TORONTO — The Chicago Cubs had men on the corners with two out in the second inning and Zach McKinstry was down 0-2 in the count when Toronto Blue Jays starter Mitch White wound up and Alfonso Rivas broke for second.
Here’s where everyone stood at delivery.
White’s fastball sailed in high for a ball, Alejandro Kirk popped up and fired to second without hesitation and as he did Yan Gomes, already a third of the way up the line with Matt Chapman playing off the bag, broke for home.
By the time the ball got to Bo Bichette at second base, Gomes was already more than halfway home and there was no chance to get an out at the plate, as you can see here.
Wisely, Bichette held the ball, chased Rivas, who pulled up when Kirk threw to second, and relayed to Cavan Biggio who applied the tag to end the frame. Still, Gomes touched home well before the third out, stealing the Cubs a run that opened up a 2-0 lead.
Not great, certainly, but by no means insurmountable. In isolation, not necessarily a big deal, either, because baseball happens and the other team is trying, too. Still, within the context of the current Blue Jays season, the play was emblematic of the small margins in which they’ve sometimes been too loose, making life more difficult if not costing themselves games.
In what ended as a 7-5 loss to the Cubs on Wednesday night, Gomes’ run wasn’t decisive on its own, but in combination with the three-run third White surrendered the next frame, it was an avoidable addition to an early deficit.
The Blue Jays (70-59) rallied from that early 5-0 hole — getting a two-run homer from Biggio in the third and, after a Franmil Reyes solo drive in the fifth made it 6-2, and a three-run shot from Kirk in the sixth — to make it interesting, but never got level again.
Matt Chapman nearly tied it during the sixth when he lined a ball off the left-field wall, but after a Teoscar Hernandez walk, Biggio grounded out to end the frame.
A McKinstry RBI single in the seventh made it 7-5 and Rowan Wick of North Vancouver, B.C., the last of seven Cubs pitchers, closed them out in the ninth before a disappointed crowd of 28,572.
The loss capped a disappointing 2-4 homestand that followed a 6-1 swing through the Bronx and Beantown and sent them into an off-day before a 10-game road trip that begins Friday in Pittsburgh against the lowly Pirates.
A crucial four-game set featuring a Monday doubleheader against the Orioles follows — the Blue Jays were considering ways to reset their rotation to be at their best for that series — before three games at Texas follow, the last soft spot in a meat-grinder September schedule.
