TORONTO -- Through his first seven starts of the season, right-hander Jack Kochanowicz looked more like the version of himself that produced a solid rookie season in 2024, and not the one that struggled through a sophomore slump last year.
But Kochanowicz saw his stretch of strong starts come to an end, as he scuffled through four-plus innings, including a rough fifth frame, in a 14-1 loss to the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre. He had posted a 2.17 ERA over his last six outings, but surrendered seven runs (six earned) on nine hits and two walks without registering a strikeout. It caused his ERA to go from 3.05 to 3.97 in 45 1/3 innings this year.
“There was way too much traffic the whole game, wasn't just that inning,” Kochanowicz said. “I kind of snuck through a couple of the innings there. Just didn't have the swing and miss stuff today. But that's baseball.”
It started out innocently enough with a 1-2-3 first inning, but he dealt with traffic the rest of the way and was mostly able to navigate his way through it until that disastrous fifth inning that saw Toronto break it wide open by scoring seven runs.
He pitched around a pair of two-out singles in the second and a single and a walk in the third, but loaded the bases with nobody out in the fourth after he hit a batter and gave up back-to-back singles. He allowed a run to score on a sacrifice fly from Andrés Giménez, but got Brandon Valenzuela to pop up to short with Zach Neto letting it drop to attempt to fool the runners with the infield fly rule in effect. It didn’t work but Kochanowicz got George Springer to pop up to first to escape further trouble.
He wasn’t as fortunate in the fifth, as he walked Addison Barger to open the inning and gave up a single to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. before uncorking a wild pitch to advance the runners. Kazuma Okamoto and Jesús Sánchez followed with RBI singles to make it a 3-0 lead for the Blue Jays.
Kochanowicz then got Daulton Varsho to hit a comebacker that he fielded cleanly but he never looked to throw to second and took his time throwing to first before making an errant throw that got by first baseman Nolan Schanuel. Okamoto scored on the play and Ernie Clement followed with another single to bring home another run.
“I dropped my arm a little bit,” Kochanowicz said. “I don't think it was the worst throw, but I think the timing of when the runner was coming in, it would have been a really risky grab for him. So just not good.”
Kochanowicz was lifted after having thrown 84 pitches, and lefty Mitch Farris was brought in to try to limit the damage. But Farris served up a three-run homer to Valenzuela to make it a seven-run frame for Toronto.
“He led off the inning with [a walk], and after that it just seemed like everything they touched fell in,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Maybe better execution, but at the end of the day, he minimized hard contact but they do a good job of putting the ball in play and they found holes.”
Kochanowicz’s ability to generate grounders with his power sinker generally helps him get out of jams but his lack of strikeouts can also lead to the big innings. It was reminiscent of last season when he had a 6.81 ERA in 23 starts compared to his rookie year when he posted a 3.99 ERA in 11 outings.
“I think probably more [prone to big innings] than others with the lack of strikeouts, but at the end of the day, if you minimize hard contact, you take your chances,” Suzuki said. “He actually has been getting a lot of swing and miss lately. Just today this team, they don't strike out, they don't swing and miss very often and they found holes today.”
And while the Blue Jays went 8-for-22 with runners in scoring position, the Angels went 2-for-10 and didn’t score until Adam Frazier delivered an RBI single with two outs in the eighth. Frazier had to pitch in the bottom of the inning and surrendered four runs.
“They executed pitches when they needed to,” Suzuki said. “And they found holes and there was nothing we could really do at that point.”