Birdland, meet Jack Flaherty. It wasn’t the flashiest of trade deadline acquisitions. Ignore the inflated ERA and four-and-a-half walks per game, he’s a good pitcher, we were told. Yep. Well, today was our first impression of Flaherty and to quote Ben McDonald, “This was better than good.”
Flaherty put on a six-inning, one-run masterclass in Toronto. He allowed the first two hitters of the game to reach, but then suddenly, his fastball command kicked in and he found his breaking stuff. Flaherty skated through five scoreless innings in just 57 pitches, mowing down fifteen Blue Jays in a row at one point.