CHICAGO – A sweep at the hands of the White Sox, paired with the loss of Alejandro Kirk, made for a miserable weekend for the Blue Jays, who return to Toronto 4-5 despite one of the easiest schedules possible.
Offensively, the Blue Jays looked lost most of the weekend, scoring a total of seven runs in three games. They’ve now lost five of their last six on the way to series losses against the Rockies and White Sox.
As ugly as it’s been lately, there’s all kinds of time remaining for the Blue Jays to turn this around. There’s a difference between a genuinely bad team and a team playing badly, of course.
But with Addison Barger now dealing with ankle pain and a matchup with the Dodgers on the horizon, life isn’t about to get any easier for the Blue Jays. Turning an opportunity against a last-place team into a sweep at the hands of the White Sox hurts.
With just six hits Sunday afternoon, the Blue Jays were unable to find answers against Davis Martin and the White Sox bullpen. The lone offensive highlight came in the third inning when Brandon Valenzuela, making his first career big-league start, lined a pitch to right field for his first-ever hit.
Credit starter Eric Lauer for trying to gut through an illness to pitch a few innings, but his velocity was down and he wasn’t nearly as effective as he was in his season debut against the Athletics last weekend. The left-hander walked three without striking anyone out before leaving the game in the third.
The Blue Jays did shuffle their bullpen before the game, optioning both Brendon Little and Lazaro Estrada while adding lefty Joe Mantiply and right-hander Austin Voth to take their places.
A stint in Buffalo should allow Little to work on some of the issues that led to an ERA of 24.55 and an opponents’ on-base percentage north of .500. There’s intriguing stuff there, but it just wasn’t working, and Mantiply now joins Mason Fluharty as a lefty relief option.
As for Voth, he’s here to provide length, an assignment that began Sunday with 2.2 respectable innings during which he allowed one earned run on three hits. Mantiply also debuted, striking out three in his 1.1 innings.
Max Scherzer will pitch opposite Justin Wrobleski on Monday when the Blue Jays open their series against the Dodgers.
