{"id":867131,"date":"2026-08-22T07:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/867131\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T07:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:32:09","slug":"arrighetti-shows-promise-in-blue-jays-debut-but-bats-falter-in-loss-to-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/867131\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrighetti shows promise in Blue Jays debut but bats falter in loss to Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014\u00a0About 30 minutes prior to Friday\u2019s first pitch, Spencer Arrighetti<\/a> walked slowly out to left field at Yankee Stadium, just as a starter would. Once there, he went through his typical pre-start warm-up routine. Stretching, long toss, mentally locking in.<\/p>\n

But as the bottom of the first inning began, he wasn\u2019t on the game mound. He was on the one in the bullpen, throwing warm-up pitches while Mason Fluharty, an opener, threw ones that count.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> opted to begin another bullpen game \u2014 a common, oft-successful strategy for the club over the last several seasons \u2014 starting its best left-handed reliever against a New York Yankees team that regularly stacks left-handed hitters atop its lineup.<\/p>\n

But Yankees manager Aaron Boone had a counterpunch waiting, writing out a batting order he hadn\u2019t used all season that began with a string of right-handed hitters \u2014\u00a0Paul Goldschmidt, Amed Rosario, and Heliot Ramos. George Lombard Jr \u2014 another righty \u2014 lurked in the five-hole behind Ben Rice, putting Fluharty in an awfully disadvantageous position.<\/p>\n

Goldschmidt flew out ambushing Fluharty\u2019s first pitch of the game, but Rosario walked on four pitches and was immediately replaced with the left-handed hitting Jazz Chisholm Jr. at first base. Fluharty got a groundball hit too softly for a double play out of Ramos, but promptly walked the lone lefty in the string \u2014\u00a0Rice \u2014\u00a0on five pitches before being lifted.<\/p>\n

Point Boone. Toronto\u2019s opener faced 75 per cent of his hitters with a platoon disadvantage and walked a pair while its bulk arm was forced to begin his night with two runners on. The cost for the Yankees was burning a bench spot; but the Blue Jays burned a leverage left-hander in turn.<\/p>\n

Credit Arrighetti for entering that uncomfortable situation pumping the zone, going right after Lombard and striking him out on four pitches. But New York\u2019s tactics paid off in the second, as Arrighetti began the inning facing a pair of left-handed hitters \u2014\u00a0Trent Grisham, who walked, and Spencer Jones, who lifted an elevated cutter 395 feet skyward along the right-field line.<\/p>\n

First base umpire Dan Iassogna took a good, long look at it travelling over the foul pole and judged the ball as a homer. And upon crew chief review, there presumably wasn\u2019t enough evidence to overturn the call, which was upheld. Arrighetti retired the next three batters he faced \u2014\u00a0all righties \u2014 but the damage was done. Boone\u2019s gambit paid off with two early runs.<\/p>\n

On a night when he had Cy Young frontrunner Cam Schlittler starting, that was liable to be enough. Yet Schlittler was decidedly less than his best self, lacking control and command while earning little whiff and chase. The Blue Jays encountered a rare opportunity against one of the game\u2019s best arms on an off night. But a bottom-five offence sputtered and sparked, letting Boone\u2019s early-game maneuvering prove the difference in a 3-1 defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Boonie said in spring training he’s the least analytical manager in the league. Pinch runner in the first with that lineup construction,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said with a wry grin. “We wanted Spence at Lombard no matter what. And I think if you can limit the walks \u2014 they’re built on walks and homers. And that was the difference today.”<\/p>\n

Arrighetti, meanwhile, allowed three runs on three hits and two walks while striking out four in his Blue Jays debut, facing 15 hitters over 3.1 innings. He threw more fastballs \u2014 both four-seamers and sinkers \u2014 than he did earlier this season in place of fewer curveballs and changeups. That appeared to be an effort to work ahead more consistently, as he started over half the batters he faced with fastballs for strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arrighetti\u2019s first-pitch strike rate entering the night was 53.4 per cent, which ranked 159th of the 160 MLB pitchers to throw at least 70 innings this season. But Friday against the Yankees, Arrighetti started 11 of the 15 he faced \u2014\u00a073.3 per cent \u2014 with a strike.<\/p>\n

“That’s music to my ears,\u201d Arrighetti said. \u201cThat’s the one thing that I’ve been really harping on myself about since going on the IL \u2014 coming back a better version of myself that’s really aggressive in the strike zone early and putting myself in a good position to take those counts even deeper and get more leverage on guys. Because I feel like I’m a really dominant pitcher when I do that.”<\/p>\n

Offensively, it was a night of missed opportunities for the Blue Jays, who went 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position. Brett Bateman<\/a> fell a homer short of a cycle, Jesus Sanchez did what he does against righties with two hits, and Alejandro Kirk<\/a> continued being one of the hottest hitters on the planet with an RBI single and two walks. But plenty was left on the table.<\/p>\n

After Schlittler breezed through his first two innings, Blue Jays hitters did their pesky best in the third and fourth, forcing him to throw 26 pitches in each. Myles Straw was particularly persistent, working the Yankees ace for a walk in the third and an eight-pitch battle in the fourth. But Toronto had to live with the consolation prize of merely running up Schlittler\u2019s pitch count as he escaped both frames unharmed.<\/p>\n

Bateman led off the fifth by shooting a double into the left-field corner before Kirk \u2014 who else? \u2014\u00a0finally broke through, sticking with a 98-m.p.h. fastball away and bouncing it into right to cash Toronto\u2019s first run. But Toronto otherwise allowed Schlittler to escape jam after jam and stranded runners in scoring position against the three relievers that followed him. A good-enough-to-win effort from six Blue Jays pitchers couldn\u2019t overcome an all-too-familiar night from its offence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just need the big hit,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cBut (Schlitter\u2019s) good. He’s one of the best pitchers in the league and kind of leaned into the four-seamer with guys at third. It was tough for us. But I like the way we grinded him. Didn’t strike out much and definitely had our chances. Just didn’t come through when we needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Toronto\u2019s coaching staff has proven quite adept at strategizing and managing these bullpen days over the years. Less than a week ago, they used seven pitchers \u2014\u00a0none of whom faced more than seven batters \u2014 to hold the Yankees to only a run on four hits. And less than a year ago, they eliminated the Yankees from the post-season with an eight-pitcher effort in which no one was on the mound for longer than 1.2 innings.<\/p>\n

But the cleanest route to victory is always through a traditional starter. In the age of the 13-pitcher roster limit, with the league\u2019s relentless 162-game schedule a 1960\u2019s relic that\u2019s persisted despite the physicality and intensity of the modern game rendering it borderline reckless, the tax a relief corps pays for regular bullpen days is untenable.<\/p>\n

Which is why Arrighetti is likely to take Toronto\u2019s fifth rotation spot as a starter going forward. His deployment from the bullpen Friday was part strategic, part circumstantial due to his volume being limited as he returns from a Morton\u2019s neuroma bout that kept him on the IL for a month.<\/p>\n

But after 61 pitches Friday, Arrighetti ought to be able to push it further towards the 75-pitch range his next time out. And soon, the Blue Jays can let him ride. He reached 100 pitches three times for the Astros earlier this season, pitching into the sixth inning in over half of his 16 starts.<\/p>\n

That ought to put an end to the Blue Jays bullpen days for now. For good? Don\u2019t kid yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014\u00a0About 30 minutes prior to Friday\u2019s first pitch, Spencer Arrighetti walked slowly out to left field…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":["post-867131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}