TORONTO — Bowden Francis walked off the mound after retiring Ceddanne Rafaela and escaping a Boston Pink Sox risk within the fifth inning and identical to that, his storybook season was over.
The Toronto Blue Jays starter contributed 5 scoreless innings in Tuesday’s 6-5 loss to the Pink Sox and, with simply 4 video games remaining on the schedule, he received’t take the mound once more in 2024.
Now, with the low season unofficially underway for the right-hander, he can start his reflection course of. And he certain has a whole lot of positives to look again on. Francis’s resurgence has arguably been the very best story of the season for the Blue Jays and it’s additionally altered the trajectory of his profession.
He started the marketing campaign within the rotation and struggled over two begins earlier than a demotion to the bullpen. The 28-year-old was optioned to Buffalo in July and that would have been the purpose the place his season light into obscurity. Nonetheless, it didn’t and when Francis returned a couple of weeks later taking the place of Yusei Kikuchi, he was primarily a special pitcher.
Francis allowed simply three hits over his 5 frames on Tuesday, strolling one and hanging out 4. He didn’t get the win because the Blue Jays’ bullpen coughed up three runs and allowed the Pink Sox to tie the sport within the eighth inning, earlier than right-hander Tommy Nance surrendered three extra runs within the tenth.
Nonetheless, Francis’s begin received’t be forgotten as a result of it put the of entirety on a formidable string of eight begins by which he posted a minuscule 1.33 ERA over 54 innings. That span, after all, included the right-hander shedding two no-hitters within the ninth inning.
As Francis turns his focus to the low season, the topic was additionally a subject of dialog earlier than the sport relating to prospect Orelvis Martinez. The Blue Jays accomplished a procedural transfer on Tuesday, reinstating him from the suspended record and optioning him to their spring coaching complicated.
Martinez obtained an 80-game suspension in June after testing optimistic for a banned performance-enhancing substance, a big blow contemplating the 22-year-old is the Blue Jays’ prime position-player prospect and will’ve benefited from taking part in time following a busy commerce deadline that created loads of house on the major-league roster.
Blue Jays supervisor John Schneider stated the membership doesn’t have a definitive plan in place for the infielder however stated winter ball may very well be an possibility. He added that the membership expects Martinez to be ready to play both second base or third subsequent season.
“It’s an enormous low season for him,” stated Schneider. “We talked about that with him when he was right here and when that unlucky information broke. It’s an enormous low season for him to sort of re-prove to himself, the business, everybody, that he’s a fairly good participant. It’s going to take a whole lot of work, it’s going to take a whole lot of humility and he’s going to should compensate for some at-bats and a few reps that he missed.”