TORONTO – One of the main differences the Toronto Blue Jays will encounter in these games of consequence against the Texas Rangers compared to those they just played against baseball’s bottom-dwellers is just how unforgiving the competition in them can be.
Mistakes are always risky, but a team can perhaps get away with them when facing, say, the Kansas City Royals or Oakland Athletics, although as two Saturdays ago in Denver versus the Colorado Rockies showed, nothing should be taken for granted.
Top clubs, though, tend to make opponents pay if they don’t play clean baseball, which is precisely what the Rangers did to the Blue Jays during a 10-4 thumping on Monday in the opener of a pivotal four-game series.
There was a Chris Bassitt balk on a third disengagement in the second, when he came off the mound to try and chase down Mitch Garver as he danced up the third-base line, to bring in the game’s first run.
There was a needlessly risky send of Kevin Kiermaier by third-base coach Luis Rivera with none out in the fifth inning that led to an out at home and froze the momentum of a building rally.
There was a wild pitch by Bassitt that brought home a run during a two-run sixth, when a case could be made that extending the righty a third time through a run of left-handed hitters wasn’t the best call.
Each helped the Rangers build a 5-2 lead before they broke the game open in the seventh, when Robbie Grossman delivered a sacrifice fly ahead of a Jonah Heim grand slam. And they negated a series of tremendous defensive plays by the Blue Jays – a pretty 3-6-1 double play that ended the fourth and a brilliant twin-kill started by a heads-up Cavan Biggio in the fifth – that ultimately did little more than stem the tide.
The end result before a light and quiet Rogers Centre crowd of 23,451 left the Blue Jays (80-64) a half-game up on the Rangers (79-64) and Seattle Mariners (79-64), who were hosting the Los Angeles Angels later Monday.
Compounding matters is that Brandon Belt, back in the lineup for the first time since Sept. 2 due to back tightness and a stomach bug, left the game after two at-bats with what the team called lower back muscle spasms.
Erik Swanson also rejoined the Blue Jays but didn’t see any action with the game out of hand late and Bowden Francis covering the final innings on mop-up duty.
The lopsided end belied the entertaining start to the contest.
Bassitt’s disengagement violation came with runners on second and third and two out in the second, Garver taunting him into it with Biggio positioned where a shortstop usually stands.
He limited the damage there and the Blue Jays responded in the bottom half, on RBI singles by Alejandro Kirk and Springer. Notably, Rivera held Kirk on Springer’s single, not wanting to risk an out at home with Bo Bichette coming up. The shortstop flew out to deep centre to end the frame.
The Rangers tied the game in the third on Evan Carter’s first career home run and then took the lead in the fifth when Corey Seager ripped a two-out, RBI single. Biggio helped mitigate the damage earlier in the inning with a spectacular double play, fielding a Marcus Semien chopper and tagging Josh H. Smith at third base for one out before throwing to first for a second.
The Blue Jays looked set for a big response in the bottom half when Kiermaier opened the inning with a double and Springer followed with a 104.7 m.p.h. base hit to left. Carter got to the ball quickly and though it was in his glove with Kiermaier still roughly 15 feet from third, Rivera sent him, and an 89.8 m.p.h. throw from the 21-year-old got him at the plate.
While replays suggested Kiermaier might have slipped a hand in ahead of the tag, the video wasn’t conclusive enough to overturn the out call on the field.
The Rangers then tagged on two more runs in the sixth, one of them on Bassitt’s wild pitch and another on a Heim RBI double that ended the starters’ night. After a Biggio sacrifice fly in the bottom half made it 5-3, the game unravelled in the seventh.
Francis did a nice job of covering the final 2.1 innings while Biggio added a solo shot in the ninth but by then the damage had been done. On a night the Rangers were tight and clean, the Blue Jays were not and lost ground in the wild-card race as a result.
