Myles Straw’s Scoreless Inning Caps Jays’ 11-0 Loss

The Blue Jays lost 11-0 to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday.

They had one hit.

They left one runner on base.

They committed one error.

This was not a baseball game. This was a minimalist art installation called Please Stop Looking At Me.

The hit belonged to Yohendrick Piñango, who went 1-for-3 and therefore became the entire Toronto offence, like a lighthouse operated by one tired raccoon.

Everyone else was standing around in the fog, holding a bat and trying not to make eye contact with the scoreboard.

Then, because baseball has a dark little prop department, Myles Straw pitched.

Not hit.

Pitched.

His batting line said 0 at-bats. His pitching line said 1.0 inning, 0 earned runs, 0 strikeouts.

For a team that had just absorbed an 11-0 one-hit faceplant, this was either comic relief or the sport filing a formal complaint.

The second inning opened a trapdoor

The first inning was scoreless.

That was nice.

A tiny mint on the pillow before the hotel collapses.

In the bottom of the second, Victor Robles singled off Shane Bieber, and Cole Young scored.

A 1-0 game is survivable. A 1-0 game can still be discussed in calm voices by people wearing quarter-zips.

Then Randy Arozarena hit a grand slam off Bieber to left field.

Victor Robles scored. Colt Emerson scored. J.P. Crawford scored.

The Mariners had five runs in the inning, and the Blue Jays had the emotional posture of a folding chair in a wind tunnel.

The score sat at 5-0.

Not impossible.

Just deeply rude.

The problem with 5-0 is that it asks your offence to be present. Toronto’s offence, on this particular Saturday, had apparently been redirected to baggage claim.

The Blue Jays finished with one hit.

One.

That is not a lineup. That is a receipt for gum.

The middle innings brought more weather

There were scoreless innings in the third and fourth, which briefly allowed the mind to pretend that the game had found a parking spot.

Then the bottom of the fifth happened.

Dominic Canzone homered off Bieber to right center field. Randy Arozarena scored.

Now it was 7-0, and the game had become one of those cartoons where the anvil lands, and then a second anvil lands, and then the anvil union files for overtime.

Shane Bieber’s line finished at 4.0 innings, 7 earned runs, and 3 strikeouts.

Nobody needs to make that uglier than it is.

It arrived fully assembled.

In the bottom of the sixth, Canzone singled off Adam Macko, and Colt Emerson scored. Randy Arozarena moved to second.

Then Cal Raleigh homered off Tommy Nance to right field. Randy Arozarena scored. Dominic Canzone scored.

That made it 11-0.

The Mariners had 11 runs on 11 hits.

The Blue Jays had one hit and one runner left on base.

This is the kind of symmetry that should only be allowed in architecture, not in a box score that fans have to read with their morning coffee.

Tommy Nance went 0.1 innings with 1 earned run and 1 strikeout.

Adam Macko went 1.2 innings with 3 earned runs and 2 strikeouts.

Braydon Fisher went 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs and 3 strikeouts.

Toronto’s pitching totals were 9 strikeouts and 11 earned runs.

So yes, there were strikeouts.

There was also a large flaming piano where a baseball game was supposed to be.

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Myles Straw, emergency sprinkler

Then came Myles Straw.

Again: Myles Straw.

The same Myles Straw listed among the batters with 0 at-bats was also listed among the pitchers with 1.0 inning and 0 earned runs.

That is not roster flexibility. That is a sitcom premise.

A position player pitching in an 11-0 game is usually the white flag wearing cleats. It is the team saying, very politely, that everyone would like to stop using the good napkins.

But Straw’s line looked cleaner than the crater around it.

No earned runs.

No strikeouts either, but let us not get greedy. This was not a job interview. This was a man being handed a mop and discovering the floor was technically lava.

Braydon Fisher had already given the Jays a legitimate clean inning with 3 strikeouts, which matters.

Still, the emotional headline is unavoidable.

The Blue Jays lost 11-0, produced one hit, and the last thing everyone remembers is Myles Straw throwing a calmer inning than the evening deserved.

That is funny.

Not happy funny.

More like laughing because the vending machine has started asking you personal questions.

Sunday still exists, unfortunately and thankfully

The standings now say 42-47, a .472 winning percentage, 3-7 in the last ten, L1, division rank 3.

The season stats say 356 runs, 4 runs per game, a .245 batting average, a .692 OPS, and 88 home runs.

Saturday contributed zero runs and one hit to the civic mood.

Today is not an off-day.

The Blue Jays are still in Seattle, with Trey Yesavage listed for Toronto and Emerson Hancock listed for the Mariners.

That is the good news and the bad news.

The good news is that baseball immediately offers another game.

The bad news is that baseball immediately offers another game.

After an 11-0 loss where Myles Straw became the emergency palate cleanser, there is only one sensible request.

Please let the next box score contain more than one Blue Jays hit.

And please do not make us start checking Straw’s availability between innings.