TORONTO — Every loss hurts for the Toronto Blue Jays at this juncture of the season. And as the latest one underscored, the defeats are going to start feeling even more painful.
The Jays returned home to the Rogers Centre Friday night with, maybe not a sense of optimism, but a genuine belief there was no need for panic just yet. Despite losing their past two outings on the road to the Baltimore Orioles, there was a here-we-go vibe in Toronto as the squad — sitting just outside the final wild-card berth — kicked off a portion of the schedule that sees it play five straight series against teams with losing records.
The word “urgency” is starting to be used quite a bit around this club and it seemed the moment had truly arrived to put their collective back into the push.
“Expectations for those games [against lesser competition]are to win them, starting tonight,” manager John Schneider said a couple hours before Game 1 of a three-game set with the Cleveland Guardians. “It’s a long season and it seems like, for whatever reason, you get to this part of the year and the emotion, the urgency, it kind of seems to turn up a notch. Guys are well aware of that and I think — not looking past this series or the next one — but just looking at the next couple of weeks as a whole, we’ve got to do a lot of winning, and [the players]are well aware of that.”
What we saw versus Cleveland, though, was a script Jays fans know all too well. Once again, the offence underperformed in a 5-2 loss to the Guardians. Tanner Bibee got the win for Cleveland, while Jays starter Chris Bassitt was unsuccessful in pursuit of win No. 13 on the season.
Toronto’s scoring came in the form of two solo home runs courtesy of George Springer in the second inning and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — with his first dinger in 17 games — in the sixth.
Other than that, it was more of the same. Like in the fifth inning, when Alejandro Kirk capped a tough, 10-pitch at-bat by slapping a bloop double just inside fair territory down the right-field line. A Kevin Kiermaier ground-out moved Kirk to third with one out, turning things over to the top of the order. But Bibee — who tossed seven shutout innings versus Toronto earlier this month in Ohio — got Whit Merrifield and Bo Bichette to strike out.
“I think you got to capitalize on situations that you do have,” Schneider said. “You don’t want anyone else out there; you got top of the order — Whit, Bo — and [Bibee] made good pitches.”
Heck, even when the Jays got a big knock, they still couldn’t cash runs. One inning before Kirk was left stranded at third, Guerrero was sent home by third base coach Luis Rivera on a double by Matt Chapman down the left field line. Shortstop Gabriel Arias fielded the throw from left and made a perfect relay home to gun down Guerrero at the plate.
Schneider didn’t take issue with any aspect of the play, save the outcome.
“A great send from Luis,” said Schneider, whose squad trailed 3-1 at the time. “You have a tough time, you know, stringing a lot of runs together. You’re aggressive. It was a good read off the bat. It was a hell of a throw by their shortstop.”
The sequence actually represented the second time in the game there was, from Toronto’s perspective, some unwanted symmetry. The high point of the contest for the Blue Jays came early in the night when Springer popped his second round-tripper in five games to lead off the second. It was an opposite-field shot that sailed over the right field wall and staked Bassitt to a 1-0 lead.
The very next time Cleveland was at the dish, though, Mississauga boy Bo Naylor — with friends and family whooping it up in the stands — sent a looping homer over Springer’s head in the very same part of the ballpark to square the affair.
A few batters later, Steven Kwan — trying to score from first on a double — was thrown out at the dish only after the Jays challenged the initial safe call. Then, when it was Guerrero getting cut down at home a couple of innings later trying to score from first, it was Kwan who started the perfect 7-6-2 putout to deflate the antsy Rogers Centre crowd.
While there wasn’t a ton to get excited about for most of the night, the place certainly came alive after Guerrero tagged his homer in the sixth to cut the Cleveland lead to two runs. However, when Andres Gimenez crushed a solo shot off reliever Jordan Hicks in the eighth, the writing was on the wall.
And it carried an all-too-familiar message.
“The dudes are in the room; the dudes are right there,” Schneider said. “These guys have done it for their entire careers, whether it’s here somewhere or somewhere else. Again, it’s time to win and you flush this one and you try to win the series.”
