NEW YORK -- This feels like the Blue Jays’ blueprint now, a clean-and-tidy game where the pitching stars and the offense chips away.
The 4-3 win over New York at Yankee Stadium pulls the Blue Jays (64-67) to within one game of the final American League Wild Card spot, a game of musical chairs that will continue later tonight when several other contenders are in action.
This is what mattered most:
1. Cease lands his Cy Young counterpunch
This start captured every possible version of Dylan Cease, didn’t it? There were five walks and far too many at-bats that went deep, which drove up Cease’s pitch count, but he was nearly unhittable.
Once again, Cease teased us with a run at a no-hitter, this one carrying through 6 2/3 innings against the Yankees. He would have needed the bullpen’s help either way, but these runs are becoming part of the routine with Cease, who lowered his ERA to 2.37 with the performance.
This comes just one day after Cam Schlittler beat the Blue Jays with six innings of one-run ball, the two AL Cy Young favorites going blow for blow once again. Schlittler still has the lower ERA (2.16) over more innings (158 to 144 1/3), but Cease’s strikeout total -- an AL-best 209 -- is overwhelming. This still feels like a race so tight that one blow-up outing … or one no-hitter … could completely decide the voting down the stretch.
2. Breaking up all those singles
One big swing and a slow jog looked good on Nathan Lukes, didn’t it? His home run in the eighth was a breath of fresh air and some much-needed insurance after the Yankees finally showed some life.
“He’s the type of player you can count on all the time. Nathan is always ready,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “If he’s playing or not playing, maybe coming off the bench, if it’s a big at-bat and we need a big hit or a bunt to move the runner, he’s always ready.”
Otherwise, the Blue Jays mostly stuck to their offensive identity of stacking up singles. It’s working, but how sustainable is this? In the postseason, when you’re facing the best pitchers in baseball, can Toronto still string together 10 singles to win a low-scoring game? That still sounds like a problem for another day, but Saturday afternoon, it worked again.
This style of baseball isn’t impossible to win with. Just look at the Rays, whom we tend to hold up as the model organization for small ball. Tampa Bay does it with speed on the bases, though, which isn’t something the Blue Jays have throughout their lineup.
“It would be nice to get a couple of hits with guys in scoring position or just continue to add on,” manager John Schneider said. “You look up and it’s four runs on 15 hits, you want it to be a little bit more. We had chances but just didn’t get that. Kudos to Nate, that’s a big home run.”
Right now, this offensive style is working because the Blue Jays’ pitching has been sensational. When Cease pitches like this, you don’t need much offense at all, but this offense still needs to show more of what we saw down in St. Petersburg, when it was driving the baseball and leaving the yard. By October, that’s downright necessary. For the next month, it would just make things a whole lot easier.
3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. returns to the lineup
Whether you’re a believer in Guerrero or a pessimist, you saw what you were looking for Saturday in his return from the seven-day concussion IL.
There were some good swings, like a 110.2 mph single into left-center in the third, which looked more like the “real” Vladdy he has been searching for all season. Then, there were some pitches taken over the heart of the plate and a groundout with the bases loaded in the fourth, which Jazz Chisholm Jr. bobbled but still had plenty of time to make the play on Guerrero coming down the line.
“I felt pretty good,” Guerrero said. “Thank God that I feel great, and especially that we won the game.”
The song remains the same with Guerrero. This team desperately needs him, and if Guerrero were performing to an .850 OPS, the Blue Jays would already be sitting comfortably in one of those Wild Card spots.