TORONTO – At the outset, a clarification on the Toronto Blue Jays’ record within the American League East, which is really a product of struggles against the Baltimore Orioles, to whom they just lost a third series, and the Boston Red Sox, whom they are winless against and face next. Their 3-4 records against each of the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees to this point really aren’t the problem, although with nothing but those two teams over the final two weeks of the season, there’s certainly the potential for a pitfall.
But a 6-1 loss Thursday afternoon to the Orioles left the Blue Jays 2-8 versus the AL East leaders, which when combined with an 0-for-7 so far against Boston, does the work in their 8-23 mark within the division. Without a correction this weekend at Fenway Park, the Blue Jays (60-50) could lose their grip on the third wild-card spot to the Red Sox (57-51), now only two games back.
Pretty wild, especially when you consider that the Blue Jays are 2-15 against Baltimore and Boston, and 58-35 against the rest of baseball. The incongruity there is hard to fathom and while baseball sure can be weird – remember the 16-3 dominance of the Red Sox a year ago? – this seems extreme even by small-sample-size randomness standards.
Tied within that mind-bending mess is the way Ryan Mountcastle continues to decimate the Blue Jays at a level that no other hitter with at least 150 plate appearances against them ever has.
The first baseman entered the day with a career OPS of 1.037 against the Blue Jays – better than Mike Trout’s 1.032 (322 plate appearances), Michael Brantley’s 1.009 (226 PAs), Mike Easler’s 1.007 (150 PAs) and Matt Stairs’ 1.005 (237 PAs) among players beyond that cutoff – and proceeded to add four more hits and another RBI to his tally.
For context, Mountcastle has now faced the Blue Jays 49 times in 402 career games, 12 per cent of his big-league workload, but 16 per cent of his hits in the majors, 64 of 395, 20.5 per cent of his home runs, 15 of 73, and 17 per cent of his RBIs, 42 of 246, have come against them.
When the 26-year-old from Winter Springs, Fla., becomes arbitration-eligible for the first time this fall, a good chunk of his production versus the Blue Jays will be getting him paid.
The consistency with which he does damage stands in stark contrast to how hard everything his hosts seem to do against the Orioles. Their only run Wednesday came on a Vladimir Guerrero Jr., RBI single plopped into right field, a rally made possible only when Kevin Keirmaier slid in safely at second base on a force play, initially being called out only for that to be overturned on review.
That made it a 3-1 game but Jack Flaherty, making his Orioles debut after being acquired at the deadline from the St. Louis Cardinals, struck out Matt Chapman and got Alejandro Kirk on a fly out to left to keep the score there.
The Orioles proceeded to add on runs in the eighth and ninth innings and are now 7.5 games up on the Blue Jays for the AL East lead.
Kevin Gausman, starting on an extra day of rest thanks to Hyun Jin Ryu’s return to the rotation, came out of the gate with his A stuff, getting up to 97.7 m.p.h. while striking out both Adley Rutschman and Anthony Santander in a bossman first.
But the Orioles began wearing him down during a 41-pitch second with Mountcastle – obviously – playing the role of catalyst with a one-out single. Adam Frazier, another thorn in the Blue Jays’ side, followed with a single as did Austin Hays, bringing in Mountcastle to open the scoring.
After a Ramon Urias walk and Ryan McKenna strikeout, a Rutschman base hit to right made it 2-0 before a strong thrown home from Daulton Varsho in left nailed Hays at the plate to end the frame.
Gausman recovered with a clean third, escaped a bases-loaded jam unscathed in the fourth and then found himself in trouble again in the fifth, when he left men on the corners and one out. In came Bowden Francis to face Mountcastle, who promptly lined a ball to deep right to easily score Gunnar Henderson for a 3-0 Orioles lead.
