TORONTO – A hoped for by-product of the changes Brandon Morrow made to his pitch mix this spring is that the increased use of his secondary pitches helps alleviate his curious home/road splits.
Though his strikeout and walk rates remained nearly identical whether or not he pitched at Rogers Centre in 2011, his ERA (6.31 vs. 3.07 in 2011), hits per nine innings (9.95 vs. 6.24) and home runs per nine (1.28 vs. 0.82) all spiked at the not-so friendly confines, a trend that continued at similar clips through his first four starts of 2012.
Why the difference, then?
Toronto Blue Jays manager John Farrell explains it simply by pointing to the dome as an unforgiving place for fly ball pitchers, something Morrow has always been. And with him seeking to use his changeup and curveball more so he can induce earlier contact and last deeper into games, the thought is he'll get more ground balls, too, and level his performances regardless of location as a result.
Saturday afternoon, however, Morrow went old school with the more familiar formula of strikeouts, pop ups and fly outs during six shutout innings in a 7-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners that ended a four-game losing streak.
Topping out at 97, Morrow (2-1) struck out nine while allowing five hits with no walks, stranding Kyle Seager's leadoff double in the second and escaping a runners-on-the-corners, one-out jam in the fifth before a crowd of 30,765.
"I went out with the same game plan that we had before, just today I had my good stuff so we went with what was working," said Morrow. "If I was missing location with some fastballs, or if I didn't have as good of a slider as I did, we probably would have went with some more changeups and some curveballs.
"We're going to with our strengths on that day. Today, obviously, it was the strikeout, in Kansas City it was the ground ball, and really mixing it up and changing speeds."
That performance, combined with an opportunistic third inning and Edwin Encarnacion's grand slam in the eighth certainly helped ease the sting of Friday's messy collapse in a 9-5, 10-inning loss, arguably a low point to this point of the season for the Blue Jays (11-10).
They rebounded with a crisp performance – save for Kelly Johnson stumbling around Adam Lind to settle under Miguel Olivo's popper in the fifth only to drop it – to end a four-game win streak for the Mariners (11-11).
"When you get in a rut like that you need something to spark you," said Morrow. "Also, I hadn't pitched well at home this year and didn't pitch well at home last year, I needed to get it going here at the Rogers Centre, too."
A three-run third, fuelled by Seager's fielding error on Jose Bautista's sharp grounder, carried them for most of this one. The fielder's choice on a potential double play ball allowed Yunel Escobar to score the game's first run, while an RBI double from Lind and sacrifice fly from Encarnacion tacked on some insurance against Kevin Millwood (0-2).
The five RBI pushed Encarnacion's total to a team-high 19, eight more than Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus.
"He's carried this offence pretty much the whole month," said Lind.
Staked to a 3-0 lead Morrow took things from there, recording four outs on fly balls, three more on pop ups and two others on the ground to complement his nine strikeouts.
Those ratios on balls in play are off what they had been in his previous four starts, when 47 per cent of the balls put in play against were on the ground, up 11 per cent from last year. His fly balls were up slightly at 36 per cent from 30, though his line drives were down to nine per cent from 24 in '11.
That's been the plan, according to pitching coach Bruce Walton.
"Using his secondary pitches, forcing contact keeps the ball on the ground a little bit more," he explained. "We've got more ground balls this year, we've got more double plays this year and we're hoping this style of pitching keeps the ball on the carpet here a little more.
"Rather than getting 12-14 outs in the air, hopefully we get six on the ground, six in the air."
He lost both his previous home starts earlier this month, so either way the Blue Jays will take it. Morrow is now 14-10 with a 4.51 ERA in his career at the dome.
"In the past, fly-ball pitchers don't fare so well here, the ball travels very well as we've seen this season, and that's basically it," said Walton. "When he gets to bigger ballparks, he gets a lot more outs, and the day he pitched in Kansas City, he still got some fly ball outs, but they might be a can of corn, as we say. Here they're in the front row of the seats, so the park didn't fit his style of pitching.
"He's become a more complete pitcher now so we're hoping that changes."
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JPA'S BLUNDER: While it was third baseman Brett Lawrie's throwing error that opened the door for Seattle's comeback win Friday night, it was catcher J.P. Arencibia's errant pickoff attempt to first base that really drew manager John Farrell's ire.
The reason for that is Farrell doesn't mind aggressiveness, but only when the time is right. In the ninth inning when trying to nurse a one-run lead, it's probably not the time for, "a high-risk, high-reward play."
"In the ninth inning, up by a run, you're looking to take care of the baseball, and protect," he said. "If that means being conservative, you want to make plays that are high-probability plays."
For his part Arencibia said Friday that he was playing to win and wouldn't be deterred from trying that again.
He hadn't said that to Farrell, whose response was: "I commend J.P. for his aggressiveness and his belief in his abilities to throw the baseball. It's teaching the game situation and making the decision in the moment with the factors in mind, time of the game, score, where we are in the lineup, all those things. …
"We certainly don't hold players back from being aggressive. We promote their aggressiveness. But there comes a point in time that the game situation that's in front of us, and executing to that situation, takes precedence."
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SNIDER OK: The Blue Jays received good news on Travis Snider's jammed right wrist, as an MRI and X-rays revealed no fractures or any serious damage. "He's probably seven days 'til game activity," said Farrell.
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NOTES: Explaining what happened on the mixup with Johnson, Lind said: "I was there, he's got priority, he called it so I tried to get out of the way and didn't get out of the way, he tripped, then I saw him stumble and I was like, 'Oh God.' Then he caught himself and I thought he was going to catch it and then I looked back and it popped out. Just one of those freak things where he tripped over my leg." … Over the past two starts from Morrow, Farrell says "the late action to his slider, particularly, and the power to his fastball have increased. That's not uncommon for a power pitcher, you're going to see them four weeks into the season really hit stride, and that's what has taken place with Brandon." … Shortstop Branden Ryan struck out in both his at-bats against Morrow and was among the Mariners to come away impressed. "He's got good stuff, you feel like with him, he's going to accomplish whatever he wants," he said. "With that slider and his velocity, he can pretty much be a two-pitch guy. … The slider is 89-90. It's one of the harder sliders you're going to see. When he throws it where he wants to, he pretty much gets the result he wants."
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