Romano seeks sustainable success with Blue Jays
Ontario Blue Jays and Markham Mariners alum Jordan Romano (Markham, Ont.) has impressed in a relief role for the Toronto Blue Jays in his first major league season. Photo: Matt Antonacci
September 4, 2019
By J.P. Antonacci
Canadian Baseball Network
J.D. Martinez. Shohei Ohtani. Andrew Benintendi. Ronald Acuña Jr., Mike Trout.
They’re some of the best hitters in the game, and they also share the distinction of being among Blue Jays rookie reliever Jordan Romano’s strikeout victims.
Romano, the one who almost got away via the Rule 5 draft – and it’s a fair bet the Texas Rangers are kicking themselves after returning the Markham, Ont. native to Toronto in the spring – has pitched himself into the conversation as a key bullpen building block.
In eight appearances over two stints with the big club so far this season, Romano has struck out 15 in nine innings of work and only allowed three hits – though two were home runs, which mainly accounts for his 4.00 earned run average. His WHIP sits at an impressive 0.89.
The numbers tell one story. But Romano is also acing the eye test by not looking overmatched against the league’s most feared sluggers.
“Guys like that, you can’t be afraid to go after them,” Romano said of his showdown against Acuña at Rogers Centre last week.
“If you’re afraid to go after them, you’ll get in bad counts, hitter’s counts. So a guy like that, we’ve seen what he’s done throughout the year, but you’ve just got to attack and go after him with the thought that you’ll be successful.”
Romano ended up getting Acuña to swing through a high fastball for strike three.
“That’s where I like to live, fastballs up in the zone,” he said. “I’ve shown a can get a lot of these really good hitters out, so I’ve just gotta keep doing that.”
But he doesn’t win every battle, and is learning from those failures.
“Up here, if you make bad pitches they’re definitely just going to make you pay more,” Romano said. “I feel like these players are able to control the (strike) zone a little bit more, so they don’t chase as much.”
Romano explained that triple-A hitters will swing through sliders away or fastballs up out of the strike zone, whereas big leaguers will take those pitches for balls.
“So I have to work the zone a bit more. I can’t be scattered,” he said. “My main goal is just to attack and put the pressure on them, and take it off me.”
After each appearance, Romano heads to the video room to get real-time feedback on his pitches.
“If something’s not working that well, I try to see why. Or if something was really working, I want to see how to continue doing that,” he said.
There’s more to determining what pitches are working than looking at the outcome of each at-bat, he added.
“It’s not really if I get the guy out, it’s if I’m throwing the pitch how I want to throw it. I can throw a low and away fastball and the guy hits it, and I’m perfectly okay with that. I executed what I wanted to,” he said.
“So I’m not really results-orientated. It’s more the process and making sure I’m doing the right things to have sustained success. Because I could be getting guys out and having good innings, but if I’m not pitching to my strengths and executing pitches, it’s not going to be sustainable.
“At the end of the day, if I pitch my game, I can do pretty well here.”
Romano’s Toronto debut in June was cause for great celebration in his hometown, and since then, his parents Joseph and Cynthia have been regulars at Rogers Centre.
“They’ve been to every game,” Romano said with a smile. “They always watch the games even when I’m not playing, and now that I’m playing they come pretty much every game.”
As an added bonus, Romano has been able to wake up in his own bed in Markham on some game days.
“Two days ago, I went home, spent the night there, woke up and ate breakfast at my house. Couldn’t ask for much more,” he said.