TORONTO – The search for relief help hasn’t really stopped for the Toronto Blue Jays since the off-season, continuing even after they thought the acquisition of Drew Storen would help lock down the end of games. There is no such thing as too much depth, and after parting ways with the right-hander Sunday morning, they certainly can use another layer to support set-up man Jason Grilli and the emerging Bo Schultz in handing leads to closer Roberto Osuna.
That’s why Brett Cecil remains so essential for the Blue Jays as a potential back-end weapon, one who in the past has eliminated left-handed batters, too. A reminder of the impact he can make came during the key bridge seventh inning he delivered in Sunday’s 2-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners, a win that prevented a series sweep. Starter J.A. Happ was impressive in allowing only one hit over six shutout innings, but lacking consistency in his curveball and changeup, needed 103 pitches to work around four walks and a hit-batsman.
Someone needed to get the advantage to Grilli and Osuna and the seventh inning has been a trouble spot all season for the Blue Jays – they’ve lost 11 games they’d led through six frames. That’s bad. On this day, things played to plan, Happ’s career-best 13th win safe and secure.
"The seventh inning is a big inning in most games," said manager John Gibbons. "We’ve had the luxury this year that our starters are so good that they’re pitching in that seventh inning, sometimes into the eighth. That makes it easier on a manager and a team, you keep everybody rested and you’re set up for your go-to guys. That’s not always going to be the case, especially as they get a little bit more tired here down at the end, playing those kinds of teams. …
"When a starter is not quite on or he runs out of pitches, it’s big that you have those guys in the sixth and especially the seventh inning."
Cecil is the ideal candidate for the role, and while Ross Atkins searches for help ahead of the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline, there’s no guarantee he gets someone. And as the GM noted before the game, the bullpen can get better in "two ways – either the performance of these guys can improve or the addition of someone that’s not already in the ‘pen."
Cecil has had his ups and downs over the past three weeks since returning from the disabled list, but retired lefties Seth Smith and Robinson Cano in Friday’s 2-1 loss before throwing his scoreless seventh Sunday, working around a one-out walk to Kyle Seager, whom he might have actually struck out. A 2-2 curveball seemed to catch a lot of plate, but Josh Thole was set up elsewhere and may have lost the call lunging across the dish for it.
The curveball is, of course, the key pitch for Cecil and it looked very sharp Sunday. When it’s on, even if hitters sit on it they can’t do much with the pitch. Finding consistency on that front is pivotal.
"I’m staying over the rubber a little bit longer is one key, and then just the feel I have on my fastball and my curveball, it feels like my hand is on top a little bit more, which is going to make everything sharper," said Cecil. "I just need to keep rolling with it."
On the season, Cecil is 0-6 with a 6.11 ERA and a 1.75 WHIP in 17.2 innings over 26 games, a shock considering he’s been largely dominant in 189 games over the previous three seasons, logging a cumulative 2.67 ERA over 168.1 innings.
He’s recovered from slow starts in previous years and the Blue Jays desperately need him to do the same this year.
"It’s tough when you’re good one outing and the next you’re not," said Cecil. "I’ve talked to Grilli for a few days now about it. As a starter, have a bad start, you have four days to think about it and I thought it would be easier in the bullpen just because you have a bad outing, you get to go out there the next day and fix it. But you string along two or three bad outings in a row and then the mental side of it comes into play and it’s really tough to get over whatever you need to get over. I had a good start in 2013 when I first got into the bullpen and really didn’t have to deal with a whole lot of adversity. …
"Once you establish yourself out of the ‘pen as pretty much a two-pitch pitcher, trying to set hitters up and having them not realize what count you’re going to throw a certain pitch, it gets a little bit tougher. You’ve got to continue to mess hitters up, mess with their heads and mix it up as best you can."
After the seventh, things went to plan, as Grilli threw a clean eighth, helped by Darwin Barney’s diving stab on a Nori Aoki liner down the third-base line, and Osuna locked things down in the ninth for his 20th save, before a crowd of 47,488. The Blue Jays needed precisely such a win after getting pounded 14-5 Saturday, a day that left their bullpen in tatters.
"The job the pitchers did today was unbelievable, it’s something we needed," said slugger Edwin Encarnacion. "Happ did a great job and all three guys that came from the bullpen did a great job, too. It was good for us."
Offence was at a premium as the Blue Jays couldn’t do much against Wade Miley. Encarnacion opened the scoring with a solo shot to centre-field in the fourth, his 27th of the season giving him 224 with the Blue Jays and moving him past Vernon Wells for third most in franchise history.
The Blue Jays extended that lead in the sixth when Thole led off with a double, took third on Barney’s grounder to first even though Dae-Ho Lee’s throw across the diamond beat him by plenty, and scored when Josh Donaldson hit into a double play.
The only real Mariners threat came in the fourth when Chris Iannetta walked and Robinson Cano was hit by a pitch to open the inning. Happ went 2-0 on Nelson Cruz before fighting back for the strikeout, then caught Lee looking and got Seager on a foul popper to end the frame.
"The fastball is my best pitch so I tried to use that and get ahead with that," said Happ. "When you’re not hitting on your other stuff, sometimes you have to rely on that, but that will only take you so far, too. I was trying to really locate there and mixing it up enough with a changeup helped."
Happ and the bullpen held things down from there – and more innings like the one Cecil provided will make consistently winning games such as this one much easier for the Blue Jays.