ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The vibes around the Toronto Blue Jays right now?
That pretty much sums up where things stand after a dreadful 2-9 run against the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays was capped off by Thursday afternoon’s 6-3 loss at Tropicana Field.
What’s made the past week-and-a-half so grim isn’t just that they’ve lost so many games to American League East rivals, although that’s certainly a part of things. It’s the way they’ve lost those games, with poor fundamental play compounding the stresses of a dry spell at the plate, that’s made the current slide all the more frustrating.
After Monday’s 6-4 loss to the Rays, Chris Bassitt pointed out how the Blue Jays “are in the heart of the toughest part of our schedule and to play the baseball that we’re playing right now, we can’t expect to win games.” They corrected in Tuesday’s 20-1 rout, got Shane McClanahan’d in a 7-3 loss Wednesday and then were all kinds of loose behind Alek Manoah on Thursday.
Oh, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, the Blue Jays were also awaiting MRI results on Danny Jansen, who left Wednesday’s game with left groin tightness. Tyler Heineman was up from triple-A Buffalo on the taxi squad and a potential Jansen absence would only exacerbate many of the other issues the club is facing at the moment.
Manoah, reunited with Alejandro Kirk after a one-outing respite with Jansen last Sunday, was from his best Thursday, but he deserved far better than the way the afternoon unwound for him before a crowd of 10,736.
Staked to a 1-0 lead on Brandon Belt’s RBI single in the first, he should have escaped the bottom half unscathed, but instead was undone by some sloppy play behind him.
The trouble began when Wander Franco lashed a slider at 101.1 mph to left centre where Kevin Kiermaier tried to cut the ball off before it hit the wall, trying to limit the star shortstop to a single. But the ball skipped by him, deflected away from left-fielder Daulton Varsho backing up the play, and Franco raced around to third base.
The extra 90 feet prompted the Blue Jays to bring the infield in and Randy Arozarena promptly rolled a weak grounder that at normal depth is probably an out through the 5-6 hole to tie the game 1-1.
Manoah shook that off to strike out Brandon Lowe, but the low slider he swung through clanked off Kirk’s glove, rolled away just far enough for the second baseman to dash up the line and beat Kirk’s 56.7 mph throw to the bag by a hair, after a replay review.
Harold Ramirez then ripped a 104.9 mph sinker that Cavan Biggio knocked down and relayed to Bo Bichette at second for one out, but the throw to first was a tick late to get an inning-ending double play, putting the Rays ahead 2-1.
Kirk singled to open the second but Kiermaier promptly followed by hitting into a double play — the same thing also happened in the seventh. Manoah had to immediately get back on the mound to grind through a messy second, when he issued three walks, the first coming around on Josh Lowe’s two-out double, and needed 40 pitches to escape.
The third was even uglier, when Taylor Walls and Luke Raley walked, broke on a double steal and Walls scored when Kirk’s throw to third sailed beyond Matt Chapman’s reach, Raley coming in on a weak Manuel Margot groundout.
At 87 pitches through three innings, that was all for Manoah, who with crisper play behind him perhaps gets deeper into the game and gives the Blue Jays a better chance to win. But that’s the vicious circle the club is locked in at the moment, failings in one area of the game increasing the pressure on other parts, everything collapsing collectively as a result.
The Blue Jays had hoped Manoah would build off his last outing, when he allowed two runs in 5.2 innings against Baltimore and “was working with a little bit of a quicker pace with Danny back there,” said manager John Schneider. “We kind of realized that and relayed that to Kirky,” but as innings and extended and Manoah’s pitch count climbed, his pace slowed, often down to the very end of the pitch clock.
In turn that made it easier for the Rays to time him up on the base paths, and of their-season-high matching seven stolen bases, four came while he was on the mound.
Besides being tougher on the running game, the Blue Jays felt a quicker pace on the mound “gets him locked into the next pitch a little bit quicker,” said Schneider. “I think it adds a little bit more intensity and urgency with every pitch. Not speeding up too much to where you’re leaving pitches over the plate, but I think just the overall kind of urgency of onto the next pitch.”
Zach Eflin gave up some loud outs but largely kept the Blue Jays under wraps over his seven innings, the only damage against him being the Belt RBI single in the first.
They then loaded the bases with one out in the ninth against Jake Diekman and after Colin Poche walked Bichette to bring one run home and pinch-hitter Ernie Clement’s sacrifice fly plated another, Guerrero hit into a fielder’s choice for the final out.
The Blue Jays finish a run of 17 straight games this weekend in Minnesota against the AL Central-leading Twins, who began the day with the same 26-24 record the Blue Jays started with.
A key difference is that in the AL East, that mark was only good enough for last place and a concern at this point is that the Blue Jays are 3-4 against both the Rays and Yankees, 0-3 against the Orioles and 0-4 against the Red Sox. That’s far from insurmountable, but the less they do now, the more they’ll need to do later.
