TORONTO – Thursday marked exactly two weeks since the Toronto Blue Jays’ players called a team meeting following a loss to the Rays in Tampa Bay. It was in the wake of a dismal stretch that saw the club drop nine of 11 games and the vibes around the team were objectively bad.
When people say the baseball season is long, though, there’s a reason for that. Just look at the vibes around the club right now.
The Blue Jays are back on the high end of their season-long roller-coaster, adding to the ride with Thursday’s 3-2 win over the Houston Astros at Rogers Centre.
The victory, helped by a strong outing from Jose Berrios and a clutch, go-ahead single from Brandon Belt, allowed the Blue Jays to take three of four in the set against the defending World Series champions while also capturing the season series, which could prove meaningful in any tie-breaker scenarios this October.
Since the team meeting — after which Blue Jays third baseman Matt Chapman said, “We’re all grown men here. It’s up to us. We’re the ones on the field.” — the Blue Jays have gone 10-3. Two of those losses were charged to Alek Manoah, whose increasing struggles ultimately landed him in the Florida Complex League this week.
On Thursday, Berrios continued his dominant stretch of starts with six solid innings. The only damage against him came in the second frame when Alex Bregman led off by depositing an 0-1 slurve into the left-field stands. Berrios walked Kyle Tucker on the next at-bat, and the Astros strung together two hits to load the bases. Berrios then induced a double play from Jake Meyers that allowed a run to score and ended the frame by getting Martin Maldonado to ground out.
In total, the Blue Jays right-hander allowed just the two runs on four hits over six innings. He walked two, struck out two and relied on his defence, which also helped him out with a nifty inning-ending double play in the third.
Blue Jays hitters were mostly stifled for the first four innings by Astros left-hander Framber Valdez, who entered the day fourth in the majors with a 2.16 ERA. The lineup finally broke through though in the fifth, though, when Daulton Varsho and George Springer led off with consecutive walks. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. later walked, loading the bases for Chapman, who grounded to the ball back to Valdez and reached on a fielder’s choice.
Alejandro Kirk followed that up with a run-scoring, ground-rule double to tie the game at 2-2, then Belt singled to right field to drive in Chapman for the go-ahead run. Kirk was gunned out sliding into home to end the inning.
Belt’s contribution against Valdez was significant there — the left-handed hitter entered the game having faced a southpaw just 11 times on the season and recorded only one hit against them.
Belt started off the season slowly but looks to have turned a corner, recording seven hits (three doubles and two home runs) in his last five games. Blue Jays manager John Schneider gushed about the veteran prior to Thursday’s game, noting that Belt has remained steady no matter what the situation.
“What you see is what you get with Brandon,” Schneider said. “It’s been the exact same since the day he walked into the complex in Florida. I remember back in early in the year when he was struggling and didn’t have a lot of at-bats under his belt. He was the same dude. So, it’s, I think, a credit to him. He’s been around for a while. He kind of knows how long the season is. But he’s been the same MVP-calibre guy as he has been all year.”
There’s that talk of a long season, again. The old adage rings true and, fortunately for the Blue Jays, the team is a long way from where it stood just two weeks ago.
NOTES: Blue Jays centre-fielder Kevin Kiermaier, who was hit in the left wrist by a 95-m.p.h. sinker from Valdez in the second inning, was lifted from the game in the fourth inning. He underwent precautionary X-rays for the what the team called a left wrist contusion and they came back negative for a fracture.
