Bats come alive and Jays get their first win of the season

A massive offensive showing in the fourth and debutant Matt Shoemaker’s excellent seven innings led the Toronto Blue Jays to victory over the Detroit Tigers, 6-0.

The offence started to happen for the Jays mid-game, setting up Freddy Galvis to explode as the offensive juggernaut he was always waiting to be.

Randal Grichuk walked on five pitches, Justin Smoak hit a single on a hard line drive to center field and Teoscar Hernandez drove in Grichuk with a single. All with zero outs in the bottom of the fourth.

Hernandez scored the first run of the 2019 season off an absolute slapper up the middle — breaking the streak of 13 shutout innings in the fourth, Grichuk scoring. Boyd was so far pitching an extremely good game, but luckily so was Shoemaker, allowing the Jays to take the 1-0 lead off the Hernandez single.

The bottom of the fourth continued to produce for the home team — Billy McKinney hitting a two-out single up the middle to load the bases and Freddy Galvis took heavy advantage of the situation.

The shortstop blasted a two-run line drive triple to center with the bases loaded that put the Jays up 4-0. It was enough to bat in two runs but Tigers centerfielder Mikie Mahtook bobbled the ball and allowed the third run to score.

Shoemaker’s first innings as a Blue Jay could not have really gone much better — nine up, nine down and striking out four utilizing his nasty slider. Through his first three innings, he already forced 11 swinging strikes. A massive foreshadowing for the four innings that followed.

Unfortunately, Boyd was throwing even better stuff. In just his first three innings, he totaled seven strikeouts and only allowed one hit, causing 13(!) swinging strikes.

Shoemaker allowed his first hit at the top of the fourth, a left-field double from Nicholas Castellanos on his first pitch to the right-fielder.

Castellanos was not done there, unfortunately. Hitting a one-out triple at the top of the sixth but a groundball hit by Miguel Cabrera rolled right into the path of the Jays’ infield and they were able to get him out before he reached home, keeping Shoemaker’s shutout alive.

Shoemaker finished his debut after seven shutout innings, allowing just two hits, two walks, and striking out seven in 87 pitches. A stellar debut from the pitcher that is looking to have a bounce-back year.

The first batter and first hit of the night was a triple by Brandon Drury that was sent to the right-of-center warning track. The following three batters succumbed to Boyd and struck out to leave Drury stranded.

Matthew Boyd was replaced by Buck Farmer at the bottom of the sixth. His final line was 5.0 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, and 10 strikeouts in 85 pitches. Despite his one half inning, the Jays made him look pretty unbeatable.

Javy Guerra came in relief of Shoemaker in the eighth inning, forcing a Jordy Mercer groundout, a Mahtook strikeout, and Josh Harrison to ground out in the eighth. He was able to close out the game with another three up, three down inning. Another successful Jays pitching debut this game.

Galvis’ night did not stop at just his triple in the fourth, he notched a single in the bottom of the seventh as well. It was on a weird play — the pitch previous to his hit caused him to swing heavily and it appears his wrist was injured on the play. I wonder if the Jays have a capable shortstop ready somewhere in the system…

With Galvis on base, Smoak was able to hit a ground ball single on the first pitch of the at-bat, allowing Galvis to score and increase the lead to 6-0.

It appears the Jays really have value in Shoemaker. With a realistic filter, he might just provide a nice return before the deadline this summer if he continues to even somewhat continue his current form.

The “now .500” Blue Jays continue their opening series against the Tigers on Saturday afternoon, first pitch at 3:07pm ET.