TAMPA — The physical toll of a gruelling, 162-game grind really hits at this point of the season and a team’s place in the standings can be fuel to power through, or a multiplier for the fatigue and stress. “You always feel better when you’re in it, so whatever you feel, you kind of just don’t feel it, because you’re playing meaningful games; you try to put that on the backburner,” is the way Toronto Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman put it. “Me and Vladdy (Guerrero Jr.) were talking, nobody feels good, but let’s go. That’s kind of what it is right now. Give whatever you’ve got.”
The Blue Jays did that more successfully in the front half than the back half of four dragging, draining days at George M. Steinbrenner Field, where they split a four-game series with the Tampa Bay Rays that was capped by Thursday’s 4-0 loss.
Under mostly cloudy skies and in a soul-sucking humidity that made it feel like 36 C, Chris Bassitt laboured through 89 pitches over 4.1 innings, getting bled for three runs during the decisive second inning. Relievers Eric Lauer, Braydon Fisher and Seranthony Dominguez all came out of the bullpen, which wasn’t ideal ahead of the final series in a stretch of 13 games in 13 days set to begin Friday at Kansas City.
Also not ideal is that the Cleveland Guardians beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1, keeping the Blue Jays’ magic number for clinching a post-season berth at three games, with the status of their lead atop the AL East pending the result of the Yankees-Orioles game later Thursday.
Max Scherzer starts Friday’s opener against the Royals, with manager John Schneider confirming post-game Shane Bieber will follow on Saturday and Trey Yesavage on Sunday.
The Blue Jays need to get their offence back on track after a trying series in which they scored just three runs outside of a 6-5 win Tuesday night.
They had only four hits in the finale and among the most frustrated hitters was Guerrero, who went 1-for-4 to cap a 3-for-17 series. It showed most during a seventh-inning strikeout, when he didn’t like a borderline called first strike, flung his bat over the Blue Jays dugout swinging through strike two and then waving at a Kevin Kelly sweeper for strike three, slamming his bat to the ground afterwards.
Guerrero rallied to single on an infield chopper in the ninth, but Bryan Baker induced an inning-ending double play to close out the win.
The Rays, meanwhile, pressured Bassitt in the first and came up empty before getting to him with two outs in the second, as a Chandler Simpson bloop single plated two runs and a Brandon Lowe grounder just beyond Ernie Clement’s reach made it 3-0.
Bassitt worked his way into the fifth, where he needed Lauer to finish the frame, while the lefty gave up Carson Williams’ solo shot in the sixth.
On a day in which the most notable development for the offence was Anthony Santander’s home run during his rehab assignment at triple-A Buffalo, that was too much to overcome.
