TORONTO – Over the past couple of weeks, an offensive onslaught from the Toronto Blue Jays has felt inevitable.
Even in games where the opposition starter has held them down — like Saturday night, for example, when Keegan Akin of the Baltimore Orioles carried a no-hitter into seventh and final inning before an 11-run outburst — a rampage felt imminent.
Few teams, however, are as adept at derailing the assured as the Tampa Bay Rays, with their exploiting-every-edge roster and perennial opportunism. And when the Blue Jays launched rockets all over the field during Drew Rasmussen’s five innings of work and had nothing to show for it, their chances of finding the runs that always seemed to come decreased as manager Kevin Cash deployed leverage arm after leverage arm to lock things down.
In that way, the Blue Jays’ 2-0 loss Tuesday night was an aberration for the surging club for more than just the outcome.
Jose Berrios shoved for seven innings, allowing only a second-inning home run to Ji-Man Choi, yet that was too much. Lefty Tim Mayza, as nails as anyone in the Toronto bullpen, gave up a solo shot to Brandon Lowe in the eighth that doubled the Tampa Bay advantage. And the biggest outlier was that the hits that had inevitably come to reward good at-bats didn’t fall.
Consider this sampling of hard-luck outs: George Springer lining out to short in the first, with an expected batting average of .860; Reese McGuire getting robbed by a sliding Manuel Margot in centre in the fourth, with an xBA of .890; Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ripping a 113.4 m.p.h. laser chased down by Margot with two on in the fourth, with an xBA of .780; and Teoscar Hernandez lining out to centre to end that frame, with an xBA of .410.
That rally in the fourth was the Blue Jays’ best chance to score, when Springer opened the frame with a double and Marcus Semien followed with a walk. A couple feet in either direction and Guerrero’s drive plates two, but instead it landed in Margot’s glove too quickly for Springer to even return to second and tag to third, Bo Bichette struck out and then Hernandez couldn’t touch green either.
The loss ended a four-game Blue Jays win streak before a crowd of 13,103, only their second setback in the past 14 games.
