably going to get some contact,” manager John Gibbons said of the pitching matchup. “Same thing with Bolsinger.”

With two pitchers of the mound with thin margins for error, this was a contest decided by which hurler could command the ball better and get better defence from his team. It was readily apparent from the first inning that Bolsinger and the Blue Jays were in trouble on both counts.

The right-hander hit the second hitter he faced – one of three batters he plunked on the day – and later in the frame Matt Kemp was gifted an extra base on a head-scratching errant toss to second by Ezequiel Carrera. He would come around to score a play later on a Nick Markakis single.

In the next inning the pattern repeated. Bolsinger hit Adonis Garcia and his defence gave the Braves another base in the form of a Mike Ohlman error on Garcia’s attempted steal. The third baseman then found his way to the plate on a Dansby Swanson sacrifice fly.

Things didn’t get much better from there for Bolsinger, who never brought his repertoire under control. The 29-year-old managed just 4.2 innings with six runs allowed – five earned – on eight hits, walking three and striking out three.

“The team’s playing so good and hitting the ball so well on a hot streak and I feel like I kind of put that to an end,” the starter said of his rough outing. “If the team puts up six runs for you I think you should come out of the game with a ‘W’.”

Colon, on the other hand, did just enough to keep the Blue Jays from breaking out. The middle-aged wonder was working with velocity as modest as 84-86 mph at times and threw almost exclusively fastballs as usual. Even so, he kept the Blue Jays from throwing up a crooked number in any of his five innings of work and ultimately allowed three runs – two earned – on seven hits with just one strikeout and two walks.

“He doesn’t blow the radar gun up like he used to, but he pitches,” Devon Travis said about facing a pitcher the 26-year-old grew up watching. “He’s got a lot of movement on his fastball and it’s 85 then 90-whatever when he feels like it. He was tough tonight, we got some good pitches to hit – but he does a good job of that though throwing pitches that you go back to the dugout saying ‘man I can’t miss that pitch.'”

Not only was the finesse pitching on display more old-school, so was the offence. Runs weren’t scarce in this game, but the long ball was an afterthought on the night. There were 17 singles and doubles before Freddie Freeman crushed a ball over the centre-field wall for the game’s first home run.

Theoretically, this was the type of baseball the current iteration of the Blue Jays should excel at. With sluggers like Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki and Steve Pearce on the disabled list, this team is absolutely crawling with bench players that make their living putting the ball in play and stealing hits in the field.

In practice, that’s not exactly how this group has performed. Even with a great deal of power sitting on the shelf, the Blue Jays entered Monday’s action with 21 May home runs – tied for the Houston Astros for tops in the major leagues. They even added one to that total in the ninth – a two-run shot from Justin Smoak that was far too little, far too late.

However, by that time the game was well out of reach. This Monday night tilt was decided by the ability to string together hits and preventing your opponent from doing the same – and in both areas the Blue Jays fell well short.