Marco Estrada delivers a pitch against the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre on Monday.Dan Hamilton
The Blue Jays bullpen was running on fumes.
The bullpen retreat out in left field should have been equipped with a revolving door on Sunday when Toronto trotted out a total of six relievers during an 11-inning marathon against the Boston Red Sox.
And for all that effort, Toronto still wound up losing.
The day before, the Blue Jays used four relievers in the game.
"We're really strapped, really strapped," Toronto manager John Gibbons acknowledged before his team took the field Monday night to play the first of a three-game series against the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre.
You know when Gibbons repeats himself that he really, really means it.
So the onus was on Marco Estrada, the Toronto starter against New York, to go deep in the game and allow the rubber arms in the bullpen to enjoy some R&R.
And Estrada responded, magnificently so, stifling the Yankees (24-26) on three hits through eight innings of precision pitching to help lead the Blue Jays (27-26) to a 4-2 victory before a crowd of close to 33,000 at Rogers Centre.
"He was great – again," Gibbons said of Estrada after it was all said and done. "The exact outing we had to have."
With the win over their American League East division rivals, the Blue Jays have gained the upper hand as they try for a fourth straight series victory.
Estrada was dominant, allowing no runs and just six New York baserunners over the course of his work, only one of them managing to get as far as third base.
Estrada struck out six in the game to improve to 3-2 on the year.
To ease their bullpen fatigue, the Blue Jays earlier in the day recalled righty reliever Ryan Tepera from their Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo, and he managed to beat the traffic to be in uniform on time.
For Tepera, the move marked his third recall from the minors this season. In five games for the Bisons on his most recent minor league stint, Tepera compiled nine scoreless innings in five outings.
To make room on their 25-man roster, the Blue Jays designated for assignment utility player Jimmy Paredes.
For the New York game, Gibbons said he had Tepera available out of the bullpen and a couple of lefthanders in Chad Girodo and Aaron Loup, and possibly Jesse Chavez.
Drew Storen (gulp!) was the erstwhile closer, with Roberto Osuna, who had seen action in five of Toronto's last seven games, taking a well-deserved breather.
It being Memorial Day, the Yankees and the rest of the U.S.-based Major League Baseball clubs that were playing were wearing specially designed camouflage caps and jerseys in honour of the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Blue Jays wore a camouflage design based on what was referred to as the Canadian Disruptive Pattern favoured by soldiers in the Canadian Forces.
In Estrada, Gibbons had just the right guy starting on the mound to eat up innings and protect the bullpen. Estrada came into the game averaging 6.5-innings per start.
Three times in his previous nine outings, Estrada had gone seven innings and once held on for eight.
And Estrada was true to form, efficiently mowing down a surging Yankees outfit that had won 15 of its previous 23 games to remain in the mix in the tight AL East standing.
A leadoff single by Jacoby Ellsbury to start the game and a Carlos Beltran single in the fourth were all the Yankees had to show for themselves against Estrada through the first six innings.
Estrada also allowed a double off the bat of Aaron Hicks in the eighth, and that was it.
The Blue Jays, meanwhile, started fast against Ivan Nova, the New York starter, with Edwin Encarnacion doubling home Josh Donaldson all the way from first base for a 1-0 Toronto lead through one.
Encarnacion has now recorded a run-batted-in in six straight games.
The burly designated hitter got busy again in the third when his ground out to shortstop scored Ryan Goins, who doubled leading off the inning.
Toronto tagged on another run before the inning was over with Michael Saunders stroking a double that scored Jose Bautista that made the score to 3-0.
Goins, who entered the game batting a puny .151, then showed his might in the fifth when he took Nova the other way to left field for a lead-off home run that pushed Toronto's advantage to 4-0.
For Goins, who got the start at second base, it was his third home run of the season and just his second multi-hit game.
He also laid down a nice sacrifice bunt with none out in the seventh to move Kevin Pillar to third base. But his effort was wasted as Toronto failed to cash the runner.
"I just found ways to get ahead in the count today, honestly," Goins said. "When [Nova] gets ahead in the count he's pretty dangerous with a big curve ball and a good sinker and gets a lot of ground balls. So it just kind of worked out in my favor to get ahead in the count."
Loup came on in the ninth in relief of Estrada, and promptly got into a jam, hitting Carlos Beltran with a pitch before serving up a two-run home run to Brian McCann.
Storen was then called upon to finish things off, but not before giving up a double to Mark Teixeira before getting Starlin Castro on a pop up and striking out Chase Headley to earn the save.