LOS ANGELES — On a night where a lot went wrong for the Toronto Blue Jays, their late-inning relief will end up taking the biggest share of blame.
Handing Erik Swanson the ball with a four-run lead in the ninth seemed like a safe move on a night closer Jordan Romano wasn’t available. But the Los Angeles Dodgers got to Swanson right away, squaring up everything he threw until the game was tied.
It didn’t help that second baseman Santiago Espinal stood with the ball in his hand for a moment of hesitation, allowing catcher Will Smith to score the tying run. Later, with the score tied, Mitch White entered to face his former team only to allow a walk-off double to James Outman, the second hitter he faced.
With that, the Blue Jays endured a painful 8-7 loss in front of 47,069 at Dodger Stadium late Tuesday night. As a result, their lead over the Red Sox for the final American League Wild Card spot shrinks to 1.5 games.
It’s a game the Blue Jays should have won, and in a closely contested playoff race these losses all matter.
Granted, there were some positives for the Blue Jays, led by a four-hit game from Bo Bichette, who hit a two-run homer in the third.
Chris Bassitt covered five-plus innings while allowing just two runs before giving way to the recently acquired Genesis Cabrera, who covered two innings punctuated with back-to-back strikeouts of Freddie Freeman and Smith.
In the top of the ninth inning, Danny Jansen pulled a bases-loaded double to left field to give the Blue Jays some welcome breathing room. Remarkably, Jansen’s now third on the team with 44 RBI despite ranking 10th in plate appearances. While Alejandro Kirk started the game and contributed an RBI double of his own, Jansen entered late for the second consecutive day.
Even beyond Bichette’s bat there’s the consistency he offers having played in 101 of the team’s 102 games to date.
Plus, there’s the defensive side of the game. Of the 909.1 defensive innings the Blue Jays have played this year, Bichette has handled 867.1 of them. On that side of the ball he’s been more consistent with just eight errors compared to 23 a year ago and 24 the year before that.
All told, Bichette’s contributed 3.5 wins above replacement as measured by Baseball Reference. It’s the kind of season that will land him on MVP ballots for the third year in a row.
Ultimately, though it didn’t amount to a win on Tuesday. But with an afternoon game awaiting Wednesday, there’s not much time to dwell on this particular defeat.
