The Bluejays catcher caught a gem from Mitch Ragan on Friday night. (Spomer / WBR)
You could tell in the first inning there was a little something extra for senior righty Mitch Ragan against K-State. His fastball popped into David Vilches’s glove with a ferocity that we hadn’t been witness to all season. If there was a radar gun present for the viewing audience to see we likely would’ve his four seamer tick up into the mid-90’s.
Ragan struck out the first batter he faced. Then he struck out the second. An inning later he’d get his third strikeout, and by the fifth he was up to six K’s.
He worked quick counts and forced himself to get ahead. He got a first pitch strike against 18 of the 24 batters he faced, pounding the strike zone and forcing Kansas State to swing, especially the third time through the lineup. The fact that Ragan managed to throw 98 pitches, 72 of which were for strikes, and failed to walk a single batter allowed him to rely on his pitching coach and his training, noting, “Coach Wordekemper just kept stressing in between innings like, ‘Hey just be really aggressive with your stuff,’ because last week I felt like I was kind of passive with things.”
It seemed to work.
Ragan didn’t allow a runner to touch third base safely in his seven innings of work. Only two baserunners managed to get to second base during that time.
Meanwhile, on the offensive side of the board, the Jays cobbled together all four of their runs in the third inning. With one out, small business owner David Vilches slapped a single past Kansas State’s shortstop through the left side. Will Hanafan drew a walk in the next at-bat, giving Isaac Collins an opportunity to acquire a RBI.
Instead, Collins smacked a single to shallow right, leaving the bases loaded for Parker Upton.
Upton, in the first inning, fell victim to the brand new grenade the NCAA armed umpires with, the heavily criticized judgment call of a batter not showing enough of an effort to get out of the way of a beanball. Upton took a low and inside pitch on the calf with two strikes, tossed his bat towards the dugout, only for the homeplate umpire to call a third strike. It’s the first instance of this rule at TD Ameritrade Park this season and it’s still hot garbage.
This time, Upton wore one on his buttocks and drove in a run. Sweet redemption.
1-0, Jays.
This gave Will Robertson the bases loaded, something no mortal pitcher should ever do, and he pulled a smoking hot liner down the right field line and into the corner for a 2-RBI double. The Wildcats then accepted defeat and intentionally walked Jake Holton to load the bases again. Jack Strunc wore another pitch, a testament to K-State’s ace Griffin Hassall’s control problems, giving the Jays a 4 run fourth inning. Jordan Hovey and Evan Spry failed to acquire a meat unit or a hit, ending the inning, but giving Ragan enough cushion to feel comfortable.
4-0, Jays.
When Ragan’s day was done, John Sakowski came out in the 8th inning to put the second nail in the coffin. Although he allowed a baserunner to get to third, the Bluejay defense came up clutch, as Sakowski managed to induce a ground out and back-to-back pop outs to end the only threat the Wildcats had.
Bobby Kametas put the third and final nail in the coffin in the ninth. He allowed a single up the middle but the Strunc-Collins-Holton connection quickly put an end to that, and Kametas got the final batter to loft a lazy fly ball into shallow left field.
The Bluejays will toss out Denson Hull in Saturday’s affair. It’ll be interesting to see if he can come around and get through the fifth inning for the first time all season.