The last time Marco Estrada toed the rubber for the Toronto Blue Jays, the man that started the 2015 campaign in the bullpen as an unheralded offseason edition delivered a gem, scattering three hits and one run over seven and change to earn a victory over the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series.
Sunday in his 2016 debut, Estrada picked up right where he left off.
Taking the mound with the Jays in the midst of a four-game skid, Estrada brought that to a halt in impressive fashion, shutting out Boston over seven innings, allowing just five hits while striking out eight in leading Toronto to a 3-0 win in the series finale.
Estrada’s return and stellar outing couldn’t have come at a better time for the Blue Jays. After shaky outings from Marcus Stroman and R.A. Dickey over the last two games, the veteran’s calming, course correction can set the tone for the second week of the season as the New York Yankees come to town for the first time this year.
In addition to Estrada straight dealing, the bullpen was strong on Sunday as well, with Drew Storen working a one-hit eighth before turning the ball over to Roberto Osuna, who collected three strikeouts to earn his third save of the season in the ninth.
At the dish, it was more of the same for the Jays, which comes with both positives and negatives.
They scored two in the first, with one of those runs coming as a result of a throwing error by Dustin Pedroia, But they only collected three more hits the rest of the way, though they only struck out five times on Sunday, which is an improvement for this squad so far this year.
One of those hits, however, was a solo home run from Josh Donaldson, his fourth of the year. Despite not playing in the field due to a “barking” calf muscle, “The Bringer of Rain” continues to bring the rain, raising his average to .310 with a slugging percentage of .759 through the opening week of the season.
Donaldson’s strong performance so far is offset by continued struggles from Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin and Kevin Pillar, who sports an abysmal .233 OBP to being the year. It’s just one week of action and everyone goes through peaks and valleys over the course of a season, so there is no need to overreact, however this a situation to monitor and a potential concern if things don’t start to turn around soon.
At the end of the day, the Jays are back in the win column, Estrada is back in the rotation and the club gets another chance to see how they measure up with another of their chief rivals this coming week.
Welcome to the baseball season; we’ve got a long way to go.
Player of the Game: Marco Estrada
Who else could it be? With each passing strong performance, former GM Alex Anthopoulos’ acquisition of Estrada from the Milwaukee Brewers looks better and better.
Picked up in a trade for Adam Lind, Estrada has become the steadying force in the rotation every contending team needs and he showed it again on Sunday. Pitching for the first time all season, he was locked in from Jump Street and just shut down the Red Sox, needing just 91 pitches (62 strikes) to get through seven innings.
If he can be this guy all season – not seven shutout innings, but a quality start every fifth day – Toronto will be in good shape.
On Deck: The Jays are off on Monday before opening a three-game set with the New York Yankees at the Rogers Centre on Tuesday. Aaron Sanchez will take the hill for Toronto, while Michael Pineda is scheduled to get the call for the Bronx Bombers, though that might change after getting postponed in Cleveland on Sunday night.
